Traditionally, the final week of rehearsal for a theatrical production is known as tech week. It involves a certain amount of anxiety, lots of coffee, not so much sleep, and a ton of work. So why do stalwarts of community theater in the area continue to produce such a large community musical the program includes more than 150 names year after year?

"I'm into music and the arts. And so, for me personally, it's growing. It's becoming better, it's the new challenge of putting on this music and making it sound fabulous. The other thing for me, since it's my second year directing, is this orchestra is amazing, and they're just great people to work with," said Dan Thornton, the musical director for "The King and I."

Thornton stood at the edge of the orchestra pit which later that evening would be filled with 27 musicians for the first time in the rehearsal process. Part of Thornton's job as musical director is to bring the orchestra together with the 85 stage performers and make it work.

"That's why I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn't sleep from then on, singing 'The March of the Children,'" Thornton laughed.

"It's almost like two separate communities. These players are semiprofessional. They're putting much less time in then the stage people, and yet, they do this for multiple venues, not just for this. It's the same for the theater techs. They come in at the last minute and join all the stage people. It's amazing how it all comes together in the end. It all happens," Thornton said.

Though he's feeling the challenge this week, Thornton knows the next two weeks will bring a great deal of joy.

"Before the last production I'm ready for the next one," Thornton said.

As Thornton went about organizing the pit, Tony Zilka and Dan Pascucci were in the shop working on details of the massive set, which includes a stylized Siamese skyline, elephants of all colors and sizes, and a fleet of pillars that reach almost to the auditorium's proscenium arch.

Zilka has been working on Kenai Performers' community musicals since 2000, sometimes making an appearance on stage, but always in the set shop. Pascucci is somewhat less veteran to the process.

"This is my second one. I started last year, and I haven't missed a year since," Pascucci said. Both men laughed. They were in good spirits considering the sheer volume of work that has, and must still, go into the project.

"It's fun, I enjoy it. You're creating something out of nothing, basically. You're very creative with cardboard, I guess is what you could say. And I get to play with tools," Zilka said.

"A lot of people don't realize how much work goes into something like this, but I think the actors do. Just having a few people appreciate what you do is good. Especially when, as you say, it comes out of nothing. One person has an idea, then five people say, 'OK let's build it this way,' and they all have a different idea how to build it, but it gets done somehow," said Zilka.

"Yeah, nothing goes unappreciated. When, you build a sword, for example, someone says 'Hey look at that sword!' and part of it, I think, is that they're happy they didn't have to build it," Pascucci said.

Many hands make light work, and for every person who contributes a sword, or a costume, or even a half-hour of work, the whole community of the play moves forward. For director Carol Ford, that community pulls her in every time.

"I love community. It feels like we don't have enough sometimes. Doing something that you all believe in, that you're all having fun doing, and that you're all bring your own creativity to it, no matter how much that is or what type of creativity, it just gets the old juices flowing," Ford said as she tied a curtain onto one of the auditorium battens.

Ford asks herself the question "Why do I do it?" every year. She is sometimes tempted to take a break, but then she gets caught up in the build to performance.