The musical had been fast-moving in progress for a few months already, and things were coming together very well. The leads were preserving their voices for opening night, the sound crew was helping them with that task by balancing the sound levels of the entire on-stage cast, the sets were more well-done than anything else I had previously seen on the stage, everyone in the cast was dedicatedly learning their dance steps and choreography, the lights looked gorgeous, and moods were very serene and mellow.

I had acted in the musical for two consecutive years and it was a great time had by everyone. Admittedly, acting on stage, being underneath spotlights, and soaking up the applause at the end of the show, I didn’t have a great appreciation for those who worked behind the scenes. They seemed to be the equivalent to sitting on the sidelines at soccer games instead of playing with the team.

This year, my views were changed when, due to convenience and curiosity, I decided to try out sound crew. I spoke to the director and the sound manager about starting in January, and they generously agreed to that plan.

After starting, things moved faster than I had imagined it would. I had had no idea that there was so much to learn about sound and microphones, and that there was so much depth to it. We worked at such a fast pace, and everything that I had needed to learn had been stuffed into two weeks for me.

Every single day, I reported up to the sound booth for duty. Every single day, I walked up and down sets of stairs multiple times to set up headsets, to set up microphones on the actors and giving them sound checks, making sure that the transmitter didn’t fall off, making sure that they were secure and that their voice could be heard clearly, hooking up wires to wires, and tossing them down the rows of chairs in the auditorium. Every single day, I left work more exhausted (yet satisfied) than I had when I was one stage.

Watching the actors on stage on our microphones doing our best to balance their volume for the audience’s hearing pleasure, securing the transmitters around their waist so that it didn’t fall off, and also experiencing things not work the way that they were supposed to, I grew more appreciation for the stage crew than I had ever before had.

I realized this when one of our actors was performing on stage, and suddenly their microphone stopped working. One second, their voice reached the farthest corners of the theater, bouncing off the walls, and then, after a light pop!, their voice was gone and ceased to exist.

What I had failed to recognize and appreciate before as an actor was just how crucial and important the stage crew is to the entire production. There are so many different things going on backstage, invisible to the eyes of the audience, which really do pull the show together. Without the lights crew, the people on stage would not be seen. Without the stage crew, there would be no sets and the actors would be performing on a barren and naked stage, forcing the audience to use their imagination even more. Without the sound crew, the wonderful actors and actresses would not be heard.

After joining sound crew, I quickly learned that a show is not the result of the on-stage cast together, but the result of the on-stage cast, the crew, the directors, choreographers, musical directors, sound technicians, set designers, and the families. I’m glad that I chose to join crew, because if I hadn’t, I might still be thinking the same way right now, and I would never have learned a new form of thought.
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Nina S is a student, freelance journalist, museum worker, and blogger. She lives in the D.C. area. You can find more of her work, concentrating on lifestyle, society and culture, at http://pagefortheculturefreak.blogspot.com/