The kitchen is empty at nine-fifty, and the dinner you made is wrapped in foil on the counter. Her phone is dead because she forgot to charge it. The director’s text from earlier said pickup at nine-forty-five, but you both know that means ten-fifteen on a tech week night. The dog is asleep on the couch. You’re eating a stale cracker over the sink.
Welcome to tech week, the single most chaotic seven days a theater family will live through this season. Here’s what’s actually happening at the theater, and how to get through the week without losing your mind.
What tech week actually is
In the last week before opening, the production adds three things on top of everything they’ve already been doing. The first is costumes, until now she’s been rehearsing in sweatpants, and now she’s wearing a 1940s suit that doesn’t quite fit and trying to do a quick change in ninety seconds. The second is lights, the crew has been working on the lighting cues for weeks, but this is the first week they finally run them with actors on stage, which means your kid will stand on a mark for twenty minutes while someone in the booth tries to find the right gel. The third is sound, body mics, sound effects, and the pit orchestra if there is one. This is also the week she finds out she can’t hear herself when the band plays.
Stack those three on top of a full run-through every night, and you have tech week. Rehearsals get longer, tempers get shorter, and nothing is going well yet because nothing has actually been put together before. It only feels broken because all the parts are showing up for the first time at once.
The schedule
Most school productions run tech week something like this. Sunday is a cue-to-cue, also called dry tech, where the crew runs through every lighting and sound cue without the actors saying every full line. Monday is the first wet tech, with actors running cues alongside the show. Tuesday is a second wet tech, where they run the whole thing. Wednesday is dress rehearsal. Thursday is final dress with an invited audience. Friday is opening night.
Rehearsals during tech week regularly run until ten. Some go later. The professional actor’s union has rules about how long a tech can run; schools are not unions and the rules do not apply. So plan for it, this is not the week to tell your kid to clean her room.
Homework triage
Most teachers know tech week is coming and many of them will give your kid extensions if she asks. Some won’t. The move that works is for your kid to email each teacher the Friday before tech week with a one-line note about the rehearsal schedule and a question about which assignments can shift. Teachers respect kids who do this themselves more than they respect parents who do it on behalf of their kids.
Sort the classes by flexibility. Most English and history teachers will move a reading deadline; math teachers usually want the homework on time. Above all, prioritize sleep over perfect homework during the second half of the week. One B+ slipping to a B is not worth a kid running on three hours.
Feeding her
She isn’t going to sit down for dinner during tech week. Pack food in the car: sandwiches, fruit, water bottles, protein bars. She’ll eat in the parking lot between school and rehearsal. Avoid sugar bombs and caffeine in the second half of the week, she’s already running on adrenaline, and a nine-pm soda turns into a one-am wake-up.
The night before opening, feed her something normal. Pasta, rice, something familiar. Not Chipotle, not anything she has to chew through. She needs fuel and sleep.
The dress rehearsal
Final dress is the run where everything is supposed to come together, and it almost never does. A costume rips. A spotlight cue misses. Someone forgets a line she’s nailed every rehearsal for two months. This is normal, there’s an old theater saying that goes “bad dress, good show,” and please don’t say it to her on the drive home, she’ll hate it, but it’s mostly true. A messy dress rehearsal almost always becomes a sharp opening night.
When you do pick her up, ask what specifically went wrong instead of asking how it was. Did your costume work, did anyone get hurt, are you ready for tomorrow.
Opening night
Drop her off early and stay out of backstage. Find your seats. Don’t text her between scenes. If your family does flowers, bring a small bouquet, most of the parents in your row will. A bouquet handed over after the curtain call is a piece of theater she’ll remember.
The cast will go out afterward. Let them. They’ve been working six weeks for this. Eat the late pickup.
After closing
The kid you pick up on the last night of the show is going to cry, and it won’t be exactly from sadness, it’ll be from the end of something. They’ve been a family for six weeks, and now it’s over, and the cast party tomorrow won’t change that. This is post-show depression, and it’s real. Give her a few days. By the weekend she’ll be looking at the audition cuts for the spring musical. Theater kids do not stay still for long.