Author Topic: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?  (Read 6349 times)

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Celeste_SM

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CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« on: Sep 28, 2010, 12:34 pm »
I got into a debate on this question, and it made me curious to hear what other stage managers would do.

Scenario: About halfway through the act, during a dance number, the light board turns off due to a circuit breaker issue. The follow-spots are up, and remain on because they are not controlled through the light board. Work lights can be turned on immediately, eliminating any safety/visibility issues for the cast. The orchestra is still playing, and have no interruption to their lighting. The circuit breaker is quickly reset and lighting will be restored as soon as the light board completes it's reboot process and the op takes it to the proper cue.  Do you:

1. Stop the show (by bringing in the main, or sending the ASM on stage, or an announcement to the house), wait for the reboot and then restart the show with full lighting.
2. Turn on works, use follow-spots and allow the show to continue, restoring lighting as soon as possible.
3. Something else

loebtmc

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #1 on: Sep 28, 2010, 12:38 pm »
Since this has happened to me - on more than one occasion - I bring up works (and house if necessary) and continue the show. My
Board master goes to 0 while reboot happens, brought back up when you jump to the correct cue to minimize the number of times lights change on stage.

This is a good qq for PSMKay's challenge!
« Last Edit: Sep 28, 2010, 07:22 pm by loebtmc »

dallas10086

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #2 on: Sep 28, 2010, 12:57 pm »
Agreed, keep the show going. It isn't a big enough problem to stop the show and make an audience wait for the fix to happen.

VSM

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #3 on: Sep 28, 2010, 01:00 pm »
Yep, keep going.
Jump to the appropriate cue as written when the board is ready.
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Tempest

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #4 on: Sep 28, 2010, 01:03 pm »
I've had this happen, too, and in a theatre where I didn't have a board op, just little ole me.  Because the lighting wasn't integral to the show, I did exactly what loebtmc said.  Up went the works, down went the master, and when order was retored and the board was in the right Q, I took the master back up and the work lights out. 
In a show where lighting was integral (say a magic show, or something in which you're using shadow to mask action elsewhere) I'd work a little differently.  Provided the current scene didn't need magic lighting, I'd let it contine (while working to get the board back up) and then pause the show, with an announcement at the scene break.  If it did I'd have to make a spot decision as to whether revealing the magic or pausing the show, mid-scene would be more distracting.
Luckily, I haven't worked in a theatre where rebooting the board takes more than one or two minutes, tops.
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MatthewShiner

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #5 on: Sep 28, 2010, 02:41 pm »
I don’t think anyone can really answer the question given the details listed here.

I would make the decision in the heat of the moment, but I don’t the show.  I would play out to the end of the scene, and then pause.  Yes the show must go on, but hopefully the entire production as designed and put into.

Would be more jarring?  Stopping the show, rewinding to the beginning of the number and starting over?  Or pushing forward with the audience PAINFULLY aware that something was wrong? 

Would you push forward with an actor not in costume?  With no sound cues?  With out a set piece???

It all depends on the show.

And, do we know the board is going to coming back up????

I had a situation painfully like this where a lighting effect (no the entire cue) didn't fire and I pressed on - Director came up to the booth to "chew me out" - I should have stopped the show.  How we look at a show, as stage managers, with the the show must go one mentality is not always the choice the creative team would make.

I like to play Devil’s Advocate – because I think the right answer isn’t always the easier answer or the first answer.
« Last Edit: Sep 28, 2010, 02:43 pm by MatthewShiner »
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lauria

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #6 on: Sep 28, 2010, 04:00 pm »
It's a tricky call in a dance situation where lighting is often another character in the story telling (IMHO). If the dancers and orchestra continued, then I think I would have pressed forward to the end of the dance while trying to solve the board problem. If it wasn't solved by the end of the number, I would hold the next number to see if the problem were solvable.

If the dancers had stopped, then it would have been clear that a hold needed to be called. I probably would have started the number from the top, assuming it wasn't 12 minutes into a 15 minute+ dance number which could dramatically alter run time and theater patterns.

Of course as mentioned above, different contexts require different reactions, and so would be made with lightning speed, not giving one the time to contemplate. All you can do is go with your gut and hope that was the best decision and then use that knowledge the next time something similar happens.

On_Headset

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #7 on: Sep 28, 2010, 06:22 pm »
It depends on the nature of the show and the nature of the problem. If it were a freak occurrence, then the SM might not know how long it takes to reset the breaker (or even if it were possible to do so: maybe the only person with a key to the breaker room is off this weekend, or maybe the breakers are ancient equipment which only the house electrician should be trusted to mess around with...), in which case there's a definite risk in attempting to fix it insofar as you might not be able to, it might take half an hour or longer, and in both cases you're just pissing off the audience. Of course, you might cancel the performance only for it to jump to life just as soon as you open the doors, and, likewise, you might go to worklights and followspot and run anyway, and after the show discover that, actually, it wasn't the breaker at all: someone just got clumsy and kicked the power plug out of the socket...

Celeste_SM

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #8 on: Sep 30, 2010, 12:35 pm »
Thanks for all the replies!  I did my best to minimize the info available, just to give an even playing field to the answers. In this case the debate came from a situation where a follow-spot lost power due to a circuit breaker tripping during a show, and being familiar with the building, I stated that I was relieved that the light board had not been on the same circuit.  The light board didn't actually go out, but the debate came from that situation.

Interesting that Matthew hit on the trump card: what the producer wants.  In this case, one argument is that this producer likes to avoid complaint phone calls at all costs, and rather than risking complaints from patrons who feel they got less than a "full" show due to a few minutes without stage lighting, the'd prefer the stage manager to stop and restart.  Having never actually stopped a show with this producer, except to evacuate the theater due to a (false) fire alarm, I wonder if the number of complaint calls would be more or less. 

I find the discussion interesting. By the way, I did kick the power plug out of my own light board once.  I think it was my third show.  It normally is connected to a UPS but the master electrician had borrowed the UPS for something else. We ran with followspots until we rebooted, but it all happened during a lovely duet ballad, and the director was in the house and didn't even realize that a problem had occured.  So embarassing to put on a performance report that the stage manager accidently unplugged the light board.

NomieRae

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #9 on: Sep 30, 2010, 03:06 pm »
This actually just happened during previews of my current show (we had a power outage mid act II for a few brief second and then the board had to reboot.) with me on deck, my PSM in the booth back of the house and 5 actors on stage

We pushed through in work lights for two numbers and the audience thought it was such a treat to witness such a unique show (though I would argue they were more forgiving since the outage was weather related) and then all our lights were back with us for the last few songs.

If I had been in the booth I would have probably called a short hold only because I'm new to the theater and don't know how long things would take to reset, and because honestly, I'm a nervous nellie about these things.

Some of the reasons that aided us to just push through was that we didn't lose com or or sound system for more than a few seconds so we could communicate  (its a 4 piece band with a lead singer, so without sound we couldn't have continued) , and all the actors were safely seated when it happened (phew!)

All our artistic staff were supportive with how it was handled, the LD included...but as usual it's a show by show basis.
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LizzG

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Re: CALLING: Light Board restart WWYD?
« Reply #10 on: Sep 30, 2010, 04:00 pm »
Similar to normierae, this situation happened for the invited dress of my current show.   However, we did hold the show.  We use SYMTE, and so the light board runs all of video and some sound as well.  We were about to go into a heavy video piece when our light board froze, and without the video, the piece wouldn't really make any sense.  So we held until the board re-booted and then started from the beginning of the piece that we left off with.

In our case, this was the only option, but I could see how in a different show, our options could have varied....