The audience has gone home. The actors are at the bar. But in the fly loft of the Goodman Theatre, a crew of stagehands is just getting started on tomorrow's show.
The Invisible Craft
Theater is a collaborative art, but some collaborators are more visible than others. The stagehands — riggers, electricians, carpenters, fly operators — work in a world of counterweights and cable runs, where a mistimed cue can unravel an entire production.
Voices from the Wings
We spent a week with the technical crews of three Chicago theaters, documenting the artistry that happens after — and before — the curtain rises. Their stories reveal a parallel creative world that audiences rarely see but always feel.
"People think we just move furniture," says head rigger Tom Walczak, coiling a steel cable with practiced precision. "But every scenic transition is choreography. We rehearse as much as the actors do."
The Next Generation
With several technical theater training programs expanding across the Midwest, a new generation of stagehands is bringing fresh perspectives to a craft that has changed remarkably little in a century — and that's precisely what makes it enduring.
