ETSU’s theatre scene shop is housed in the dark, lowly basement of the historical Brooks Gym. The old, brick, three-story building is made of rigid concrete and steel giving it a prison feel. The musty smell of sawdust tickles the nose as the clamoring of power saws, screw guns and staplers echo off the walls and floor. Out in the hallway, faintly heard is the shrill cry of AC/DC and the clatter of the radio blasting classic rock.

The theatre shop was originally the locker and shower room for the ETSU basketball team from the early days of the university until the Mini Dome was built in the 1970s. The main area of the floor where lockers once stood is now filled with sawhorses, drills and tables with side bins full of all types of wood. The two rooms in the corners that were once used for restrooms and showers are now used for tool storage and painting supplies, while the steps that once heard cries of a sold-out gym on Saturday nights as the players ascended to the court aboveare now used only for storage of metal pipes and poles.

On this particular early fall day, the floor is littered, and the sawdust hangs thick in the air. It looks as if there is a pretty good crew for a Monday and the start of the department’s efforts for the upcoming production of Quilters. There are already three or four students droning around halfway working and halfway putting on a show that they are. The long radial sawhorse that extends all the way down the wall is in use by a young goggled woman churning out 18-inch legs for stage platforms. The 2-by-4’s seemed to scream each time the buzzing blade slid through them, and streams of sawdust sprayed against the wall. Each piece is cut and promptly is followed by the scraping of an unfolding tape measurer and a check for size, which seems to always be right.

A couple more student workers are busy with the stage platforms that eventually will ride atop those 18-inch legs. The pieces are scattered throughout the worktable with 2-by-4’s, plywood, screws, their accompanying screw guns, and all. One student is squirting wood glue, the other is putting in the screws, and both hold things in place.

Melissa, the supervisor of the shop, is bent over using the router to take off the edge of a table. Her tie-dyed shirt and blue jeans are baggy, draping across her elbows and ankles. Her faded blond hair is long and flopping all around her head as she jerks it from side to side, constantly looking for the best line of sight to make her cuts in the table. Her router hums, then buzzes, hums, then buzzes as it makes its way around the edges of the table, leaving behind nothing but smooth unblemished edges. The time that has been spent to hone such abilities of quality and precision is evident as she cuts her lines straight and even with confidence and assurance.

As she reaches the far corner of the table, the router unexpectedly stops, though, and so does she. She turns to find that she has over-reached the length of her electric cord, which is no longer connected to the wall, and in turn saw me standing to report to my daily job as the ‘whatever needs to be done’ guy.

“Oh, hey!” she said, both mouth and eyes wide. “I didn’t know you were coming in today.”

“Yeah, I’m here Mondays from one to five,” I answer.

“Okay, cool. Head on over to the Bud Frank. I don’t have much for you here, and they’re gonna need you up on the scaffold to hang lights.”

“All right,” I said as I turned to go up the concrete steps and out the back door. “I’ll see you at five.”