"I can't. I'm in tech."

Ahhh, the joys of tech.

Never heard of it, you say? Then you must not have watched the so-bad-it's-good episode of Smash in which Karen told her live-in boyfriend that she couldn't decide if she wanted to get married because she's in tech.

Once an entire show has been taught and practiced in dance studios, the director and choreographer work with stage managers, designers, and other members of the crew to put the show on stage with lights, microphones, props, scenery, and more. This is a slooooooow process with a lot of stopping and starting. It often means very long hours and very little sleep.

We all moved into the Radio City theater yesterday. Because it's such a huge space (6,000 seats!), we are assigned different quadrants to lounge in--Rockettes are mid-house left, singers are lower house left, and dancers are upper house right. And lounge we do. When not working or watching others work, we chat, snack, play on our iPhones, and even write blogs.  :)

Where were we before this, you may wonder? Well, the Radio City stage is used for a ton of concerts (the JoBros sold the joint out two weeks ago), so it's off-limits for us during the early part of rehearsal. Because there are only two rehearsal studios in the building, neither of which is nearly as big as the actual stage, we rehearse in a church basement on Ninth Avenue. Seriously. It's a giant basement that is big enough to be divided into two stage-sized spaces, 4 common rooms, a lunch room, a music room, a physical therapy room, and several offices. There are sprung dance floors, soundproofing equipment, mirrors, and more. The amount of work that goes into transforming the basement for just a month of rehearsals is insane.

We started at the top of the show yesterday (Spoiler alert--it's a 3-D movie staring Santa Claus!), and after working 1pm-10pm yesterday and today, we are only at the fifth number in the show. Sometimes, I kind of hate tech. It's just so slow and boring. But there's something different about teching at Radio City. The house is just so huge and grand. It feels like a privilege to be here when it's virtually empty. It makes me feel like Annie when Daddy Warbucks takes her to the movies. I mean, how many other people get to do this?

Please remind me of this feeling in a few days. I'll probably have forgotten it by then.