Step aside, carpenters. Put away your hammers, all of you makeshift set builders. The Harvard dramatic community has found the answer to its technical nightmares.

Enter Dispatch Tech, Harvard's new generation of set builders. For a couple of pizzas and a few bottles of soda, this team of enthusiastic students promises to build the theater set of your dreams.

The group is comprised of students who work together on a non-committed basis to build the sets for numerous campus productions.

"Our motto is to help out as many shows as we can...We help people by doing what we do best," says Chuck J. Adomanis '95, who founded the group last spring.

In a world where about 30 new plays and musicals go up each semester--some with limited or inexperienced staffs, and some unaffiliated with the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC)--Dispatch Techies see themselves as saviors.

"We are like Marines of the theater world," Adomanis says. "Having a short, crisis solution is the primary idea."

HRDC's director, Declan T. Fox '94, agrees with this military vein which evokes Prussian efficiency. "They come in like little commandos. There are about 35 shows going on per semester. If someone doesn't have enough people, they can call them, and they come in immediately."

"I think it's great for shows that are having difficulties with tech and it also shows that tech can be fun," says Fox.

Zack R. Sung '96, one of the builders who often comes to the rescue, says the impetus for the group was strengthened last year after a number of shows "became overwhelmed with sets that they just couldn't build by the deadlines."

The "techies," as they refer to themselves, have been working together since last spring, when Adomanis and a group of friends designed the set for the fairy tale musical, Into the Woods.

"It was probably one of the biggest shows done by students in a long time," says Adomanis, the group's leader. "We had a great time...we wanted to stay together, to be able to go and work as a team."

The original techies gave themselves their name as a joke after the Into the Woods production, says Ada T. Lin '94, one of the first members.

And Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III says Harvard has long needed such a group of students. "The drama community has needed more capacity to meet the technical needs of shows."

Since last spring, when the group started out with a handful of students, Dispatch Tech has bloomed into a full-fledged organization, save University recognition.

Adomanis says that by the end of the spring "more shows needed our help than we could get to. We decided to get this set up...so people would think about it in advance and call in advance."