Stage edge safety

[Sayen]

Ouch Derek, sorry - didn't mean it quite like that. I was picturing students who like to run around in dark rooms without permission when I said that. I tend to write too colloquially, don't read too far into it.

In response to the thread, I think two simple posts at each end of the stage with a thick white strap or white flags strung between them would be simple and fast. It doesn't reach the edge of the stage, but the few feet of slack in the line should stop someone from reaching the edge.

 

[themuzicman]

Having no pit, it is kind of ridiculous to have to mark out a safety landing for a 3 foot drop.

In my current school, the stage is only raised two inches from the floor, but in high school I had a raised proscenium stage, and honestly, you'd have to be pretty stupid to fall off of it, even in the dark. Being on a stage should give you enough warning to turn the lights on if there are no lights.

That said, when we had ballet's, I'd put a few pieces of glow tape just so the little kids wouldn't fall off the front.

 

[Grog12]

3' is enough to break your neck.

I've watched a dancer charge into a 3' deep cyc trough. With a scrim in front of it..


My grandmother's favorite theatre story is how she saw the Phantom fall into the pit.

 

[wodden]

We use two ghost lights, one by the stage door entrance and one DSC and a strap with dog clips on each end across the proscenium opening. This has worked well in all 3 theatres for the last 20 years. The dog clips make it convenient and easy to use. We also use straps in the Orchestra pit when the pit is not at Orch level.

 

[wodden]

Once had a dancer miss a 6" step and come down on the side of their foot, broke the little toe bone inside the foot. 6 weeks in a walking cast. Things can break from any height and from no height falls. Better safe than sorry.

 

[cdub260]

Once had a dancer miss a 6" step and come down on the side of their foot, broke the little toe bone inside the foot. 6 weeks in a walking cast. Things can break from any height and from no height falls. Better safe than sorry.

And dancers can and will trip on a tape line on the floor. I've seen it happen.

 

[Eboy87]

As I recall, the Oriental Theatre, for Wicked at least, has a net over the opening of the pit. No idea if it's strong enough to catch someone unlucky enough to fall. Then again, that was two years ago. No idea if it's still there.

 

[maccalder]

We use Glowire permanently installed around the edges of our pit, it can even be used during performances without the audience really noticing it - put it on a DMX relay and you can black it out on blackout cues too (we use a normally closed relay - take the DMX value > 50 and the it goes open circuit...). It is fairly easy to retro-fit as well - you just need to route a groove in the floor and bobs your uncle.

 

[derekleffew]

As I recall, the Oriental Theatre, for Wicked at least, has a net over the opening of the pit. No idea if it's strong enough to catch someone unlucky enough to fall. Then again, that was two years ago. No idea if it's still there.

I felt finding this site: InCord Safety Nets > Product Range > Baynets > Orchestra Pit Safety was worthy of resurrecting this thread.

 

[TimMiller]

Dancers can do all sorts of weird things. I now have a ML in the shop that a dancer kicked off of the edge of the stage (the ML's were behind the monitor line), so how you manage that is beyond me. Also a dancers mom was trying to sue the dance company because her kid fell of off my stage. My whole arguement was that it was a 4' stage so by law where we were no railing was necessary, and rather than following the arrows leading off of stage, the stupid kid walked over the safty lights that marked the edge of the stage (the safety lights were not exactly at edge, you had about a 3" margin of error). Most ironically this was the first show we did that had safety lights around the edge of the stage.

 

[photoatdv]

We have a wire cover over most of our below ground pit, but people seem to be good at falling onto the stairs where it isn't covered. We've had two hospitaizations and I don't want to know how many bruises.

But yes, dancers can trip on ANYTHING. They are also good at taking out cables.

 

[rchu3149]

Dancers are good at tripping.... but we have a footlight that we use when the theatre is dark at night to give enough light to warn you of the pit.... we have a net that we're supposed to use when we're not in rehearsal or performance.... we don't use it... Unless there is a show requiring pit, the pit stays up...

 

[TheDonkey]

Whoa, surprised that I've yet to comment here.

At my old school, we had a bunch of LED's soldered onto 9V battery caps(with proper resistors), and we just attached them to the old wireless mic batteries.
They had an orchestra pit, but I didn't go to the school long enough to see what happens when it's open.

At my new school, we have light switches beside every door for house/works lights, and everyone knows to tread lightly, but during shows, we never actually go to full black(this thing with our Drama head...) so that's not really much of a problem.

 

[museav]

Admitting my own foolishness here, but while working at an amphitheatre, and in broad daylight, I was concentrating too much on other things and managed to walk backwards right off the downstage lip, landing in the first row of seating. Everyone thought I had really hurt myself as I lay on the ground shaking, but I was actually just laughing so hard at my own stupidity that I couldn't get up.

The point other than admitting to being the idiot you can't always account for is that in that case lights or a painted line would have been of no benefit, it would have taken something that indicated while walking backwards that I was at or approaching the edge of the stage in time to stop. Maybe stage rumble strips???

 

[ReiRei]

Whenever our pit cover is off, we leave the pit lights on along with ghostie so there's very little chance that someone can accidentally fall in the pit.

Today we did our first full run through of Pajama Game and when we finished, not only did the actors scream as loudly as they could in excitement, they also decided to lie on the pit all at once and hang their heads over the side. As I have the loudest yelling voice in my theatre, I was the one to tell them to get the hell off of it unless they wanted to break their necks. Scary stuff.

Moral of the story? Even when the stage is lit, some people are still dumb.

*This is not a bash on actors as I know many, many intelligent actors. The stage just has a way of sucking the common sense out of even the greatest minds sometimes...

 

[tech2000]

We've only had actors (1 or 2) fall into our pit when it was open for a practice. It's only 8' or so. Although now all of our safety lights on the edge of the stage are burnt out.

 

[derekleffew]

Monica Lijewski remains hospitalized after fall from Olney stages - The Washington Post

Monica Lijewski, the actress who fell into the orchestra pit from “The Sound of Music” stage Nov. 9 during rehearsals at Olney Theatre Center, remains hospitalized with severe spinal injuries to her neck.

 

[tjrobb]

We had a bad fall when the blocking changed without all the actors knowledge. Thank God he caught himself on a piano. Only walked away with bad scrapes. PLEASE remember to let actors know if the blocking moves, especially towards the pit. Poor guy was blinded by the balcony rail units and couldn't see.

 

[chausman]

All of the tours that have come to Spokane that have had an open pit, have either had a ground row to keep the actors away from the pit, or had basically a net covering the pit.

As far as I know, in 14 years of performing, CYT has only had 1 real fall off of a stage. That was Aladdin, where on the "carpet" (a wooden platform about 6 feet off the stage floor) was pushed top far downstage and fell into the front row. The elderly couple who were going to be there were in the bathroom at the time. Aladdin pushed Jasmine into a seat, and he landed between two seats. No one was severely hurt, and the show did continue. I just heard this from a friend, I was at a different show by the same company in a different theater at the time. Other then that, we've just had kids during intermission run onstage and then jump off. For about 12 seconds when we saw them and made them go sit back down.

During Joseph and ___, when the brothers are singing about getting rid of Joseph, they were pushing him around and every show they moved farther downstage until they just about pushed him into the only pit cover that was removed, down 10' to the bottom of the pit, and through a $4k digital keyboard. They just about ended a lot of different things. Luckily, no one ever actually fell onto our wonderful parent orchestra.

Now, we have the orchestra safety lights on for every rehearsal and performance to mark the edge of the stage.

 

[Beans45601]

I had a student stage manager telling her ASM to go around the set with a flash light AN HOUR BEFORE CURTAIN and charge up all the glow tape.

Ahem. The full time professional stage manager at my theater also does this. I just don't have the heart to tell her that, well, she is wasting her time. Sigh.