Hold Thy Peace tradition

There has been a practice attached to the last several Hold Thy Peace shows that seems to be well on its way to becoming a tradition, and I thought I'd talk a little bit about it. This new tradition, if you've never heard of it before, is the Naked Tech Run. The Naked Tech Run is our last cue-to-cue rehearsal through the technical stuff late on the Wednesday night before the show where the cast strips down to their underwear and perhaps a funny hat and runs through their actions onstage, humorously and satirically summarizing their lines, while all the light, sound, and other transitions are finalized.

How did this come to be a part of the SOP of Hold Thy Peace? Well, I am proud to say it began with Hamlet, my show. Hamlet required a lot of set moving, usually in tandem with some other technical transition, and so needed to be carefully coordinated and practiced. We were all there late on Wednesday, weary from the work and the hour, but valiantly holding together to get through it. And our Horatio, Dave Hinterman, as he is wont to do, decided that he had earned the right by this point to take his pants off-- if he was going to be staying so late, he was at least going to be comfortable. He would do whatever he needed to like that. So soon, other people were following suit, until I had a cast half-naked on the stage except for a gothy accoutrement here and there. This was rather sprung unexpectedly on the tech crew, as evinced by the now-famous startled outburst from Bernie over the God mike, "Oh, my God, Frances is naked! ... Oh, my God, Frances is ripped." Heh. And we ran our cue-to-cue like that, the actors having a good time after all their hard work and generating a really hilarious condensed version of the show.

The Naked Tech Run, a chance to be silly and have fun, is basically the reward for putting in all that work, as well as a release valve for all the tension of tech week. There are rules, of course, as established by Hamlet and faithfully maintained by all subsequent shows. Nobody has to take off any clothes if they don't want to, and nobody is allowed to pressure anyone into doing so. If any pictures are taken, the people in them have absolute veto power over anything that may be done with them. And finally, just because we're being naked and silly doesn't mean that the rules of rehearsing in the theater go out the window-- be attentive, be safe, and get your job done, even in your underwear. Thus far people have done a good job with these. I hope the tradition is kept. It really makes everyone feel good, especially after all the stress of putting together a show.