The following excerpt is taken from Mark Shanda’s article “The ‘Essential’ Technical Direction Library,” which appeared in the August, 2001, issue of TD&T. From time to time we have discussed moving Technical Brief to an electronic format. But, like Mr. Shanda, we always decide that electronic media are complements to — not replacements for — print media, and we consequently recommit ourselves to the Technical Brief mission: to document technical solutions in such a way that others need not reinvent them — and to do it in a form that invites repeated contemplation and further invention. Actually, Mr. Shanda puts it quite elegantly …

A thin blue wire Is an Important feature in my office. The wire extends from a phone jack on the wall and is attached to my computer, providing a connection to a promised world of ideas and information. A private off-ramp on the information superhighway with instant access to data from around the globe is mine. The blue wire has changed the way I work. I have come to deeply appreciate and rely heavily on e-mail. Communicating with colleagues throughout the world with the ease of typing a few lines and hitting the send button has made many a recent project go smoothly. A list of favorite web sites has been developed and, on several occasions, I have turned to the web to track down a vital piece of information.

However, despite occasionally getting lost for hours surfing the net, discovering the ridiculous and the sublime, there has been something missing. I long for the feel of a real book in my hands.

There is nothing quite so pleasurable as leafing through the pages of a trusted volume in search of ideas to address a current technical challenge. The bookshelf at the east end of my office is loaded with literally hundreds of books ranging from course textbooks to out-of-print treasures I have purchased at used book stores.

They are in a jumbled assortment of both vertical and horizontal stacks for which only I have the retrieval and storage code. Just around the corner from the book stacks, I have another floor-to-ceiling bookshelf which holds nothing but catalogs. As I survey my over-20-year-old collection of “text-based resources,” identifying those most valuable proves an easy task. The essential ones are all dogeared, scribbled in, and, in fact, rather limited in number.

My momentary observation of my “priceless” collection launched my first and possibly last search to identify the essential technical director resource library. In that pursuit, I conducted a wholly unscientific and biased survey, which was “snail” mailed to 20 academic and commercial theatre technical directors.

Each was asked, “If marooned on a desert island and forced to continue to be a technical director for the Desert Island Repertory Theatre (not a pleasant thought, although I hear they do good work), what are the three primary text-based resources you would want with you?”

Sixteen responses were received from the illustrious group. Not surprising, most respondents could not limit their answers to only three choices, but there was consensus on several selections. The survey responses were supplemented with direct conversations and with several technical types at the recent [2001] USITT Annual Conference & Stage Expo.

What follows is an annotated list of the resources identified as indispensable by the group ….

We’re honored that Mr. Shanda and so many other professionals recognize Technical Brief as an essential part of the “The ‘Essential’ Technical Direction Library ….”

The Technical Brief Collection

Yale’s published collection of new and occasionally reinvented theatrical wheels is useful not only for the particular problems the articles solve, but for providing ideas about how to approach similar challenges. Technical Brief continues to be an excellent publishing source of simple solutions to a wide variety of technical problems. These short, detailed solutions often can serve as springboards for developing parallel solutions. The compilation volume has brought all the illustrations into a similar format and is well indexed. Technical Brief continues to be published ….

Whenever a production problem arises, Technical Brief is the first resource to which my students and I turn. While most theatre-related resources speak in general terms, Technical Brief speaks in specifics, providing clear illustrations, narrative, and in some cases even a bill of materials. It’s pretty common for me to receive phone calls from past students asking about “that tech brief we used on such and such production.” I fax them a copy of the brief and encourage them to get a complete set for themselves since the series, in many instances, features multiple approaches to solving similar problems. While, thankfully, there are now a growing number of similar experiential publications, Technical Brief remains the granddaddy of them all. Any serious theatre technician should be sure to have the complete collection within an arm’s reach of their desk.

— Dennis Dorn, Director of University Theatre
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Now that I have over 20 years’ experience in academic, professional, and educational theater I can safely declare that I DO NOT know everything. I approach each new production with the same sense of excitement, anticipation, and apprehension that I had when I was just learning the trade. Only now I know full well that each production will challenge me in ways I have yet to imagine. It is this constant challenge that makes Technical Direction an often exhausting but always rewarding profession.

One of the most valuable lessons that I have learned thus far is to rely on a library of resources I have collected over the years. Of these, I turn often to Yale’s Technical Brief. On many occasions I have found the perfect solution to a production problem in its pages. The clear and concisely written articles often allow me to simply hand the task to a student and have it produced with minimal supervision. On many other occasions, Technical Brief has “jump started” my thinking by providing ideas that I could change, modify, or build on to suit my particular needs.

Both educators and students need forums where we can share ideas and solutions to specific production challenges. Technical Brief provides just that. It has proven to be an indispensable tool for both teaching and learning.

— Tim Francis, Technical Director
Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas

I look forward to each issue of Yale’s Technical Brief, not because I expect to find the solution to an immediate need (although that has often been the case), but because I admire innovation. As a fellow practitioner in the black art of technical theatre, a brief description and a drawing or two is all I need to recognize a good idea. I am a connoisseur of invention and I savor the clever morsels that appear in the pages of Technical Brief. These concise descriptions of applied research and development are even more compelling when one realizes that they are created in concert with immutable deadlines and ridiculously small budgets. If necessity is the mother of invention, then we are a needy group indeed. Yale’s Technical Brief is one of the very few publications that attempts to meet the needs of theatre technicians, both as a resource and means of expression.

The demands of technical theatre are often daunting. We work with our heads down, focused on the problem at hand and with little consideration for recording our solutions for posterity — there simply is no time. An idea may be sketched on a napkin, or, more likely, a piece of 1×3, which later ends up in the scenery and the documentation is lost forever. Few editors appreciate receiving a chunk of lumber and a scribbled note as the germ of an article, but Ben Sammler and Don Harvey are the exception. They, too, are connoisseurs of invention who can recognize a good idea and understand the constraints under which we labor. That napkin sketch, that drawing scribbled on a cornerblock, becomes a polished article in Technical Brief and the technical theatre community is richer for it. Too often we have worked feverishly to solve an intractable problem only to have someone say, “Oh yeah, I saw one of those over at Theatre x. They call it ‘the wheel.’” Technical Brief reduces redundancy, and that saves our most precious commodity — time.

Thumbing through Volume I, The Technical Brief Collection: Ten Years of Solutions to Recurring Problems in Technical Theatre, is like walking down the aisle of a good hardware store. I find myself mumbling, “Now isn't that clever … oh, I could use that for this … I wonder if that would work for ….” I like hardware stores. I can’t wait to wander down the aisles of Volume II.

— Loren Schreiber, Technical Director
San Diego State University