On the other side of the pastel green planet...

One of the joys of doing live theater is that you get one chance to get it right, over and over again.  Over in Hollywood, they get one chance (generally speaking) to get a final product right (ahem, Mr. Lucas, it was better if you'd have left it alone).  So, when I was in school or was working  a roadhouse, it was considerably different for me, since the length of a production was quite shorter than what I work now.  If something were to go wrong, we would figure out what was wrong and there was little in the way of a contingent plan.  Now, working in corporate theater, there is a plan for most anything that could disrupt the flow of the show.  Often times, we can have a malfunction and keep the show going without the audience suspecting that there was a problem unless they had seen the show previously.  This gets me to thinking, what would I have done different in the past?  Most likely a failure would stop the show and a lot of mahem would ensue while everyone figured out what

It's sad to say that shortly after I was posting about another blog regarding safety procedures, that I am now sharing a costly mishap.  According to the Oakland Press ( http://theoaklandpress.com/articles/2010/06/22/news/local_news/doc4c1fd417969fc357332898.txt ), "The local stagehands were [setting up] for the Jai Ho concert featuring A.R. Rahman," when the stage collapsed.  Fortunately no one was killed during this accident, but there have been reports of some fairly serious injuries including broken bones.  So, what are we as a community to do about this kind of incident?  First thing that I suggest is not being afraid to share our experiences with younger technicians.  I think that some of the problem lies with the "old dogs" being concerned that the young ones learning the trade and taking away jobs.  Frankly, I would ask that everyone help each other out.  Why, well we don't heal as fast when we get older and so if the younger tech doesn't do th