During my time in stage crew, I built sets for seven shows, but I only actively moved around set pieces once during a production. This position is called run crew, and it is one of the most difficult jobs in a show. A small group of seasoned stage crew members coordinates the movement of set pieces onto and off of the stage during a show and ensures that everything is set up properly before a scene starts. A lot is demanded of this elite group, as the majority of scenes depends on their skill at set placement.
It was fall of my sophomore year, and the program was bracing for something huge.
Our school had been selected as one of the three nationwide to pilot Disney’s Newsies! on the high school stage. Rehearsals were attended by representatives from Disney and the set movement needed to be as developed as the choreography, which was insane. In retrospective, I can say that the stakes were incredibly high.
I think that the set build for this show deserves its own piece, but I will establish context by stating that this show had the largest amount of moving set pieces I have seen in any of the shows I participated in. Whether it be an office desk to a bar, every single piece needed to be neatly organized in the backstage and brought out to the same place on stage every time. We ensured this precision was held through marking off the corner placement positions of each set piece on and off of stage using glow in the dark tape. The run crew could see where to place large items on and off of stage, even in darkness.
Tech for this production was very tedious, but we felt that we had mastered our technique by the beginning of the production run. We were all up to the challenge. What could possibly go wrong?
One scene transition that had been repeatedly rehearsed and modified during tech was between the chorus’ opening number and the antagonist Mr. Pulitzer’s introductory scene. With the lights at full blast, and twenty dancers inches in front of us, we needed to set up an entire office scene behind the choreography in under fifteen seconds.
I was in charge of bringing out the desk in the photo above during that small time window. I was positioned on the left side, and another one of the run crew members assisted me in taking out the desk to its proper spot. There was always a risk that the dancers in front of us could back into the desk and hit off items on top, but this had not occurred during the past few rehearsals, so we felt fine about the transition.
It was opening night, and the show had already sold out its twelve-show run in record time. The theater was packed, and the atmosphere was electric. However, shocking performances call for shocking cliff hangers.
As I was bringing the desk out during the transition, one of the dancers accidentally backed into my side of the desk and sent it straight into the stage floor. The dancer was not thrown off by this collision, but the desk managed to throw one of its legs entirely on my side…
What do you do with a broken table leg and a broken set piece that is about to be the centerpiece of a scene? I quickly prayed and jammed that leg back into the corner of the desk as hard as I could. I ran off the stage, and the scene began normally like nothing had happened.
To the audience, everything seemed normal, but every run crew member was hustled in a backstage blind spot gazing out at the scene. No one in the audience could see us from this position, but we were helplessly stranded, awaiting a certain part of the scene.
During this scene, an enraged Pulitzer slams down on the desk with all of his might. Our actor for Pulitzer did not know that the desk had shed a leg. We anxiously awaited a disaster.
Pulitzer slammed that desk harder than ever, and it stood resolute. There was a collective sigh backstage, and as soon as we removed the desk from the stage at the end of the scene, we used staples and super glue to anchor the leg. These temporary repairs held for the first act and during intermission we drilled the leg back into place.
There is a reason why run crew is so complicated. It requires complete concentration, and if things go wrong, you must act on instinct.
The production finished without any other major issues and I was appointed as light manager for the next show, a position that I would retain until I graduated. Never again would I have to deal with the chaos of breaking set pieces.