Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Apart from Chris Martin’s fall, here are 10 other examples of onstage accidents. Can we keep performers safe?
theconversation.com: In recent months, Australian concertgoers have witnessed plenty of unexpected onstage drama.
The latest example came from Coldplay’s sold-out Sunday show in Melbourne. Lead singer Chris Martin took a sudden plunge through a trapdoor, catching fans off guard, before reemerging with a laugh and reassuring wave.
6 comments:
Tane Muller
said...
Stage Accidents of any kind involving scenery is not okay. This only gets more complex if the scenery is moving in any capacity. The performer's safety is always in the front of the minds of the individual building and installing the equipment. But we are in show business and that means we do crazy over the top things. This involves dancing on a trap as it raises and lowers. Running through a maze of lights flying in and out. The performer has to track the path they take every night to ensure that they are safe. We as technicians spend hours thinking about the safest path in moments like this, and for the most part this is a sufficient safety practice. But when things do not fire or a trap door is not restored frequently the performer has no idea that there is an issue until they exit the stage. And the show continues as the crew frantically rushes to fix the issue. There is protocol to stop the show for emergencies and we have definitely heard of shows stopping due to technical difficulties. But during the run of the show when things go wrong is it still the best practice that the show must go on? Or is the best practice the show must be safe? I think its a conversation that needs to be shared between artistic, audience, and technicians.
This was an interesting article in light of the current performers falling through stages, but also expands to the broader topic of performer safety. Designing more and more complex staging is great for pushing the boundaries of what can be done in live performance art, but also must be very challenging because you need to take into consideration that the person navigating these designs is also taking in SO MUCH other sensory input. Something that seems very safe or easy to navigate in theory or in rehearsal can be really difficult to navigate when in a performance setting, either due to factors such as lighting or sound posing sensory challenges or due to the stress and excitement of live performances causing the performer to get “caught up” in their art and not be as careful as they could be if they were in rehearsal. I wonder at what point we will hit a ceiling of complex technical designs for staging, where designs can’t get more complicated until the current ways of dealing with performer safety change in some significant way.
I have been noticing the recent rise in performer based incidents since the end of the pandemic, with all the incidents involving shoes and other clothing items being thrown at musicians while they were onstage, potentially harming them. Then, incidents like Olivia Rodrigo falling into the pit on stage and getting her hair ripped out on her microphone went viral. With this article, it seems like these two incidents are becoming even more commonplace throughout the entertainment industry and musicians are being harmed by audience members and scenery alike when they go out to perform. It’s a serious issue which needs to be addressed. Venue staff and production teams should be seriously examining stage scenery before each performance, and routine safety checks while scenery and props are in transit should be performed to ensure materials aren’t degrading through continued use. Along with these measures, more security in venues and greater prosecution of concert-goers who physically threaten a performer in any way needs to be put into place. Hurting your favorite artist by throwing things is not a way of showing appreciation for their art, and it hurts both them and the audience members who are excited to see their favorite musician in person. As a society, we need to step back and start treating our celebrities with more respect.
I clicked on this because I remembered the Olivia Rodrigo incident from a few weeks ago. While this is obviously a technical issue going on in most situations– which is, of course, unacceptable– I really liked how the article highlighted incidents with singers involving their fans. Falling through the stage floor is an obvious and shocking problem– one that leaves an audience in gasps and screams– but why are issues like projectiles and such not as big to the media. Truthfully, singers are more likely to receive an injury from obsessive fans than from malfunctioning equipment. This is a terrifying, gross thing in our world culture. It has become more and more frightening recently, and artists are then chastised for their completely human reactions– even things as simple as asking their fans to stop. Like stated in the article, “Major artists are humans, too. Their safety is just as important as that of the audience.” The crew’s most important responsibility is to the safety of the artist and the production of a good show– but so too is the job of fans and audience members.
It’s clear that more and more concert artists are focusing more on the wow factor than their safety protocols when it comes to the shows they perform. As the industry continues to grow into one full of flashy sets, costumes and special effects I wonder how safety protocols will change to better protect the performer from any safety problems that could come up during the performance. I know as we continue to work on larger scope’s of shows at the School of Drama, safety takes the forefront of most conversations and I can hope that this will become the forefront of the conversation in the touring industry. Not only are artists like Coldplay and Olivia Rodrigo hurting themselves on their sets, but it’s also performers in Cirque du Soleil who are getting hurt from their profession. I agree with this article in that after COVID, audiences have forgotten how to watch performances safely and respectfully. As a frequent concert goer myself, I have noticed this change and while the security at the venues have increased, it hasn’t stopped audiences from expressing their love for a performer in unsafe practices. I hope safety and security concerns will increase in the touring industry.
Regarding safety for these kinds of live performances, when there isn’t time to properly tech a show with the performer during a tour (or just that the artist isn’t willing to sit through as much rehearsal and tech due to their schedule), it becomes increasingly important that there are more stagehands around to best prepare performers for these moments and act as physical barriers to accidents such as these. When performers are tasked with such difficult jobs and are dealing with a lot of sensory information, it is probably more advantageous to sacrifice some of the artistic vision for safety in that having stagehands directly adjacent to any trapdoors or complicated scenery to direct the performer as needed. While Chris Martin still fell through the trapdoor, since there were several people there, he was able to be caught, which was not the case for Olivia Rodrigo. Same goes for security - it is worth it to invest in hiring more people to staff these events. More human interaction and prevention is a solution to research more into to prevent this growing trend.
6 comments:
Stage Accidents of any kind involving scenery is not okay. This only gets more complex if the scenery is moving in any capacity. The performer's safety is always in the front of the minds of the individual building and installing the equipment. But we are in show business and that means we do crazy over the top things. This involves dancing on a trap as it raises and lowers. Running through a maze of lights flying in and out. The performer has to track the path they take every night to ensure that they are safe. We as technicians spend hours thinking about the safest path in moments like this, and for the most part this is a sufficient safety practice. But when things do not fire or a trap door is not restored frequently the performer has no idea that there is an issue until they exit the stage. And the show continues as the crew frantically rushes to fix the issue. There is protocol to stop the show for emergencies and we have definitely heard of shows stopping due to technical difficulties. But during the run of the show when things go wrong is it still the best practice that the show must go on? Or is the best practice the show must be safe? I think its a conversation that needs to be shared between artistic, audience, and technicians.
This was an interesting article in light of the current performers falling through stages, but also expands to the broader topic of performer safety. Designing more and more complex staging is great for pushing the boundaries of what can be done in live performance art, but also must be very challenging because you need to take into consideration that the person navigating these designs is also taking in SO MUCH other sensory input. Something that seems very safe or easy to navigate in theory or in rehearsal can be really difficult to navigate when in a performance setting, either due to factors such as lighting or sound posing sensory challenges or due to the stress and excitement of live performances causing the performer to get “caught up” in their art and not be as careful as they could be if they were in rehearsal. I wonder at what point we will hit a ceiling of complex technical designs for staging, where designs can’t get more complicated until the current ways of dealing with performer safety change in some significant way.
I have been noticing the recent rise in performer based incidents since the end of the pandemic, with all the incidents involving shoes and other clothing items being thrown at musicians while they were onstage, potentially harming them. Then, incidents like Olivia Rodrigo falling into the pit on stage and getting her hair ripped out on her microphone went viral. With this article, it seems like these two incidents are becoming even more commonplace throughout the entertainment industry and musicians are being harmed by audience members and scenery alike when they go out to perform. It’s a serious issue which needs to be addressed. Venue staff and production teams should be seriously examining stage scenery before each performance, and routine safety checks while scenery and props are in transit should be performed to ensure materials aren’t degrading through continued use. Along with these measures, more security in venues and greater prosecution of concert-goers who physically threaten a performer in any way needs to be put into place. Hurting your favorite artist by throwing things is not a way of showing appreciation for their art, and it hurts both them and the audience members who are excited to see their favorite musician in person. As a society, we need to step back and start treating our celebrities with more respect.
I clicked on this because I remembered the Olivia Rodrigo incident from a few weeks ago. While this is obviously a technical issue going on in most situations– which is, of course, unacceptable– I really liked how the article highlighted incidents with singers involving their fans. Falling through the stage floor is an obvious and shocking problem– one that leaves an audience in gasps and screams– but why are issues like projectiles and such not as big to the media. Truthfully, singers are more likely to receive an injury from obsessive fans than from malfunctioning equipment. This is a terrifying, gross thing in our world culture. It has become more and more frightening recently, and artists are then chastised for their completely human reactions– even things as simple as asking their fans to stop. Like stated in the article, “Major artists are humans, too. Their safety is just as important as that of the audience.” The crew’s most important responsibility is to the safety of the artist and the production of a good show– but so too is the job of fans and audience members.
It’s clear that more and more concert artists are focusing more on the wow factor than their safety protocols when it comes to the shows they perform. As the industry continues to grow into one full of flashy sets, costumes and special effects I wonder how safety protocols will change to better protect the performer from any safety problems that could come up during the performance. I know as we continue to work on larger scope’s of shows at the School of Drama, safety takes the forefront of most conversations and I can hope that this will become the forefront of the conversation in the touring industry. Not only are artists like Coldplay and Olivia Rodrigo hurting themselves on their sets, but it’s also performers in Cirque du Soleil who are getting hurt from their profession. I agree with this article in that after COVID, audiences have forgotten how to watch performances safely and respectfully. As a frequent concert goer myself, I have noticed this change and while the security at the venues have increased, it hasn’t stopped audiences from expressing their love for a performer in unsafe practices. I hope safety and security concerns will increase in the touring industry.
Regarding safety for these kinds of live performances, when there isn’t time to properly tech a show with the performer during a tour (or just that the artist isn’t willing to sit through as much rehearsal and tech due to their schedule), it becomes increasingly important that there are more stagehands around to best prepare performers for these moments and act as physical barriers to accidents such as these. When performers are tasked with such difficult jobs and are dealing with a lot of sensory information, it is probably more advantageous to sacrifice some of the artistic vision for safety in that having stagehands directly adjacent to any trapdoors or complicated scenery to direct the performer as needed. While Chris Martin still fell through the trapdoor, since there were several people there, he was able to be caught, which was not the case for Olivia Rodrigo. Same goes for security - it is worth it to invest in hiring more people to staff these events. More human interaction and prevention is a solution to research more into to prevent this growing trend.
Post a Comment