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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / CALLING: Handling an emergency
« on: Dec 11, 2008, 02:00 pm »
I guess my question is "how would you have done this differently?"
In the middle of a show one of my leads began to have an asthma attack. It was a very slow onset- during a scene shift he asked my (backstage) ASM to call his partner to drive his inhaler in then went back onstage without saying anything else. He didn't show any symptoms until 10mins later, at which point I (from booth) asked my ASM if he was ok or had seemed sick to her and she said over com "I'm dealing with an emergency right now, I can't talk." I sent my light board operator down to the stage immediately to find out what was going on and alert the box office/house manager (thank god for wireless coms). Long story short I created an intermission at the next scene shift and booked it to the green room while the actor used his inhaler. In about 3 mins he was walking, talking, and breathing normally but I asked him to let me know if he wanted the rest of the show canceled anyways. He said he'd like to finish the show out, and after holding another 10mins to be sure he was still okay I began the show again- he even participated in the dance sequence I'd expressly told him to sit out of, then danced again during curtain call when the actors sometimes do a few measures of dance improv (the show is a mini-musical with a few instances of singing and dancing).
After the show ended and actors left I had a conversation with my ASM about letting me know what was happening backstage any time something like this happened, and how she could've kept me in the loop while handing the situation.
I'm curious how other people would've handled this though- I initially sent my board op backstage instead of going myself so a)I could keep my eyes on the actor who I thought was getting sick (the one having the asthma attack) and b)I could call the end of the scene into an intermission, which he couldn't have done and I couldn't have done while getting backstage. Then I asked the actor for his feelings on canceling the show (not in front of the other actors, the final word came from me) because while he visually was back to his normal level of health I wanted to be sure he felt like he could and wanted to finish the show out- those are the two big things I'm wondering about.
In the middle of a show one of my leads began to have an asthma attack. It was a very slow onset- during a scene shift he asked my (backstage) ASM to call his partner to drive his inhaler in then went back onstage without saying anything else. He didn't show any symptoms until 10mins later, at which point I (from booth) asked my ASM if he was ok or had seemed sick to her and she said over com "I'm dealing with an emergency right now, I can't talk." I sent my light board operator down to the stage immediately to find out what was going on and alert the box office/house manager (thank god for wireless coms). Long story short I created an intermission at the next scene shift and booked it to the green room while the actor used his inhaler. In about 3 mins he was walking, talking, and breathing normally but I asked him to let me know if he wanted the rest of the show canceled anyways. He said he'd like to finish the show out, and after holding another 10mins to be sure he was still okay I began the show again- he even participated in the dance sequence I'd expressly told him to sit out of, then danced again during curtain call when the actors sometimes do a few measures of dance improv (the show is a mini-musical with a few instances of singing and dancing).
After the show ended and actors left I had a conversation with my ASM about letting me know what was happening backstage any time something like this happened, and how she could've kept me in the loop while handing the situation.
I'm curious how other people would've handled this though- I initially sent my board op backstage instead of going myself so a)I could keep my eyes on the actor who I thought was getting sick (the one having the asthma attack) and b)I could call the end of the scene into an intermission, which he couldn't have done and I couldn't have done while getting backstage. Then I asked the actor for his feelings on canceling the show (not in front of the other actors, the final word came from me) because while he visually was back to his normal level of health I wanted to be sure he felt like he could and wanted to finish the show out- those are the two big things I'm wondering about.