Show Stop Stories

cdiamondz

Active Member
I've searched around a bit and didn't find a thread of stories of stopping shows, so I'm now creating one. Since I'm suggesting this, I might as well put my story here and let the rest of the community share their stories.

We were showing Suessical the Musical spring 2017. Since it was a school show, we skipped intermission and such to keep the running time shorter. What had happened was a student had a seizure the scene after "intermission" (a blackout extended by 30 seconds where we still had house lights come up dimly so school staff could monitor the high schoolers). One of the spot ops called it out over the headset when he saw some teachers moving towards a student laying on the ground. This lead to an immediate show stop, worklights and house lights going to full and curtain closing, all mics were muted, and a short announcement stating the the show was on hold for some time. EMS showed up a couple minutes later and took the student to the hospital. We then skipped some slow songs due to loss in time and finished the show on time.

What's your guys' stories of show stops?
 
We had a local school in for a chorus concert once and a student collapsed backstage and went into cardiac arrest. Did essentially the same as you said, once EMT's were on scene the director decided to continue the performance as they worked on the kid backstage. It was pretty rough, the student ended up being OK, but they had to defibrillate before they transported.

One of the things I tell my kids to consider in these situations is that they may be called upon to go and wait for emergency services. Our building seems very familiar to us, but to new people it is a maze. In that situation I had my SM go wait on the loading dock for them to arrive and not leave until he led them to the student that was arresting. Every second counts. Fortunately mom was a doctor and an audience member was a pediatrician. Both were performing CPR until EMT's arrived.
 
Just a couple weeks ago I, opening night of Fiddler and I'm standing in the back of the house just watching the show. Suddenly in the middle of Miracles of Miracles I just hear this loud hollering- One the first one, I figured open dressing room mic, 2nd I start thinking who backstage would be screaming lick that, as the 3rd on started I knew sound would have had it by now and I start seeing movement in the house. House manager is oblivious and I go running down the aisle. Patron had just came out of a seizure a family member tells me and think he is fine, doesn't want to leave (turns out it was a dad to one of the kids in the show). So I let them know if they need anything I'm just 5 rows behind them. Short time later family stands and waves me down, had another one and stopped breathing, but is conscious now. I get the attention of the Director and her husband who come help him to the lobby as I'm the phone with 911.

In hindsight I felt I should have insisted he come the lobby after the first incident. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of quick response from the house manager/crew though it was his first time and its an all volunteer house with no recent history on a medical emergency during a show. So I'm just thankful I was there and not buried in the light booth. Only person on the production team that even knew anything was happening was sound until I came back in to tell them, which worries me slightly.

No show stop but I was close and one of those moments I spent the next week reliving think of how I could have reacted differently. Thankfully the patron recovered and is working with their doctor to find the cause. Was able to come he his son and the show the following weekend.
 
I think I've told the story but I was in trap room operating dry ice fog machines (of my own design and manufacture) and the trap hardware failed, with actress coming through. Stopped the show for half an hour or so. One of the other actors decided to vamp, reciting Shakespeare ala El Grande Coca Cola (he is one of the authors). ATD quickly built a support structure under trap for the rest of the show, obviously now sans trap gag; actress recovered; and the show went on.
 
OMG! Where do I start? One of my Favorite ones was opening night of "A Streetcar Named Desire" at Artists Repertory Theatre. 3/4 thrust stage with two voms leading to the entrance. During the rehearsal process the violence in the "dinner scene" grew and Grew and GREW to the point that at the height of the argument Stanley lifts his plate and throws it down the vom. I winched during first tech. By the second tech I was uncomfortable. By third tech I mentioned, during notes that I was thoroughly against the idea and that it was just plain dangerous. Opening Night, Stanley throws that plate, it catches just enough air on the edge and it sails into the audience. It beaned the husband of the the reviewer for the Willamette Week, local paper. A collective gasp, dead silence, then you hear from the Audience, " Holy *#&(!". Stanley Stopped, looked into the audience and immediately said, " I'm so Sorry, do you need medical attention?" The man said "No, I'm ok. Keep going." Stanley took a breath, Looked out at the audience and said "Ok, the next line is..." and fell right back into character. From an Acting point it was incredibly amazing. From a technical point it was avoidable, and the bit changed the next night.
 
I was on a ship once, on a conglomerate body of water, when an earthquake struck. It was weird to feel nothing abnormal, but watching everyone on land move about. So we went "full stop" and got out of sight of the audience until everything stopped moving.
 
OK. since the subject has come up I'll toss one in. This wasn't a "show stop," but it did produce a rather long intermission.

I was working as TD and LD at a summer theatre doing operettas, mostly Gilbert & Sullivan, some Strauss, Offenbach, Lehar, etc.. The theatre was in a (surprise!) converted barn. About a 300 seat house, 20' proscenium, not much in the way of flies (old hay loft, maybe?) and what looked like a home-brew light board. The supply was 120-240 V single phase AC.

The board was in two pieces. The first unit had three 6kW autotransformer dimmers, each with a 3-position switch. The "DOWN" switch position fed the dimmer output to load connectors on the board, the "CENTER" was OFF, and "UP" fed the dimmer output to the other part of the board. Dimmers 1 and 3 were fed from the "A" side of the 120-240 feed; dimmer 2 was fed from the "B" side of the supply. (I know; not a balanced load, but not my design.)

The other part of the board consisted of 3 banks of six 1 kW autotransformers. Each dimmer also had a 3-position switch controlling the power to the dimmer; "DOWN" was CONSTANT (dimmers alternating between "A" and "B" sides of the supply), the "CENTER" was OFF, and "UP" was powered by one of the three master dimmers. On bank one (dimmers 1-6) the constant power supply alternated between sides of the supply, "A"-"B"-"A"-"B"-"A"-"B", while power for all six dimmers from the bank's master dimmer was from the "A" side of the supply. A similar situation existed on dimmer banks 2 and 3. The result was that in each bank three of the dimmer's power switches had the full 240V across the two switch positions. I did not know of this situation at the time I took the job, but I found out soon enough. The switches were of a type that did not have a mechanical pause between positions.

Fast forward to the activity. First show of the season. I was using the "A" master dimmer in its "Independednt" mode for house lights and its "Master" mode for the FOH DS areas (5) and curtain warmers (1) which also served as DS side lights. As the show begins: house down, overture, curtain warmers down, switch curtiain warmers from CONSTANT to MASTER & set first cue level, switch master dimmer from house to MASTER, curtain, all FOH comes up with curtain. Then the rest of the show and pretty much the reverse at the end of each act. This procedure worked fine for five of the six perfrormances.

Fast forward to the end of Act I on closing night. All FOH is now @ 10 on master dimmer. Now, I usually switched the curtain warmers from MASTER to CONSTANT at this point, to leave them up on the curtain as the rest of the FOH stuff goes down on curtain close. This was usually done at a convenient point in the last number, usually a big chorus number of some kind. Apparently I had been lucky for the preceding five performances and always managed to make this switch somewhere near the zero-crossing of the AC power. Not so this time, when I managed to switch at the peak of the AC cycle, which resulted in a nice 240V arc across the dimmer's power switch. This arc, which did not extinguish itself, began throwing flame out of the front and back of the board. After what seemed like a half-hour of this (but was probably not more than 5 seconds) I pulled the board master power, which not only killed the arc but also killed everything else. And as the house lights were fed from the board, when the board lost power the house emergency lights came on. (Nice little battery-powered jobs, one at each corner of the room.) Our very unflappable conductor never lost a beat and finished the last pages of the score in total darkness except for the spill from the orchestra stand lights. After applause died he announced that intermission would be longer than usual and urged everyone to visit the patio bar.

I spent intermission tearing into the board, disconnecting the burned switch and wiring the circuit to a couple of switches nailed to a hastily made 1x3 frame sitting on top of the board. We finished the performance (after a long intermission--the bar did well that night) and I spent the following weekend replacing the switch and re-wiring half of the board so that nothing switched from one side of the 240V supply to the other. I still have the burned-up switch in my collection of oddities.
 
A nice memory of a fire hazard :p. Sounds extremely sketchy to even exist... Might I ask what kind of dimmers were in this deathtrap? Were they variacs?

EDIT: Dumb me doesn't remember that the dimmer type was mentioned...


Well, probably no more of a "death trap" than any of the other hundreds (thousands?) of summer theatres-in-a-barn all over the country. As to the dimmers, no, not variacs. Superior Elec. 1kW & 6kW autotrasnformers. The masters were non-interlocking and were mounted in a steel case with handles & switches on the front, about 36" wide, 30" deep and 48" high, with a sloping top, with clipboard & cue sheet light. The individuals were mounted in three rows of 6 in a steel case, about 54" wide, 50" high and 14" deep. The dimmers units themselves were mounted on panels about 10" high x 8" wide with vertical control handles and (the infamous) switches on front. (I'm going from memory here; this was all about 55 years go.) The dimmer board sat to the operator's left of the master board, which faced the stage. All located DSL.
 
Just a few weeks ago, my wife and I were watching our son in one of his first Equity roles in George Bernard Shaw's Candida at a summer theatre near Ottawa. Ten minutes from the end, he suddenly fainted and went down hard, banging his head on a footstool. In seconds, two doctors and a nurse, in the audience from Montreal, were on the stage tending to him; a local policeman who was in the audience was contacting emergency services and using his pull to get them moving. And, of course, his parents were in the theatre at the time. Long story short, they cancelled the evening show but he was back next day. Gall bladder problems that led to a toxic shock incident -- he has new dietary guides and is fully recovered. He was so limp from the faint that there wasn't even a bruise from banging his head, although it was LOUD! Or maybe that was just from his dad's perspective.

Anyway, that same run had two later power outages that stopped and eventually cancelled performances. Which has to be some kind of record.
 
A nice memory of a fire hazard :p. Sounds extremely sketchy to even exist... Might I ask what kind of dimmers were in this deathtrap? Were they variacs?

EDIT: Dumb me doesn't remember that the dimmer type was mentioned...

Wait. I thought a variance was just another name for auto-transformer. Am I wrong?
 
Wait. I thought a "variance" was just another name for auto-transformer. Am I wrong?
@JChenault Without claiming any authority, herewith my thoughts and beliefs on the subject:
An autotransformer normally affords zero electrical isolation between its primary and secondary windings.
An autotransformer's ratio may be fixed, tapped, or continuoualy variable.
"Variac", as distinct from your term "variance" I believe is a specific brand / model name for a brand of continuously variable autotransformer cleverly combining Variable with alternating current / AC coining the catchy term: Variac.
"Variance" I believe falls more within the realms of @BillConnerFASTC and @Stevens R. Miller where I believe it relates to seeking a minor change in required specifications and / contractual terms although I could easily be incorrect with my hasty semi-definition of a "variance" being neither a Fellow of the American Society of Theatrical Consultants nor called to the bar.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

Wait. I thought a variance was just another name for auto-transformer. Am I wrong?
 
@JChenault Without claiming any authority, herewith my thoughts and beliefs on the subject:
An autotransformer normally affords zero electrical isolation between its primary and secondary windings.
An autotransformer's ratio may be fixed, tapped, or continuoualy variable.
"Variac", as distinct from your term "variance" I believe is a specific brand / model name for a brand of continuously variable autotransformer cleverly combining Variable with alternating current / AC coining the catchy term: Variac.
"Variance" I believe falls more within the realms of @BillConnerFASTC and @Stevens R. Miller where I believe it relates to seeking a minor change in required specifications and / contractual terms although I could easily be incorrect with my hasty semi-definition of a "variance" being neither a Fellow of the American Society of Theatrical Consultants nor called to the bar.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

Actually I typed variac. The auto correct liked variance better.

Must proofread better
 
"Called to the bar?"

I always thought "variance" meant "the expectation of the squared deviation of a random variable from its mean."
@Stevens R. Miller Please note: I did say "I could easily be incorrect with my hasty semi-definition of a "variance" and I could just as easily be a 'deviate' and / or a square, squared or derived deviation as well. ;^) Aren't semantics a wonderful thing?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
I was in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest when fairly late in the show Lady Bracknell started forgetting lines. After a few saves by other actors she stood up from the chair she had been sitting in, declared in an impeccable and slightly over the top British accent, "Carry on. If you can!" and prompltly feinted. As there were no understudies, the show ended with a couple of us telling the audience how the show concluded.
 
I was in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest when fairly late in the show Lady Bracknell started forgetting lines. After a few saves by other actors she stood up from the chair she had been sitting in, declared in an impeccable and slightly over the top British accent, "Carry on. If you can!" and prompltly feinted. As there were no understudies, the show ended with a couple of us telling the audience how the show concluded.

I watched a production some years ago where something similar happened. But they just got the ASM out on stage holding a script and acting with the rest of the actors.
 
Yep. If only "auto correct" would exclusively correct the misspelled words... I've also noticed that the auto correction algorithms tend to have a bit of Aunt Pollie's prudishness, too. Certain words drop consonants, change vowels or become something else entirely. Not that we use such words here at Control Booth, but in private conversations this can be frustrating.

Edit PS... Arrrg. Can't edit to include a quote that was omitted in the original reply.
This was a response to JChenault's "Actually I typed variac. The auto correct liked variance better."
 

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