If you are not a technically inclined director (or even if you are), figuring out how to organize an efficient post-production strike can be a nightmare. Ideally, strike gets done quickly and with minimal strife. Everyone is so tired by the time strike rolls around that the thought of a long, drawn-out teardown is demoralizing. As always in live theatre, we can’t avoid every disaster, but some pre-planning is very helpful to keep the process as painless as possible.

Here are a number of tips and ideas to help keep things moving smoothly.

Read more: Tips and Ideas for Organizing a Better Set Strike

Make a General List of What Needs Done

A list is a pretty common sense starting point. Double check if there’s a post-production checklist that your theater organization requires all productions to complete before the end of strike— this is a good starting point. If there isn’t one, make your own! Here are some common line items included in such a policy:

• All on-stage set pieces must be deconstructed. All materials and tools must be put away in their proper places.
• Backstage areas and wings should be checked for trash, props, or costume pieces, and should be cleared of anything unnecessary. 
• Storage areas (for tools, lumber, props, costumes, etc) should be organized properly according to existing rules, and tidied up. 
• Light and sound booths should be restored to the condition they were found in (or better).
• The greenroom and dressing rooms should be clean: Leave behind no trash. All props and costumes should be removed and returned to their proper places in storage. Any personal items left behind should be taken to the lost and found. Surfaces should be disinfected, floors should be vacuumed, etc.
• If they are in your purview, the house and lobby should also be cleaned: trash picked up and taken out, floors vacuumed, any decorations specific to the show should be removed. 

These are broad strokes. You’ll notice that this list sorts neatly into different areas of the theatre— breaking down the overall list of task into lists for general areas can be helpful to keep on top of things. You can use these separate area lists to organize groups for strike.

Plan Out Some Groups

You have the option of leaving actors the option of joining groups as they desire, or just assigning actors to groups. The latter option is a bit less fun, but I find that it’s really helpful, especially with casts of young actors. Assigning everyone to a spot ensures every group has enough people to get done what needs to get done.

At many strikes I attend, we end up with four to five groups. One works on stage, deconstructing and cleaning. Another collects lumber and hardware discarded by the stage team and runs it to storage to put it away (or pass off to a separate storage-area team). One group is typically responsible for returning props and costumes to their proper places in storage, and another is responsible for general cleaning, especially of the green room. You may need more or less groups based on the scale of your space.

It could be helpful to distribute some sort of survey (like a google form) to your cast and crew ahead of strike to gauge everyone’s comfort with different activities. You can then use this to form your groups. This could also be useful to hand out at the beginning of the rehearsal process, for set build purposes. Some possible questions:

• Please indicate your comfort level with using power tools, 1-5
• Are you physically able/willing to lift heavy objects
• Are there any particular tasks you feel especially suited for? 
• If you cannot stay for all of strike, please note the time you have to leave.

Appoint a leader for each team, too. This should be someone responsible and reliable, who won’t flake out before the end of the event, and who will make sure all tasks are completed appropriately by their team. The team leader will be in charge of making sure everything their group is assigned gets done, and will also field questions on your behalf. 

Then, Get Nitty-Gritty

Once you have a broad list of tasks for each area, and a general idea of how much man power you’ll have for each team, add much more specific items to the lists for each area based on the needs of your theatre organization or individual production. Don’t be afraid to shoot for the moon! You’ll find that you’re more likely to have people run out of things to do than have too much to do, especially if they’re only cleaning or organizing. When people run out of things to do, they’ll have to come find you to ask what to do next, which can become overwhelming quickly if you didn’t plan enough work in the first place. Nothing is worse than having a wealth of volunteers on hand and not knowing what to do with them! The waste! Try to give each team a workload that will take a similar amount of time to complete.

Make Sure the Plan is Clear

Sometime before strike (preferably before the final show), post your lists and your group assignments somewhere everyone can see them (the call board, the production group chat, etc). Make sure the lists are laid out clearly, in foolproof terms, so you don’t have to spend a ton of time fielding questions. Try to be as pedantic and specific as possible. An anecdote: A production staff I was on once told a group of middle schoolers to take some trash to the dumpster, but didn’t specify to be careful about how to fill it… the staff ended up spending the next two hours or so pulling things out of the dumpster and more carefully replacing them so everything would fit inside.

It will be helpful to meet with the team leaders for each strike team and make sure they are clear on what tasks each group is responsible for. This way, you can be sure the leader will be able to lead effectively! 

Making sure everyone knows what’s going on saves you work in the long run. It also helps decrease some of the anxiety around strike— many actors just don’t know what to do at strike and are therefore intimidated by it. This leads to the hands-off attitude we often expect from actors. If their jobs are clear, and given according to their ability, they have little excuse to not participate.

Keep Track of Your Progress

During strike, have the team leaders cross things off their groups’ lists as they are completed. This will help to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. As groups finish their task lists, the team leaders can either add additional tasks as appropriate, have their group pivot to join another group. It might be helpful to pre-plan where each group should pivot once their list is done, especially if the pivoting group has a particularly light workload.

Very important: do a final walkthrough before everyone leaves! Nothing is worse than dismissing everyone and THEN realizing someone forgot to do something important! Have someone reliable— perhaps the stage manager— periodically check around to ensure tasks are getting done properly. If anything isn’t meeting expectations, intervene early. 

Other

Here are a couple of broad miscellaneous tips that might be helpful:

• It is helpful to take photographs as proof of the state of each area at the end of strike. If you’re in any kind of shared space, it’s good to cover all your bases and show that you’ve done strike to an appropriate standard. You may also want to keep a copy of your lists. You just never know how these might come in handy!
• If you are unsure of exactly what the theatre organization itself expects from your strike, be sure to check in with someone in authority. You don’t want to accidentally skip something important, and you don’t want to step on toes doing something you aren’t meant to do.
• Playing music during strike is fun! Ideally something energetic and upbeat. 
• As always, when you’re using power tools and working with potentially dangerous, sharp, or heavy materials, it’s good to have a first-aid kit ready on hand.
• Most strikes are scheduled to run until they are over, and all the necessary tasks are done. If you have to schedule an end time (because of a rented space, etc), planning ahead is EXTRA important. Prioritize carefully.
• Generally speaking, keeping the backstage and greenroom areas in decent shape during the run of the show is a good practice to make the strike itself easier. This is easier said than done. Enforcing simple rules like “all costumes must be hung up before the cast leaves after a show” can help achieve this.

Final Thoughts

Strike generally isn’t anyone’s favorite part of the production process, but it’s sadly unavoidable. Making it as quick and easy as possible makes it a lot less painful. As always, we can’t plan for everything. Some plans will inevitably fall apart. It’s good to spend some time ahead of strike thinking about how you want the day to go and building some strategies to get there.

You got this!

If you are an actor looking for tips on making the most of strike, or a production staff member looking for helpful resources for your actors, check out my article for non-technically inclined actors here.