Follow the sound down to Lenfest’s scene shop and the Johnson Theatre, where you’ll find Thomas Hackman, Lenfest’s theater technical director, and his crew welding, sawing and hammering away at the set for the winter play, The Play That Goes Wrong. 

Hackman has been working professionally in set design for 25 years. He began working at the university in 2016 and, since then, Hackman said his primary role has been to take the designs given by the set designer and find how to “make that happen safely, on time and on budget.”

The Play That Goes Wrong features collapsing platforms, falling walls and broken windows, making the job for Hackman and his crew more difficult than their typical set design.

“The scenery for this show is basically a giant machine,” Hackman said. “These things would have to happen very precisely and very safely.”

Hackman said he also needs to find the balance between maintaining safety and convincing the audience that the play’s shenanigans and incidents are truly dangerous.

“It has to look terrifying,” Hackman said. “There’s always gonna be risk, but we have to do everything we can to minimize that risk and keep actors and audience safe.”

While the play’s opening night is in early April, Hackman said the set will need to be ready much earlier so the actors can become comfortable with all the moving parts.

“We have been describing this set as almost another character in the show,” Hackman said. “There’s so much going on with the set that it’s an integral part.”

For the play to be successful, Hackman said he understands that close collaboration is necessary with other departments, such as the costume and lighting crews.

“There’s a lot of close collaboration between departments,” Hackman said. “That’s true in most theater productions, but this one it just feels like it’s extra important.”

Most of this collaboration takes place in meetings, where Hackman can coordinate with the designers to bring the set to life.

“I like to be in those meetings as early as possible because, inevitably, I’m gonna have to make decisions about how things happen,” Hackman said. “If I don’t understand why they were designed the way they were, I’m probably not going to make the right decisions.”

For the production, Hackman said he is working with Stefanie Hansen to execute the complicated scenes. Hansen is a visiting set designer from the University of Delaware.

“I always describe the relationship between scene designer and technical director as an architect and a general contractor or an engineer,” Hackman said. “The architect tells you what it’s gonna look like. The engineer and general contractor figure out how to execute that.”

Hackman coordinates with other departments, his coworkers and even work-study students to bring the set to life.

“You can’t do it alone,” Hackman said. “The more we talk, the better off we’re going to be.”