r/techtheatre

Probably a silly question, but I’m supposed to run lights for a small play happening in a church basement. The space has no actual stage lighting, so I’m trying to come up with a cheap, simple, and practical way to light the actors and stage area.

I have access to lighting equipment from my film school’s equipment depot, but it’s all gear intended for filmmaking/on-set use rather than theatre.

Do you think using a couple of Arri 650W Fresnels , or F.E Lighting 500W Fresnel would be enough for something like this? Or am I way off and should be looking at stronger lights or a different setup entirely?

Hey there everyone!

I recently inherited a bunch of old laptops. I've been trying to repurpose them or at least parts for show controls and some media servers but was wondering if anyone on here had some ideas of what I could turn some of these into? Any cool custom AV toys I can build with one?

I'm a 40 year old that quit my steady/boring job 4 years ago and decided to become a video editor. I have picked up some work here and there since but havent gotten any thing long term or reliable. A theatre-making friend suggested learning qlab and says she knows people are always looking for someone who knows the program. Can people who know qlab find work or is like editing, one job for every 1,000 dudes?

At work we've been looking into buying combo DMX-power cables for short runs of daisy chaining fixtures together. There are a few places that sell these for - frankly - ridiculous amounts of money.

I am perfectly able to make and heatshrink cables together, BUT this is not something I've done before. My questions here boil down to:

• Is there any particular heatshrink I should be using? Or just, whatever will shrink to the size I need it?
• How are the premade cables like this so round? Surely if the power and signal are run as different cables the heatshrunk cable should look more like an "8". Are they putting filler in those things?

I just graduated college with a theatre tech degree, and I'm looking for a laptop that I can bring with me to jobs. I've got a budget of about $1,300, and I need it to be able to run Vectorworks, which has been my struggle with my current laptop. I've been looking at gaming laptops but idk anything about them and I need help looking in the right direction.

We are a small (280) seat community theatre, currently we have one old Sm58 style microphone that is mounted to the ceiling of the auditorium, this is used for our assisted hearing system along with our backstage/greenroom monitors. We would like to upgrade to something a bit higher quality + maybe an additional microphone or two. Any suggestions? We're small enough that we don't have to mic any actors so this is really the only way we have to send anything to hearing impaired/backstage.

I’ve been considering changing my major to a BA in theatre arts with the design and technology concentration. I’ve wanted to do something more art oriented and am better equipped with the skills for it, but my main fear is I won’t be able to have a career out of that and my degree would be useless. My other option I was considering was architecture, but it relies a lot on math, which I struggle with
Would a BA be a good idea or worth pursuing?

P.S my mom is also currently helping me pay for college, and I don’t want to lose her support. She got a degree in graphic design but didn’t end up using it and she’s just worried if I switch I’ll suffer the same fate and just waste her money

Hi! Our HS show choir is looking to get a couple of larger road cases (roughly 44”x22”x24) in an attempt to reduce wear and damage to props during transport in either a trailer or truck. The purchase would hopefully add something for the program that can be useful for a long time

New traditional plywood cases seem out of our budget. Used creates accounting/reimbursement problems on top of the fact I’m not sure what I’d be able to recognize a problem item. New HDPE seems like it might work but I am having some paranoia about durability since I’ve never seen anyone use anything but traditional.

The cases are liable to get some rough handling from kids but would normally get rolled back and forth across campus when they aren’t being loaded by volunteer parents into a trailer or truck. Zero percent chance they go on a plane.

I’m on of those inexperienced parents, would love to hear if ya all think might work well for us.

Thanks for letting me intrude a little!

We plan a scene where I vomit on another girl which causes her to vomit back on me. Any ideas how we can stage this?

New theatre tech grad here! I want to use some money I received by my family as a graduation gift towards investing in myself and my work. I have a Gadget2 and EOS key via the student discount a while ago, but I want to get my setup to be more professional. I have come face to face with a fork in the road that I want to get advice from others about. Should I go the Chamsys MagicQ route with a DMX USB dongle and simply learning off of my laptop and no other control interfaces, or should I try my hand at one of those aftermarket GrandMA2 OnPC command wings that are on AliExpress? I have a budget of about $500 I want to put towards investing in my work, so a lot of starting consoles are not affordable, even used, and I really want to get the ball rolling with an interface connected to my Laptop setup, but the MagicQ PC wings are so expensive, the GrandMA onPC wings are more expensive, and I have no idea where to really go from here? I need to learn either system, so my plan is to use my days off between gigs learning. Thank you!

Hello r/techtheatre, I am doing research into moving out of my little podunk city in Upstate NY, and moving to a bigger city (current idea is Chicago)

I have worked in the culinary arts since graduating high school, but I have been working theatre as a side gig since starting high school (my high school has a theatre program that I did for 4 years and continue to help out with as an Alumni, so I’ve been working theatre for about 15 years now)

I have been contemplating leaving culinary arts for years now because it just doesn’t pay. My current job is the highest paying job I’ve ever held in culinary arts, and I’m only making $21/hr.

I know that Chicago is like the primordial ooze of Broadway, almost every major Broadway show has been workshopped in Chicago (Death Becomes Her, Betty Boop, American Idiot, just to name a few) and also Lollapalooza happens in Chicago as well, so I know the opportunities to make theatre a career are higher in Chicago then any other major city.

But two things make me hesitant to make the transition.

1.) I know no matter how extensive my resume is, I know that my first job(s) in professional theatre are going to be grunt work, meaning packing and unpacking trucks, setting up stages, rigging, etc…where I have so much training that I can be thrown on spotlight or light board, or asm and be fine. But I know that grunt work is the entry position and I can’t get out of that, no matter how much I want to, and I don’t think my body could handle going back to grunt work after also being in the culinary field for 12+ years and have already damaged my body.

2.) I have heard that theatre is a passion job. You do it because you can’t fathom working anything else, you don’t do it to be famous and make money. If you want to make money in theatre, you have to be willing to live out of a suitcase and not get too comfortable and make a home somewhere, and idk if I want to live like that. I’m not saying I want a 9-5 white collar job, but I just want predictable steady income so I can pay rent, and bills, and that’s not theatre, (from what I have been told by people in the performing arts field.)

So that’s why I’m asking you all here in r/techtheatre, is having a steady income and a reliable regular job possible in theatre to the point I could make a living in a place like Chicago? Or should I just stay in culinary arts if I want predictable, steady, reliable paychecks, and just keep doing what I do now, which is help in Community Theatres to scratch that itch I have to do theatre?

Hi everyone! Doing some research for a show I'm SM on and would appreciate opinions. At the end of the show a roast chicken is 'cooked' (a fake raw one is placed in an 'oven', and a few minutes later a fake cooked one is pulled out. Oven is in a kitchen counter facing upstage so not super visible til the chicken comes out).

Our director would love the chicken to be 'steaming' when it comes out the oven. Sadly our hazer is in use elsewhere so we can't use that (although if all else fails we'll look into hiring another, but trying to save some money). Considered boiling water in the tray surrounding the chicken, but it looks like the cooked chicken will need to be in the oven for most if not all of the show preceding this, so realistically it wouldn't work.

If anyone has any ideas for this it'd be much appreciated! Not sure if there's something obvious I'm overlooking.

Hello all!!

I've made several posts on here before, I'm a high school student who's an aspirational rigger. I'm taking classes with Delong this year, working our civic theater, and do four shows a year mostly running a rail.

(https://www.reddit.com/r/techtheatre/comments/1roc86q/is\_my\_plan\_at\_all\_feasiblerealistic/)

This is my post on my plan for a career and stuff just a backup.

I'm planning ahead Xmas/birthday gifts for this year (I plan ahead really early to remember, cause my birthday is like a week before Xmas), and I'd like to get some work boots or shoes, preferably with a composite or steel toe. I have a defined budget from my grandparents (which is not the only people I get gifts from, but as we've gotten older they've kinda just gave us a somewhat spending limit and told us to pick things within it, and then they buy little smaller things) of 250 for each occasion.

If there's other things worth picking up, that could be useful let me know! My current load out is a pair of dirty Rigger framer gloves, a dirty Rigger pouch, sharpies, robo wrench, box cutter, safety style box cutter, and a headlamp.

Have recently moved to a large city (NYC) and am getting tired of humping my power tools in a backpack. I have a full packout stack in storage but the thought of maneuvering that monster through a subway turnstile or down busy subway stairs gives me serious pause.

I have almost grabbed the husky soft side bag multiple times but want to know if I'm missing something better.

Seeking any recommendations for units that are a) wheeled and b) manageable for tight spaces. Current load out would be M12 drill, impact, multi tool with associated batteries and chargers, plus a decent variety of hand tools.