“Let me think about this spacing … can we take it Joe, from ‘he left River City?'” Stars Over Veishea director Marge Bennett Folger asked.

And, after the eighth or ninth rehearsal of the scene, the “pick-a-little, talk-a-little” ladies take their places and go through the scene … again.

“That’s better spacing for me. Thank you, guys, but I still can’t understand Harold,” Folger said.

And rehearsal continues in the same fashion: the set crew tries to find the perfect position of the library, the lights sporadically become lighter and darker and the costume crew is frantically finishing costumes so performers can get used to moving in them before this weekend’s performance of “The Music Man.”

With only four days left before the first performance, the performers and crews are beginning “tech” rehearsal this week. During this time, practices have moved from MacKay Auditorium to Stephens Auditorium, where all of the elements of the production — performers, set and costumes — come together.

“It is the slow part,” Bennett-Folger said. “You get the show put together and running well, and then you have to take two steps back for the tech process.

“The last eight weeks we have spent on content and movement so I’m not so worried about that,” she continued. “Now we have to infuse that with the technical things. It’s very moment-by-moment.”

With only a couple of days of “tech” rehearsal under their belts, the performers have discovered some of their biggest challenges — staging and projection.

“You have to be louder,” said Lee Keeler, sophomore in English and secondary education and “the town banker,” said. “You have to be a megaphone, and you have to be bigger with your gestures so the audience can see you.”

Keeler, who has performed in several shows, has never performed in a production of this caliber or in a venue as large as Stephens.

“When you’re out there, it’s stark and frightening,” Keeler said. “The light is peeling … your self-esteem away. There’s no more bullshit.”

“We have to work on projection and articulation,” Bennett-Folger said. “And it is work. There are pockets in the theater that are not so good acoustically. I’ve had people come up to me and tell me they’ve heard every word and someone who sat four rows behind them to the right or left who couldn’t hear anything. We know that not everyone will get every word but we still work very hard at articulation.”

Performers also have to perfect the details of their movements and lines — all part of the “moment-to-moment” mode of rehearsal. For an outsider, the constant interruptions from the director may seem tedious and frustrating, but the performers are used to them.

“You can’t get outta character and have to be able to snap back in there,” Miranda Squires, sophomore in sociology and performing arts and “mayor’s wife Eulalie Mackecknie Shinu,” commented about the constant interruptions she had while rehearsing the “pick-a-little, talk-a-little” scene.

“If people could see rehearsal they might appreciate the work even more,” Bennett-Folger said. “It’s like when you go to a movie — you never see the editing process or the details of the work, but you still appreciate it. Here, no one sees the moment of rehearsal when everything falls apart.”

During this week, the performers will also rehearse with the orchestra for the first time. With all of these elements coming together, some of the performers are becoming nervous.

Aaron Olsen, senior in marketing and “Constable Locke,” is no exception. Anxiety is beginning to run high in this first time theater performer.

“I’m starting to get nervous with everything so close and everything coming together,” Olsen said. “I know the butterflies will start coming, probably when the lights go down and the curtain gets ready to go up.”

But Bennett-Folger is confident everyone will perform his and her best.

“It always comes together,” Bennett-Folger said. “You hear that phrase in high school and professional productions and it always does. Sometimes it doesn’t meet your expectations, but that’s the nature of the beast.”

The Stars Over Veishea performance of “The Music Man” will be Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Stephens Auditorium.

Tickets are $5.50, $7.50, $8.50 for Iowa State students, $7.50, $9.50, $10.50 for senior citizens and children and $9.50, $11.50, $12.50 for adults and are available at the Iowa State Center.