| Current mood: |  grateful |
The "M" Word
One of the things drilled into the heads of young people working in a theatre is how very dangerous it can be, the fly in particular. If a stage weight falls from the grid or off an arbor, it can bounce off the floor and fly a remarkable distance, easily killing a person. So we've been told what to do in that situation, basically, run like hell.
This is a synopsis of what happened today after five hours of working in the shop, in form of an e-mail I sent to Roger:
Roger,
We screwed up today. Pretty badly. A bunch of us, (Trina, Jeremy, Josh Huber, Dan Aubin, Nathan, Justin and a couple of freshman) were getting weights, lowering then from the grid on arbors. Trina, Justin and Jeremy were at the grid, Dan, Huber and I were on the rope, everyone else was on stage. After giving the freshman a what-to-do-in-case-of-emergency talk, we started bringing it down. After a moment, it started getting away from the boys and I. We tried to hold it for a few seconds, but all at once, we realized we had to go. Dan, Huber and I yelled to the others and we ran, ran, ran. Dan, Huber and I sat in the wings for a second, starting at each other and the water as it started pouring down. After we made sure no one was hurt, we ran outside.
Now all of this is terrible enough, but as we were all standing around watching the fire trucks coming in, a car that was too stupid to get out of the way got broad sided by the fire truck while we looked on.
So no one is hurt (aside from Dan, Huber and I’s hands), but us upperclassmen feel like jackasses. We should have known better, there was too much weight, and we were stupid. And everything is flooded. We’re sitting outside watching the water pour into the street, fearing Michael’s/ Jim’s wrath when he comes back and wishing you were here. Even if you yelled at us, as we deserve.
Kate
Here are the details:
It was a lot of effing weight. I don't know what we were thinking, having that much weight on one arbor. Everyone who wasn't on the line or in the grid was sitting on the bare baton to counter act the weight and when we started lowering it, everything was fine. But eventually the baton was getting pretty high off the ground and Dan told those still clinging to it to get off. So they did. Things went pretty quickly from there. There was the distinctive zzzzzzz sound that Roger told us about.
Dan, Josh and I tried to hold it, but it was a blur between our hands and we could feel the heat through our gloves. I don't know who it was that said whatever was said, but we bolted. Josh ran to the backstage door (not with Dan and I as I mentioned in my e-mail), Dan made for the stage right side stage. I took a few seconds to ram up the brake on the run away line in a petty attempt to slow it somewhat and bolted after Dan. He slid to his knees on the floor and I dropped beside him. He pressed his forehead to the floor as there was a loud bang and a second of silence. I put my arm around Dan and he sat up and leaned against me. There was a pitter-patter sort of sound and it looked like dust and debris falling from the sky. Dan looked at me. "This is so bad." he said, hoarsely. "I know." I answered. Then I realized that it wasn't dust, it was the sprinklers. Dan and I jumped to our feet and ran to the opening of the side stage. "IS EVERYONE ALL RIGHT?" we yelled. There was no answer, but we could see people running for the doors and the stage was free of bodies, so we bolted.
We got outside and there was a lot of waiting and a lot of Mel chasing Grease cast members to rehearsal. Then there was a car accident in front of Katrina, Jeremy and I's eyes and eventually I called Brenna, gave her the news and she took us to eat to ease our nerves.
After we ate, Katrina and I went to meet up with Dan and Nathan in the Union so we could have a pow-wow. I saw Dan sitting at a table as I walked in and we just stared at each other until I got close enough for us to have a long hug. After comparison of rope-burned hands, we all discussed what happened, how we upper classmen are absolute idiots for not going with less weight and being grateful that things aren't worse. There's lots of water damage, obviously, but thanks be to God all the weights stayed on the arbor, which is a real miracle. There are a couple of fly lines that are completely out of commission and who knows what's going to happen with the drapes. But the fact that no one was hurt and that the damage is not as awful as we predicted it would be is a great relief.
Three hours were spent in the GC, talking to Eric, who was working, and then a couple hours in the theatre doing some emergency water clean-up. We start again tomorrow at nine.
I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed.
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