The day Lee is referring to is that ever-important, dreaded and much feared “tech Sunday.”

It is the day when all of the elements of a stage show come together: lights, sound, costumes, props, and acting … before it’s presented to an audience. On this particular Sunday in late January, last-minute small changes and tweaks are taking place for Marvin’s Room as I enter the darkened theater. The production’s lighting designer Phillip Replogle has kept the ladder close by because he is at the mercy of the director’s whims. Lee wants to see a different color lit on the left side of the stage, so Phil shows her different gels until she sees one she likes.

Stage manager and producer Erica Carl gets her cue sheets ready so that the lights, sound effects, and music happen at the right times. Carol McDonough, the props mistress, has to make sure that all of the wigs fit the leading lady and that there’s enough stage blood for the show’s run. Prop tables are set up backstage with coffee mugs, photographs, and pill bottles on them so that actors can grab whatever they need before entering the stage. Glow tape has been placed on the stage floor so that the actors can find their way in the dark, and a painted Disneyworld set is unveiled and met with oohs and aahs from the cast and crew who are seeing it for the first time.

Actor and set designer Henry Gosch points out that he has moved a backstage wall to make it easier for a wheelchair to pass through. Sound designer Gary Froseth asks that the show’s music be louder as the strains of Beatles’ songs fill the room. This is a day that, hopefully, the box office phone is ringing off the hook. Music to everyone’s ears.

This play, Lee says, is about choices and family. It’s about two sisters, played by actresses Lisa Weitzman and Lori Myers, who have chosen different paths and come to realizations about themselves, each other, and what truly matters in life. Marvin’s room is a relatively unseen presence on stage, but take a gander inside and it contains all of the amenities. A bed, a table, even pictures on the wall that will look like shadowy rectangles to the audience. For that much-needed actor motivation, a furry teddy bear is resting under the covers and has been affectionately nicknamed “Marvin” by the cast. A mascot of sorts.

The stage seems like a postage stamp to those actors used to something grander. But this is an intimate show being performed, appropriately, in an intimate space. All of these people in this little room. All with one goal: to make this theater experience a memorable one for the audience.

These seven actors are a close-knit group. After five weeks of rehearsals they are coming into the home stretch toward the opening night performance. But the costume changes are a cause of some concern today, particularly for actress Grace Gross, who has been cast as four very different characters in the show. She is breathless as she runs back to the dressing room to change into another set of clothes to tackle yet another persona. Unlike Gross, actress Marjorie Bicknell doesn’t appear to have much problem with that who-am-I-now syndrome as she lines her face and whitens her hair. “They always cast me as an old lady,” she remarks. The rest of the cast jokingly consoles her. “But Marge, you’re so good at it,” they say.

There are two very young actors in the cast who aspire to make their future in theater. Phillip Keeling has the emotional role of Hank and Ian Jannetta plays his brother Charlie. They are on stage with actors having many more years of stage experience, and the teenager and 11-year-old clearly meet the challenge.

After an afternoon of doing the show “cue-to-cue,” the cast and crew break for dinner. “We’re not going to eat here,” explains Lee. “We need to get away from this place.”

So it’s off to Italian Oven Restaurant where about 14 theater people weave their way through the room to take their seats. There’s no steak or scrod left in the kitchen and no show talk to be heard at the table. Only discussions about the latest movies and how Ian can make wonderful sloshing sound effects with this stomach.

After dinner, the cast and crew spend the evening doing a run-through of the entire show, incorporating all of the show’s theatrical elements. It goes amazingly smoothly. Like a well-oiled machine. Lee is clearly pleased … not an easy feat for this detail-oriented director.

The playwright never got to see his play performed in New York. He died of aids while taking care of his lover who also had aids. But enough of the maudlin. His spirit is in these actors’ minds as they recite his words on this eight-hour-long tech Sunday.