epic theatre fail

Since the OP hasn't been back to verify the story, and the number of implausibilities in it, I'm calling BS on the story (or the OP has realized he's been duped into believing another theater "urban legend")

1. '3rd degree rope burns' would mean his hands literally caught fire and charred his flesh.

2. Nobody dies on a cross in "Joseph"

3. Taking a blackout after a serious theatrical catastrophe is stupid.
 
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I'm seeing yet another problem here. Why was the cross not attached in a way that it wouldn't fall off if suddenly stopped? What happened to the 5:1 (it is 5:1 for rigged scenery, right) safety margin? And I know its higher than that for anything that people are flown on (plus safety lines, ect). Calling What Rigger or Footer.......

From what I've gathered around the booth(DO NOT take my word for it,) it's 3:1 for "Regular equipment", 5:1 for scenery(as you said), and 10:1 for people(and only to be done professionally)
 
... and I'm not sure if this has been pointed out yet...

But Jesus almost can't fall on his face. Since most line sets stop about 4 feet or so off the ground, that cross would have to be really poorly set up... so poorly that it practically wouldn't fly period.


I agree with everyone else and call the bluff.
 
Not that I'm against calling the bluff, Westlake, but it's not out of the range of possibility that something didn't get tightened down properly, a rope was used and it broke, the cross broke, "Jesus" jumped/slipped, etc...there are a lot of mistakes that could be made, remember this is highschool, or seems like it was, even if it wasn't explicitly mentioned. Of course that's all assuming Jesus was magically involved.

But again, I'm still for calling the bluff.
 
Yeah, I tried wording it so that it didn't seem completely impossible, simply improbable. Of course, rigging that poor would seem to make you have other problems, long before the outta weight Jesus.

Of course, I'm in high school myself and nobody here at Westlake is stupid enough to do anything of the sort without a certified rigger setting it up and being present 100% of the time the show is run (or at least that that line set is being used).
 
Brooms indeed! So, shall we pronounce this thread DOA?
 
Brooms indeed! So, shall we pronounce this thread DOA?
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I've been thinking the same thing for a week.
 
You know... Funny enough something like this happened at my high school. We were doing Jesus Christ Superstar (Which DOES have Jesus in it, on a cross.) I wasn't backstage at the time, but something happened with the rigging of our giant wooden cross. It was flying in, and a few feet or so before it hit the ground something broke. I don't recall what, but suddenly the cross was on the ground. Thankfully it didn't fall, but a crew member was able to get behind it and hold it steady while they attached our Jesus to it for the rest of the show. (There was a big stand in front, so it wasn't falling forward. If it went back our cyc wall would not be too pretty!)

Something, somewhere went wrong. (For all I know THAT is the reason that one pipe is still broken.)(... High school theater.)Thankfully we don't ACTUALLY attach our actor to a giant wooden cross. The rest of the show went fine, and there was still one more night to go.
 
Ah, I was mistaken. It wasn't the reinforcements, it wasn't the 200 pound cross, it was the brakes on our system. They were lowering it when they stopped working and it dropped. Thankfully the bar didn't go with it!

Safe to say the incident could have been worse. Anyway, just wanted to say that crosses can fall, with Jesus on them or not.
 

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