Walking into Robinson Theater on a weekday is like entering into a two-dimensional construction zone where everything is built at miraculous speeds. Not only are deceivingly spacious houses going up, but at any given time someone could be hammering away at a tree, or painting the details onto a front porch. The magicians who built this fantasy world from the stage up are bent over brushes and manhandling lumber. Rome may not have been built in a day, but if it had been left up to theater technicians, it might have.
Mesa State techies have been working hard on the main stage’s latest production, Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” (which opens April 13) for nearly two and a half months.
Courtney Borden, Master Painter for the scene shop, is no stranger to the scene, but her passion for the other side of the stage is a more recent discovery.
“I’ve been doing theater pretty much my whole life. My parents are actors and my grandparents are actors, so I grew up in the atmosphere. When I came to college, I started working backstage and I realized how much I loved it,” Borden said.
A theater production is really a machine— there are many parts that have to function perfectly together for a finished product to work flawlessly. Theater techs are the cogs that make everything run. Besides painting, a technician can specialize in nearly anything, including lighting, carpentry, sound, and properties. Often, a techie will perform multiple jobs during a show. A smaller show like “All My Sons” requires a small backstage crew with a large range of abilities.
“This show actually isn’t very big. We’ve got a sound tech, a light tech, and then it’s just going to be me and one other person backstage, as opposed to a musical when we have as many as 25 people backstage just to move set pieces and whatnot,” Borden said.
Not only are the techies required to be adept in several areas, they’re also brought on earlier than the cast members and remain on a show longer to strike the set.
“Depending on what position we’re holding, our involvement starts at different times. I stage managed the last show, and I started working on it about three months before everybody else did,” Borden said. “For this show, I’m going to be the floor manager, and I don’t come in until two weeks before the opening. It just depends on where they put you.”
The process of putting a show on begins months before opening night. Nearly three months in advance, the tech heads gather weekly in the design studio to go over everything the show will need. The closer to opening night, the more detailed those meetings become.
“About two weeks before the show starts we have what’s called a dry tech, and that’s when all of us get together and basically go through our cues for the show: what happens where, what sound effects, what lights we need,” Borden said. “Then we start tech week, which is us basically working through all of it with the actors and the directors, making sure everything fits. And then we open the show.”
Though techies spend their time backstage and out of the spotlight, they’re clearly passionate about their work. Borden plans on making a career out of stagecraft after graduation.
“I get student assist for being in here every day, but I also do it for fun. I would definitely do it without the money. Easily. Easily.”

ssummar@mesastate.edu