"Disturbed" Technical Rehearsals
Many fans in Madison may not know this, but the rock band Disturbed was just in town for several days to tech their current tour. Teching , or technical rehearsals, are when the talent and the production finally come together to build a performance. It's been a treat for the Madison Stagehands to have the Disturbed musicians and crew at the Alliant Energy Center this week. Indeed, having them here for more than one day did mean more than one day's pay for stagehands, which is awesome, but it's much more than that.
Madison stagehands have a lot of opportunity to help tech productions in Madison. Whether it's constructing crazy sets for the Madison Opera, or hanging overly heavy books for the Nutcracker, we are fortunate to be able to do more than unpack trucks for road shows. What makes teching a touring production different is the fact that when the show is done, it still needs to be taken apart in a way that will allow the goods be packed on to a truck and be set up hopefully by our union brothers in another city. The combination of this extended tear-down process with the natural first time, extended set-up process can make for an incredibly intense work-week. One local high-rigger even demonstrated a very impressive array of bruises from the extended stay upon the upper steel in the arena.
The days set aside for a technical rehearsal process typically can start early in the morning and often go straight through to midnight without pause. This five day tech process for Disturbed finished with two full stage performances by the band to an empty arena. The show will not even be performed for the local fans until later in the tour schedule, so when rehearsals were done, the Madison Stagehands, with the guidance of Disturbed's tour crew, took the show apart and packed several semi trailers, sometimes more than once, for the journey to their first performance of the tour in Iowa.
A technical rehearsal can be a grueling process for stagehands, but it can also be one of the most rewarding things we do. The marrying of the artistic process with the director's interpretation and the performer's first appearance under the lights creates a spectacle which is always original and unique.
To the band, crew, and producers of Disturbed Tour , we wish you a great tour, and we'll see you again in May!