The essential ingredient

Tonight is tech.

For the past several weeks, we’ve been rehearsing in empty rooms in random buildings. Just the actors and the words.  We worked on moments and moves to find just the right interplay among these characters, when portrayed by these actors.  We made discoveries, made adjustments, made connections.

All that hard work: theatre work, but not yet theatre. Important parts of the process, but not the essential ingredient.

Tonight is another step. At tech, we bring in the props, costume changes, lighting and sound transitions. We move from cue to cue, to get the changes right. Of course, we have to let go of the flow that we so carefully crafted in all those weeks of rehearsal. We go from lights up to lights down, lights down to lights up, again and again until we get it right.

Hard work. Important work. Theatre work, but it’s not yet theatre. Important parts of the process, but not the essential ingredient.

Tomorrow night, we begin to put it back together. Lights, costumes, props, sound, changing from one scene to another to support the actors’ work as they reclaim the flow, the life of these characters. The world of the play becomes more real.

Final dress rehearsal. Theatre work, but it’s not yet theatre. . An important part of the process, but not the essential ingredient.

This Friday, we have our first preview. The house will open to admit our preview audience.

This Friday, theatre happens. Because all of the work of the weeks and months before has been theatre work, but not theatre. It is not theatre until we have the essential ingredient.

The audience.

You.