Wednesday, March 16, 2011
USITT, J.R. Clancy Launch Rigging Safety Initiative
Stage Directions: "At last week’s USITT keynote session, USITT President Joe Aldridge announced the start of the Rigging Safety Initiative. Kickstarted by a $25,000 grant from J.R. Clancy, matched by the board of USITT, the Rigging Safety Initiative will provide free or low-cost inspections of rigging systems in private and public secondary schools across the U.S. in order to ensure a safe working environment for students. More details about how the program came about, and how to apply to have a rigging system inspected after the jump.
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6 comments:
This is a fantastic opportunity, and I applaud the people who made this happen. The fact that organizations are going to subsidize inspections so that students can work in a safer environment is really heartwarming and truly shows what we can do together as an industry if we put our collective mind (and money) to it. There are so many terribly neglected theatre spaces out there, and this program could actually save lives.
This is just fantastic. This kind of outreach service has been sorely needed. I really appreciate that it's a training as well as inspection. This way hopefully informed decisions and inspections can occur after the inspectors are gone, rather than just presenting a report.
It's also not a bad way to get schools to upgrade their existing systems.
I too support this; the problem, as the article mentioned, is to get institutions that have not previously relied on inspections to ask for them. It also seems like it's a good business idea for production companies and rigging suppliers to donate time and money because they will have the opportunity to fix problems once diagnosed.
This is exciting but I'm skeptical.
It's already extremely hard to get funding for theater in high schools and secondary schools. How many people will want to donate money to something that will likely end up causing the school more money? (an inspection of neglected spaces will likely find things in neglect)
I applaud the organization of something like this but I don't know if it will work.
This could not have come at a better time. With all of the recent accidents that the rigging industry has been plauged with, I feel like some schools may have been scared away from flying scenery and aerial choreography. This will be a great way to ensure that the schools that are able to utilize complicated rigging in their shows are not scraed to do so and that such an education can be provided to students.
I also agree this is a great program. So many high school theaters were built decades ago and are falling into disrepair. They don't have the money to maintain it and if they did, the care of the theater often falls to the substitute science teacher who wouldn't be able to identify where the money should be sent. Through many of my classes, horror stories were often told of things that are seen and done backstage in high school theater spaces. Hopefully this initiative will prevent future accidents.
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