Spaghetti Dinner
One of the things that happens early each semester for Tech is the Spaghetti Dinner. In some respects, it is for Tech, what the Meet and Greet is for the cast- an opportunity for the old members to get to meet the new members, and to announce what the roles will be for the upcoming show. For Tech, this means the official announcement of staff positions-Assistant Technical Directors, Lightning Designer, Master Electrician, etc- following a few weeks of interviews with the TD. Generally, the candidates for Tech positions are notified a few days prior about whether or not they were selected. The announcements form the centerpiece of an evening which begins with arrivals and introductions for those not already acquainted moves on to food and the announcements themselves, and then winds up with movies or games to continue the bonding. Each tech position is given a crown with their name on it, which is a nice touch and something to keep as a reminder of the special position, even if it does just come from Burger King.
However, the announcements element was apparently a late addition to the evening-long event. Will Slusher credited this change to the era of Lisa Filemyr, an effort to get the announcements out of the way and be efficient. Prior to that, the Spaghetti Dinner was simply an attempt, in the words of Darby Kimball, for the TD and ATDs to do something nice for the techies and introduce them all. Spaghetti was chosen simply because it was the only thing anyone knew how to prepare in bulk. “At the first one of these Dave Light dumped a whole box of spaghetti into this big old pot but didn’t stir it and the pot was too small for the spaghetti so it all came out in one huge clump…the spaghetti and the company got better after that.” It provides a way for the old techies to get to know the new techies before the stress of Tech Week, so many weeks later in the semester.
