The audience sees the actors, the set, the lightening elements and hears the sound components in a performance. Those aspects of the show are only half of what happens during a performance. There is a whole other world functioning behind the curtain. This world is hidden to the audience and is supposed to functions seamlessly. If the audience doesn’t notice that people are running the show it is consider a successful performance.

There is a whole village of people collaborating to produce a fluid and smooth show.

For Hunter’s production of Machinal the dynamic of the backstage work is different than most shows. In most shows the run crew and/or stage management is in charge of doing the set changes. In this production however, that’s flipped and the actors are bringing on the set pieces. They have choreographed the set changes for the actors and have used different costumes to distinguish the set transitions in the scenes and the actors in the episode. The crew backstage is supervising these changes and presetting up coming changes.

I am on run crew and as a member of run I am in charge of helping keep backstage organized and orderly. I also help move the bigger set pieces and receive props from actors once they are done being used in the show.