Tech Week At Planet Wongo
As I entered the tech run for The Wild Women of Planet Wongo I had no idea what to expect. Smoke machines blew fog into the space, which was covered with painted mountains and screens projecting the image of another planet. Wongettes stood in half costumes, and two brave astronauts sat crosslegged on the floor laughing with them about something in the script. Though some of the costumes were not fully complete in time for the run, every Wongo Woman had a towering purple wig and bright purple contour that could be seen from space. All the actresses laughed together as they adjusted wigs and offered spare bobby pins, and it was great to see how much of a family the cast and crew had become.
Teching any show is more than tedious- multiple visual and audio elements come together for the first time, and the actors are waiting in their costumes for cues to be built around them. And with a show as immersive as The Wild Women of Planet Wongo, it’s easy to see how the cast and crew could get tired. And yet, everyone was having nothing but fun! When the show itself began, it was easy to see why. This show itself is nothing but fun, with hilarious (and incredibly catchy) songs, crazy costumes, and lots of audience interaction, it truly is like nothing on Earth.
The main focus of the night was running the show through once smoothly, and it did exactly that! The new space at the Chopin had become second nature to the actors, and they interacted with the entire crew as they would with an audience.
The second task at hand was running through some of the game shows the audience would get to compete in during the two intermissions. As soon as the projections for these games were up on the correct boards, the cast and creative team ran through the games, cheering each other on the whole time.
Through the entire tech process, the entire Planet Wongo team stayed as upbeat and fun-loving as the show itself, and that’s a high bar!
