It's Not Because We're Cranky

You've probably noticed below that last week we lost a colleague "in the line." One wouldn't think that would be something we should be concerned about as entertainers, but sadly enough more often than anyone would think people do lose their lives in this business. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to the family and friends of the student that lost his life, and so that this tragedy will not pass without some good I think we should take a moment and consider the environment we work in and what we can do to keep ourselves and everyone around us safer.

If you read the articles you'll see this accident happened unloading a truck. From what I've been able to pick up from various sources we're talking about a stack of MDF decking. Although we don't often load and unload trucks within our program, the truck part of this story is less significant than the stack of plywood part, and each and every one of us finds ourself either moving or around the moving of this sort of thing. A student, wearing proper gear, taking his time, after stopping to get help suddenly in a split second found himself under a load shift. He was hit in the head, and as we all know by now the story ends tragically.

The important thing to notice here is that he did everything right and still things went terribly wrong.

I often find myself giving the "a theatre is a very dangerous place" lecture. Most times I watch the people listening and get the read that they feel it is very much a pro-forma exercise - something we have to say but that can be fairly easily ignored. We go about our business the way we always have. But the concept deserves more thought.

We do work in an environment where accidents can happen at any moment. We do work in an environment where those accidents can be very serious. We even work in an environment where the normal, mandatory safety net provided by OSHA often doesn't apply. OSHA has no jurisdiction over student activities, their mandate is to protect employees. One of the articles below confirms that OSHA said they don't have jurisdiction. In addition to that small SNAFU, OSHA usually includes a loophole for things that cannot be done in any other way. Theatre often squeezes into this exception. Under standard OSHA rules the front of any stage would have a safety rail. Those rules would also require actors to wear hardhats during performances (any normal worker in a place with so much overhead activity would face this requirement).

Like it or not, theatres are dangerous and we are largely on our own to guarantee our safety.

One of the important things to take away from this though is that in spite of doing everything right things can still go wrong. So, in order that you might be best prepared to deal with the unknown our best strategy is to minimize all of the issues we can control. Only by utilizing best practice can we be prepared for that split second action that can make the difference. We need to eliminate distractions, minimize complications, do whatever we can to prepare for the unexpected.

So, when someone tells you to turn down the radio, put away your phone or your headphones, it's not because they're old. If someone tells you to put on your safety glasses or to get some gloves or hearing protection or a dust mask, it's not because they're paranoid. When someone tells you to change your shoes or your shirt, or to wear long pants, it's not because they're uncool. When people tell you to turn on the lights or keep your workspace clean or put away tools or empty trash it's not because they're hassling you. And if people tell you not to run, or yell, or sing, or dance during a call it's not because they're cranky. It's because on very rare occasions people can through absolutely no fault of their own wind up very much dead.

And nobody wants that to happen, ever.