Or the ever-startling "Well that's not supposed to happen..."
I've seen more problems because of someone saying that than, "heads." "Heads," means run and
cover your head. "Well that's not supposed to happen...," and "Uh-oh," seem to mean, "come over and look at what happened."
Here's an important question, for those of us who work with non-theatre people (or new comers) on a frequent basis, do you give a quick
safety talk to everyone, do you
cover things like "heads" or "
clear the
deck," though "
clear the
deck is fairly self explanatory. What about for new comers to the craft, such as students, how do you engrain the meanings of things like "heads" into their brains? It's one thing to know you're supposed run away from the source covering your head, and it's another to actually do it without thinking/looking up. Anyone drill their students on this? What about "
clear the
stage," does anyone make known the safest spots to
clear to if you are in an area, or how to do it without thinking? What about if you have an
orchestra pit, is there a rule that you never
clear in the direction of it (incase it's down and you don't realize it until too late) or do you just say, run away from the source as fast as you can. What about those carrying large equipment, when they here a "heads" or a "
clear the
stage"
call, what are they supposed to do with the equipment? Are they supposed to
drop/toss it, carry it, set it down and then run,
etc? Have they been told to do so? What if it turns out someone only dropped a washer/
nut, not a hammer, are the guys that tossed the Hog aside going to now be in trouble for attempting to save themselves? What about the person that yelled "heads," is he responsible for not calling out that it was a washer and not a hammer? You can hear the impending
stage weight on its way down, you won't hear a
nut or a hammer until it's too late. Lots of discussion and questions to be had in this area.
What about mid-show problems, say the ASM sees a
fresnel lens housing slip and open up (we'll say there's a
barn door too and whether or not it is secured is unknown), what is the young ASM supposed to do? Have you covered it with them?