Story One

Got Tech?

Recently at the State One Act Festival, our very own Eastview One Act Play received a “Starred Performance” while performing at the Performing Arts Center at the University of St. Catherine, although the award was not given for just their incredible performance. Behind the certain another group of people are running around and working quickly to make sure the performance will be at its finest.

Alongside the actors this group of individuals holds a huge part of the key to clenching the victory. Technical Theatre group also known as Tech Crew are the ones responsible for the well lit sets, and excellent created stages and several other key jobs which are necessary for the show to go on. Without these guys, who would run the sound booth, or create the lighting effects for each scene, or even build the set which the performers act upon? Each of the individuals involved in Tech spent countless hours out of their own lives to build, create, and prepare the stage. For some, the hours that they spent turned into spending days of hard work. When ask hour many hours per day he work, Brock Knutson answer by saying “I would stay after school and work from anywhere between 2:30 and 10:00 at night.”

Someone may ask, “Why did you need to spend so much time working on assembling the set? What’s so important or hard about it?” Well, let’s just place ourselves in their shoes. Imagine the roar of power tools, the smell of fresh wet paint, the swoosh of brooms sweeping up the wood chips and dirt on the ground, the hurried footsteps of a crew member racing to get their acquired task done on time. During the play, the crew is only aloud a limited time to prepare for the play and to clean up the set between acts. It’s basically a race against time Siiri Russell explains. “Getting everything done on time is really hard. There is a time limit and we can’t go over it! It gets sort of nerve racking!” If the crew goes over the time limit, they are disqualified. Stress much? Ask any of the crew, they’ll all agree how stressful this job can get. When asked what the hardest part about Tech is, Siiri Russell took a deep breath and replied wearily, “Having to get everything done on time.” Brock Knutson went one step further by adding “By having to try to keep up with school work while dealing with the stress of needing to get stuff is super hard.” Not only did working for Tech take out time of their own personal lives, but also out of their time to get a better education.

The One Act received a “Starred Rating” for their performances ranking them as one of the best in the state of Minnesota. When it was announced that Eastview’s One Act took the victory, not only the actors were ecstatic about the win. Siiri Russell briefly explained how amazing it felt for the whole crew when it was announced that they won. "Everyone was like 'Oh My God!' and then we started laughing because we so were relieved!” Who wouldn’t be speechless? All of those involved in preparing for the show really deserved this award. This is not the only time that Eastview One Act has received this award though, but it just goes to show that throughout the year, the eagerness and hard work of all those who take part in the show has really paid off.