CALLING: Stop The Show!

[cuelight]

Was anyone else available - ie FOH staff or free actors? If so, could you have safely handed them the job of cleaning it up?

Oh I wish that had been the case in some ways. FOH staff were dealing with the Main Stage interval at the time (such great timing) and whomever else was free was manning the bars. My cast itself were comprised of 5 actors - 4 of them who've been in the industry a considerable amount of time (2 of them relatively well known) and I can just image the look I would have been given. I wouldn't put a cast member in charge of cleaning up something if I could have left it for 5 minutes and then get back to it but it would have been very cheeky of me to ask that of that particular cast.

Could the area in question be issolated from cast/crew safely? (ie was there risk of electrical shorting due to water down there) - if so, would it have been possible to do a quick walk through and make sure everything is out of harms way, and just closed off the area? Would that have been feasable?

There was a risk of the flooding getting into the dimmer room which was just off the area which was flooding. If I had isolated the affected area I would effectively cut off my cast from obtaining their quick change costumes and they wouldn't have been able to get into their dressing rooms for the rest of the show. The building isn't very well designed for two spaces really.

When the LX op, who I would assume had a decent view of the stage, noticed the actors did not enter, why did he/she not re-cue them?

I ask myself that a lot as well. The only think that I can think of is that she's never used cue lights before and wasn't sure what was happening. Granted, if she had left the cue light on green 20 seconds longer than she had then the actors would have gone straight onstage (albeit late) and all would have been well.

Should the actors not know the show well enough to know that the amount of time they were standing there was not normal?

Again, it makes me wonder. I'm still not entirely sure why they didn't check to see where we were in the script.

And as for the producers. As unprofessional as it may come across, I wasn't impressed with them much. Being berated for stopping a show (because it appeared to them that I had planned a flood - yes, because I like putting myself in complicated situations. Oh dear) was nothing new to me by the point that they did it. They'd already committed every other thing that you could possibly not want to a producer to do by that point. I just smiled and nodded and then explained to them - which they then did not believe so it took the theatre manager and the technical manager to explain it to them.

The producers don't really annoy me. I've dealt with difficult and complicated situations before now and the producers have been - extraordinarily trying to say the least. I'm just wondering if someone would have done things differently than I had done it as it was my first show stop.

The obvious answer to me is that if I wasn't terribly understaffed in the stage management department and I had one other person to be on deck at the time then it would have made it all a bit smoother.

[kiwitechgirl]

I've had three show stops; the first in a production of Les Mis when a smoke alarm that should have been on the isolation circuit proved not to be (the wind was in a funny quarter that night, which is why we hadn't discovered this earlier!).  I hasten to add that it was smoke machine smoke which triggered it, not something burning!  We made tannoy calls backstage and god mic calls FOH along the lines of "due to unforseen circumstances we can't continue this performance, please leave the building calmly by the nearest exit".  Fantine got to sing I Dreamed a Dream twice that night! 

The second stop was on a production of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; we had a revolve set off-centre with three walls dividing it up; each "room" was a different office and we'd revolve it to change the scene.  There was also a fixed wall off the revolve, and on opening night somehow a piece of timber came loose on one of the revolve walls, caught the fixed wall when we revolved, and pulled the whole fixed wall down on the revolve operator's head.  Tabs were shut pretty smartly, and the "voice of the Book" actor got on the god mic and announced a short unscheduled interval while we put the wall back up and made sure the crew member was alright!

The third stop was on a panto production of Cinderella; after leaving the ball, Cinders was clipped to flying lines, ran across the stage and was whisked up in the air, out of sight.  Other cast members ran on looking for her, found the shoe and exited, then Cinders was flown back in in her rags, having got rid of the dress while up in the air (we had a bag in the rig for her to stuff it in!).  One night things were going well, Cinders flew up, cast ran on, found shoe, had discussion about it and exited.  We waited for Cinders to reappear, and waited, and waited, and waited, until there was a shout from the people-flying operator of "She's stuck!".  Turned out a wire had jumped off a pulley and so Cinders was stuck about 15 feet up in the air.  Tabs were flown in, we rescued Cinders with the tallescope, and continued with the show!  The actress playing Cinders was totally unfazed, I guess maybe because she'd got stuck up in the air, rather than falling or not flying at all because something had gone wrong, and had no worries about flying the next night (Foys did come in to check the rig before we used it again!); certainly shows trust in our flying operators

[OldeWolf]

Well, I called my first Show Stop tonight. Suddenly, during the first Act, just as one of my actors had exited the "mattress store" leaving his woman customer laying on the mattress she is considering buying, patrons began leaping to their feet in the first three rows. In less than 15 seconds I had reports over walkie talkie that an older gentleman had just become ill. I signaled my Sound Op who reached for the phone and called 911. We're a very small house, 88 seats, so I stepped out in to the house, and saw the man and his party step out the lower exit at the edge of the stage. One of my actors came to me saying he is a First Responder, so I sent him in to the rest room with the man before stepping back in to the house to tell the audience that everything was under control and thank them for their patience. Bounced back and forth between the booth and the hallway where the rest room was until EMTs arrived and 911 operator was willing to sign off and let us hang up the phone.

Once the pros were there to take care of the patron, I directed my crew back to what we do best. I made another announcement that the gentleman was being released to go home and that we would resume the show as soon as everyone was in their seat. They quieted almost immediately.I brought the house lights down, directed the crew to cue my actor, and resumed the show. The last 45 seconds of the scene played out, lights out, bow light came up and the cast got a standing ovation with swelling applause for the woman who had lain perfectly still, eyes closed, for the eight minutes it took to resolve the situation and finish the play. At intermission we had several people stop by the booth to tell us how impressed they were at how smoothly and professionally we'd handled it. Whew. I'm just glad the guy was alright and the rest of the show was smooth as silk.

Owen

[Mac Calder]

I have noticed that smaller houses tend to be far more forgiving of show stops than larger ones - your experiance seems to confirm that. I am glad everything went smoothly, and god knows why they gave such applause to the actress who stayed in position - she probably had a wonderful nap whilst there... lucky person ;-)

[killerdana]

Years ago I was in the house for a bad show stop.  I was seeing the tour of Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Chicago.  At the beginning of Act II, the Narrator was singing her opening number and messed up.  Instead of just covering and going on, she actually stopped the show and asked the orchestra to start the whole song over.  This was way back in college before I was stage managing seriously, but it just seemed extremely unprofessional.  It's one thing to stop for an emergency or a tech issue, but to stop because you flubbed your lines is silly.

[philimbesi]

I was at a production of something (either Crazy For You or Me and My Girl) with Tommy Tune, they were doing a scene and one actor just blew up, couldn't cover and the scene just started to deteriorate.  All of a sudden Tommy walks out on stage stops them, calling the actors by names and says "These people paid good money for these seats!  We're going to start this scene from the top and do it right", and then left the stage.  The lights went back to the first cue of the scene, the set peices that started the scene came back out and the show picked up from the top of the scene. 

The audience laughed but I just remember staring at the stage with my mouth agape. 

[OldeWolf]

I think you're probably right, Mac. My little house is more than forgiving. It's our policy to call a stop if a patron shows signs of heart attack or seizure. We're a community theater, have no trained house manager or ushers, and it's part of my job as Stage Manager to call emergency services and see that everyone is okay. My employer called me the next day to commend me for handling the situation as I did. I don't think I would have done it quite the same in a house that seats 500 or 800, if trained house staff could have stepped in, taken care of the patron and the emergency call, letting me know what was going on with minimum disruption. As it was, with a third of my audience rapidly becoming involved in what was going on in those first few rows, there was no way to keep the audience's attention on the stage. 

Owen

I have noticed that smaller houses tend to be far more forgiving of show stops than larger ones - your experiance seems to confirm that. I am glad everything went smoothly, and god knows why they gave such applause to the actress who stayed in position - she probably had a wonderful nap whilst there... lucky person ;-)

[nmno]

Well, I'm no longer a virgin to stopping shows.  I've been PART of stopped shows, but never the one driving the bus at the time.  And I've been part of shows where scenery was held up so we just had to vamp, or hold for a few seconds, but never actually STOP.  Had to stop in the first couple of minutes due to automation failure.  And there was part of me that was going to offer to run the deck tonight instead of call because I wasn't feeling up to it... 

[Jessie_K]

I had to stop my show earlier this week.  Far from the first time, probably not the last.  It sure does get my heart pounding every time though.

Dance show on tour.  Sound stopped (some sort of mechanical error that didn't happen during dress rehearsal).  Crew reacted quickly when I started calling for curtain, god mic, etc.  Took a couple minutes to sort of the issue and started back up.

[loebtmc]

Had to laugh - cuz while the cast was blithely doing the show, we behind the scenes were dealing with:
- an acrid, burnt smell drifting up into the booth, source unknown - was something on fire someplace?
- the light board decided it wasn't happy on its electrical power source and flipped to emergency back-up battery, which has a 10-minute window before going to black, so crew is standing by the emergency overheads
- 2 blocks away a pipe bomb has gone off, so we don't know if we are going to have to evacuate the bldg and if so, where they will go
- someone onstage has cut himself (minor) but clearly doesn't know, since he is touching everything and every one, but because the blood is in odd places on people's costumes we can't figure out who it is (until intermission, when we do a quick rinse/dry on the worst blood spots and send them back onstage)

isn't theater fun!

Actually, this is why we do live shows - you just never know what can happen and what skills you will pull our solving these things before halting the show. I love it!

[sourc3]

I've only ever had to stop a show once when mid-show our lightboard went nutso on us. Brought all the lights up to 25% for about 5 seconds and then went black. I was merely a spot-op at that point in time, but as I had done a bit of the lighting design and load-in (this was a HS production) I had to help figure everything out. Turns out our one back-up floppy was either corrupt, or the idiot board-op who had written the cues just forgot to back up the show. We lost ALL our cues, and when the lights finally came back up, we had lost seven instruments >.< When we took them down the following day, all the instruments that had gone out had bubbly bulbs. Not a fun night - quickly wrote about 8 subs and improved the rest of the show.

[KMC]

Bubbly lamps?  Sounds like someone touched the lamps with their fingers and didn't clean it properly 

[lilmonki in black]

I've had a couple... I'm an event manager for a campus theater.  We get all sorts of things.  Dance concerts, pageants, you name it.

Sometime last spring, our main rag started having issues.  If you opened or closed it too quickly, the ropes would fall off the pulleys.  Since our backstage crew consists of whoever the client brings in, it's difficult to get them to pull the curtain a bit slower.  Until it falls off the track in the middle of a show.  When that happens, we clear the performers offstage, pull up the house lights, and my crew (all two of us) bolt down to the stage, pull out the ladder, put the rope back on all the pulleys, strike it, run back upstairs, thank the audience, and get going.  Thankfully, I think we've fixed it. (knock wood)

The last time I had to stop a show was due to one of my crew.  She was new, belligerent as could be, since she's about my same age and has 'worked in so many professional theaters'.   We were running a Junior Miss pageant. I asked her a few times to check her cds.  We had only one rehearsal, like ya do for things like this and I wanted her to be absolutely certain she was ready.  (Being a pageant, we had about 27.)  So.  First time I asked her 'Yes'.  Second time "YES"  Third time (almost yelling at me) "YES I've checked my cds!"  ... I'm sure you can guess where this is going...  We get the show started.  The MC announces the girls for their opening number.  We go to black.  "standby lights and sound... lights and sound -" "I DON'T HAVE MY CD"  "... Excuse me?"  The pageant director came running up after a couple of seconds, told us she had another one.  She didn't want us to bring the girls offstage so we could bring house lights back up.  So I went on the godmic and announced that the show would continue momentarily.  By the time we got the cd and cued it up, the audience had been sitting in black for 6 minutes.

PS... she doesn't work for me anymore.

I've never had to stop an actual play... though I have had light boards keel on me.  It happened once during the prologue of a show.  It was a small theater and it was not a really structured show... so I used my flashlight on the performer while my op booted the board back up.  I was told that the same board had done that a few times... I realized later that it was because the op would kick the plugs under the board...  The theater has since fixed that problem.

[erin]

I've had to completely stop a show only once- when a dimmer rack caught on fire (faulty wiring in an old building.)

There was acrid smoke pouring out of the dimmer vault, the lighting board started smoking out the back, and lamps overstage started blowing like geysers.  Eventually sprinklers activated backstage, but not until after i'd started evacuated the building.

As backstage started ushering the cast out the back, i had the undergrad board op bring up emergency house lights (the board essentially shorted and froze) and started to make an evacuation announcement via godmic when the smoke alarm went off, deafening, and made it pretty clear that it was time to get out.

Scarily, the house manager had turned down the volume on her walkie talkie and i couldn't get through to her when things started.  She clued in once the alarm went off.

The horrible irony is that the ME knew there was some sort of problem and had left us a note that there was an odd smell in the dimmer vault, and to turn off the master power switch in the vault if anything went wrong, but because the switch was in the BACK of vault, past the smoking racks, we couldn't get to it without suffocating.  I spent precious minutes trying to get him on the phone in vain.

It was just into the fifth act of a shakespeare, so the actors finished the show on the front lawn while i guided in the fire department and emergency crew.

[philimbesi]

Last year I got very close, kept the show running but went through and reminded our ops and managers what we were going to do if we had to. 

We were doing the Crucible, I directed the show, so as usual I had nothing to do during the show, I'm sitting backstage watching from the wings, and I smell smoke.  Now I'm a volunteer firefighter of course the first thing I do is look up and make sure our 80year old curtains aren't burning, next check the dimmer racks, nothing.  So I figure maybe just maybe it's a fireplace or something.  My SM comes over to me and says, the building next door is on fire! 

I go out the stage door and sure enough there's fire rolling out of the second story of the building two doors down from us.  The theater wasn't in immediate danger so I told my SM to start talking to people who's doing what, I wasn't worried about the building catching, more worried about the Fire Company cutting power to the building.   She said, "We've already handled it."

Then I switched from Director to firefighter and ran next door to help get people out of the apartments not on the fire floor.   When the fire department got there I pulled the Fire Marshall aside told him the situation and asked him if he wanted the theater evacuated, he said not at this time.   

We finished the first act and the theater company's president made a curtain announcement about the fire and said if anyone wished to leave they could and we would refund the money, some got up to check their cars but all stayed, and when Danforth said, "We burn a hot fire here mister" in the second act, the audience started laughing. 


The rest of the show went exactly as planned but directors notes were very sparse the next night mainly because, I spent the rest of the night helping to treat people on the curb and running water over to the firefighters.   Glad I had a kick butt SM to hand the show to.