The Black-Clad and Steel-Toed is a Guild for Technical Theatre people here on h2g2.

Why "Black-Clad and Steel-Toed"?

Techies, being creatures of the night, spend a lot of time backstage in theatres. Being that they are intended to blend in with the shadows, they most often wear all black. If they're smart, they also wear steel-toed boots¹.

What exactly do these "techies" do?

First, in the spirit of shameless self-promotion, I direct you to my Guide Entry, Technical Theatre of the High School Variety.

Theatre technicians, also known as "techies" are basically that rather large group of people you don't see onstage, but are backstage all the time slaving away to make the show run flawlessly². There are usually three basic types of techies - Designers, Slave Labor, and Running Crew.

Designers are the people who know lots of stuff. Most of them go to school for this sort of thing, have lots of creative ideas, most of which are induced by trying to figure out how to make the director's ideas come to life. There are, of course, both benefits and drawbacks to being a designer. The drawback is that if the director doesn't like your concept for the show, you have to come up with a new one, no matter how much you liked the original idea. The benefit is that you get to see (or hear, if you're a sound designer) your beautiful, breathtaking, incredibly brilliant set/ lighting/ sound design come alive onstage³ Sadly, unless you were fortunate enough to be the costume designer for a hit show like The Lion King, you will likely never, recieve any fame or praise for your accomplishment. Designers are a very, very special breed.

Slave Labor are the people who actually build all the pretty set pieces you see, and paint them, and generally lift things, grunt, and do other bits of menial jobs. These people are not paid, generally, and - more often than not - get a misspelled mention in the program. They are more important than they get credit for, however, because the designers certainly cannot be expected to do everything his or her self! They are often college students going for extra credit or high school students who hang about with the theatre⁴. This tends to be a school theatre phenomenon, though, and if we're talking about other theatres this responsibility tends to fall on the..

Running Crew. In addition to sometimes having Slave Labor duties, the Running Crew are the wonderful souls who actually hang about backstage -- usually a Stage Manager, a couple of assistants, Sound Operator, Lighting Operator, and assorted stagehands, depending on the set and amount of help available. The stagehands are wonderful, selfless people who fearlessly do all the jobs that are far too dangerous for actors to do, but much too tedious for the director or designers to do themselves, with little regard for their personal safety.

Techies in general are fun-loving people who like their liquor and know how to get down... but, of course, they also know when it's time to work⁵.

Members

AneRikke
Cymbeline/Peter
Frosty the Snowman
Kelly
sea
Self-Paradoxical