Time between paper and dry tech?

[MichaelJohnson]

Hi, student in a stage management class here--putting together a rehearsal schedule for my mock prompt book.

How much time should there (ideally) be between a paper tech and a dry tech, then between the dry tech and first tech rehearsal? I know it would depend on the production--I'm looking for a generally good estimate here. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[danTt]

Ideal is a strange word. I'm not going to try to answer ideal, because it never happens.

Here are some things to consider though:

- Paper tech wants to happen as late in the process as possible. Paper teching with a week of rehearsals left to go just gives the director a week to restage things and change everything that was set in paper tech.
- Dry tech, if it happens at all, is probably going to happen at a time that doesn't interfere with rehearsals. A lot of theatres will do this on the seventh day, or in hours outside of rehearsal and just pay stage management overtime. You'd want this happening as close to "wet" tech as possible, so your crew remembers what they've dry teched and can apply it.

I also feel that paper tech is one of those things that doesn't happen very much once you get into the real world. A designer might send their cues electronically to the stage manager, but given that everything will change and be adjusted when it's being teched anyways, why waste hours of everyones time talking about the wrong place to put cues?

 

[JChenault]

For my two cents, I like the model that when the actors are on stage for familiarization rehearsals, I would like to be in the house setting looks and levels. That way the dry tech becomes almost irrelevant

You can't really set levels without actors, costumes, blocking, etc. The only time in the past 10 years I have done a real dry tech was an usual circumstance with a crazy schedule and time pressure. And 5 bodies on stage.

 

[Aaron Becker]

I know this thread is a week old, but I have some thoughts on dry-tech.

When I first started dealing with sound for theatre, I didn't really understand what dry-tech was for. As a sound tech, my time was usually spent setting levels, which was almost impossible without the pit, actors, music, etc, present. It wasn't until I actually stopped getting dry-tech (and also working and getting exposure to other departments, such as SM, automation and LX) that I realized how incredibly useful they actually are.

For me, and especially since moving into various designer/tech director roles, I don't know that I would opt out of the dry-tech for any show with any number of cues. It really gives the tech staff a change to get their ducks in a row without having to "waste" the talents' time being on stage and constantly having to call "stop... can we go back and try that again..." kind of stuff. As a leader in some form during a show, I like to put my best foot forward when I'm tech'ing a show, and not having a dry tech seems to be a really good way to have the potential to make the tech folks look like real fools on tech rehearsal numero uno.

Sure, there's something to be said for adjusting things during a wet-tech/tech week, but I recently closed a show where the director didn't bring sound and light tech in until load in (it wasn't budgeted correctly or something...or she just didn't believe in involving tech before load in was a thing). Needless to say, my tech staff had ZERO clue what was going on during the first rehearsal. Tech took quite a bit of heat during the first tech rehearsal for "missing" cues (that we didn't know about...), actors that were blowing past cues because they were used to rehearsing them without the sound cues, not finding light, etc (no, this was not a professional show). Needless to say, I felt a lot of headaches could have been solved by a proper dry-tech with the design team and technical staff.

 

[Silicon_Knight]

I'll throw in my measly $0.02. All of my work has been in Community Theater and Church Theater (mostly musicals with live orchestra) with varying levels of preparation, time and budget (or lack thereof) - and everyone who works tech (and most of the talent) are volunteers. With that being said, from a tech standpoint, I don't want to waste time for anyone (none of us are getting paid, remember?). To me, this is where the value of Paper Tech and Dry Tech come in.

During Paper Tech, we keep the circle small: The various designers (or in many cases, myself, the Director and SM) can discuss, argue and cajole each other into what we want, I can provide feedback on "that's going to be REALLY difficult" and so on, and we get to do this without having a tech crew (or actors) standing around listening to us bicker...uhh....discuss options.

Between Paper and Dry Tech, we get the mic plot finalized (now that we know which actors are playing which roles, how many roles are being combined, etc.), we get the lights hung and aimed and the lighting computer programmed with areas (sometimes with a full cue list, but I usually like to wait on that until a bit later - it's going to change anyway), and the spot light cue sheets written. If we have a set built (yeah - it's often behind), then we can get the ASM engaged to assign backstage jobs and start drafting our stage bible (we usually don't have it finalized at this point).

During Dry Tech, we expand the circle slightly: The light operator, the spot light operators, the stage hands, along with Director and SM (no actors, ok - maybe a few to point lights at and help with cues). Then we try to run cue-to-cue ensuring that every member of the tech team understands what they are supposed to be doing for each cue that the SM will call. This also gives the team a chance to discuss and resolve conflicts (I can't move the couch off stage during that scene, I'm helping so-and-so with their....).

At this point, we feel confident to actually start Tech Week, so now we call the actors, Orchestra, etc. and do a full run-through with Tech. Because of the preparation, it is usually not as much of a train wreck as one might expect. The one point of balance we are trying to achieve is (during Tech Week), when do we stop the show to back up and re-run a missed cue, and when do we just take a note and discuss it later. Then after each rehearsal during Tech Week, the SM/Lighting Designer/Light Console Op and I spend some time tweaking lighting areas/colors/cues, etc.

So, to answer your question, between Paper and Dry Tech, we try to have a few days to get all of the decisions/cues that were made during Paper Tech documented and published.

I'm sure that this is not the most efficient method, but it is working for us.