A horror story about our crew "
bows". This year, we have a SM who is doing her first show. After our opening night, the agreement was that the crew was going to go down and stand in the procession
line as people leave (see my post a few posts up if you don't know what I mean). So as the lights come up for the
curtain call, everyone in the booth (two sound people, another lighting person besides myself, and the SM) all run down the stairs, apparently trying to be the first into the procession
line. After the
curtain call the lights go down and the curtain closes, and since the SM's
headset is lying 5 feet from me and off, I
call backstage to see if I am good to bring the
house up. The response is "we're all out here in the
lobby." Apparently, they shut the curtain then sprinted out to the
lobby as well. So after leaving the audience in darkness for about 20 seconds, I finally bring up the
house - to find that the curtain had snagged on a set piece and was hanging half open giving a
clear view into backstage. So I go down to the
stage and fix the curtain, right as our new TD shows up and asks what the hell just happened.
Although some good comes out of everything. The practice of having techs out in the
lobby is now officially over, and will never be done again. Just because the curtain's closed (or not quite closed) doesn't mean our work is done.