ABSTRACT
It is difficult to find a stagehand that has not suffered a personal mishap or injury or does not know of a friend who has. Jim lost a master electrician in a fall when a stage collapsed under the platform he was taking lights down from. Usually accidents result in only minor injuries, but when virtually everyone knows someone who has been injured it points to how often these accidents occur. A sizable portion of these injuries happen during set changes on a darkened stage. When you have only seconds to make
a scenery move and one person is off the mark that night or there is a substitute who has not done it before, then there is the potential for error and possible injury. Working with local crews who have not seen the show and are doing in one day what theatrical shows are allowed to rehearse over and over again cannot help but cause a problem. That more accidents do not occur is reason for praising road crews and local stagehands.
