High on hit list must be Grady Gammage
Hall at ASU.
Don't forget it's sister theater - the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts! Another curved ramp from hell. We always get them docked on the IN, but on the out we get a 2nd fork op who is just the shuttle up the curve and keep the trucks on the street. Frank Lloyd Wright made things look so so pretty, but damn did he not understand how trucks need to back into a theater and how to put enough bathrooms in a place!
Another "back down and turn" access was in Huntington, WV at Marshall University field
house. It's been 25 years since I was there but I recall about 6 inches of clearance on either side of the truck from the
HVAC duct work, and getting the turn at the bottom was... challenging. IIRC we backed down to the most
level point and unloaded rather than try to make the turn. I wouldn't be surprised if the field
house has been replaced.
The actual theater in Huntington is no better - there is maybe 4' of wingspace on either side of the
proscenium. You
load in through a hole in the wall Upstage Left and the ramp in extends so far it's like 4' upstage of plaster. You can't set up Ampland until after every truck is dumped because of this.
Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center - one of Izenour's. Oh my.
You don't love pushing a truck through a convention center, forking it onto the conventions presentation
stage to push into the upstage hallway into another theater?! I love watching Fork Operators knock my sound towers over repeatedly!
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I'll add to this - Mother Lode Theater in Butte Montana, Grand
Opera House in Macon Georgia -- both are external pneumatic elevators that hold almost nothing. A fair number of the "stagehands" tend to be junkies in both venues, they
love to push boxes real fast, they
hate to follow directions about where those boxes go. In both you street dump the trucks and shuttle what you can in on the elevator. The Mother Lode you're unloading onto a like 10 degree grade of a street that hasn't been paved in a decade. Every box is a murder box that wants to
roll, hit a pothole, and flip over. The theater is one of the tiniest that takes in
Yellow Card shows in the country, and when I was there all your "stagehands" were work
release prisoners from the county jail.
The Capitol Theater in Wheeling, West Virginia, it's a street dump and a 200' push up a semi-paved alley. The loading door is only 6.5' tall so you need to flip most of the amp racks to get them in, and fully unload scenic carts on the street. It's wonderful in winter. The State Theater in New Brunswick, NJ was the same, but at least now they have a tiny baby dock after years and years of renovations. The biggest difference was that the Stagehands from Local 21 had a
load-in at The State down to a science.
The Beau Rivage in Biloxi, MS - your trucks need to circle a parking garage very carefully to get to the single spot that is closest to the elevator. It's a 200' push in the parking garage from the trucks to the elevator, at least the loading elevator is pretty big and goes up 5 stories directly onto
Stage Left.
Easton, PA - Used to be a hell of a street
load-in on a grade. Now the trucks
park on the roof and an elevator shuttles gear from
stage level to the roof of the
venue.
Pioneer Center, Reno, Nevada - The theater is underground, you load trucks 1 at a time from a tiny tiny tiny elevator. It's one of the most un-ideal loading situations in the country. You legitimately have to choose to either uphold artistic integrity of the show and get it all in, or cut scenery and maybe an
electric or two so you have space in the
venue for what would normally be back-load so you can get to your next
venue on time.
Connor Palace, Cincinnati OH -
Stage door is great, but you literally
build the truck dock at the top of the
call. Heavy steel grated plates. Boxes don't want to
roll on them correctly, people get hurt building the dock.
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As far as Local 1 stuff, I'm not a member of 1 but when I'm not touring I predominately work in 1's jurisdiction.
Stage 42 is kind of tricky, it's a street dump with a huge hydraulic elevator to get things up to the 4th floor. Dyer Ave has a direct
line to traffic coming in the Lincoln Tunnel so it's a pain when trucks have to circle, at least it's easy enough to get trucks parked on 41st street. Better than loading into any of the venues on Theater Row or at the Signature just because of how big
Stage 42's elevator is. Doesn't make it any less tricky because the scale of show at
Stage 42 tends to be a lot larger than those other venues.
Most of the Broadway theaters are just insanely dumb street dumps but nothing out of the ordinary for an NYC, and better coordinated than most every corporate loading situation. A standard Broadway IN is a
walk in the
park compared to a corporate gig with an event space, or an old hotel (The Plaza is pretty miserable push using elevators and hallways designed for 1900's needs in 2020). The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History at least have truck docks, and insanely regulated procedures for getting in and out - the downsides are the security checks to get trucks docked, and the insane paths to get around the most valuable artwork (Very much needed, adds hours to the
call).
On Broadway you're paying a person to manage sidewalk traffic all day to keep the flow of pedestrians uninterrupted. You're constantly shuffling things from the sidewalk in and out of lobbies and alleys to make sure it all fits in a secure location by the end of the day and doesn't hit cars or pedestrians during the day. Truth be told, the good venues with better Production Management tend to flow really really well. Your biggest issue is when
PRG totally bungles the delivery or pickup slots and then you have 4 trucks all vying to be docked first to make their next pickup/dropoff, the
Teamsters are getting testy because they see 4 trucks and know they won't be getting an easy day, and you can't split loaders so they'll be at it until the back-log of trucks is cleared. Truth be told
@RonHebbard I haven't seen any drinking on a Local 1 In/Out - times have changed, and I am very used to Producers or reps from the Producing Office walking around and breathing down necks to
clear up any inefficiencies they see. The
house folks always talk about the "good old days" when they could have a few lunch beers or do something harder at their tech tables or in their offices, but I haven't seen it in any of my experiences.
The hardest part of a Broadway In/Out tends to be the sheer number of people, many of whom haven't worked in that particular
venue before. You get a lot of folks from the
hall who may be trying out the
Stagehand life and don't know too much. They see boxes, they want to push them. This is no different from a majority of touring venues around America. The difference is that these new folks (and I won't say young, just new, lot's of mid-life career transition folks, or people who
bounce jobs and know when Local 1 is going to be busy with Ins/Outs) is the they don't know where the
Teamsters/
IATSE line is on the truck and in an urge to be too helpful piss off the
teamsters to the
point that all work grinds to a halt.
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The "OTHER" Local 1 -- If you want a good video of a MISERABLE loading situation, check out
ITEA's videos of the Stanley Theater pre-renovation where they added a truck dock. ITEA Local 1, Only One. The crew would suddenly be on an endless coffee when they heard the word "Cadac".