During Shrek the Musical’s Nov. 14 performance, one of the wall arches protruding from both sides of the stage fell off its track mid-performance.
No one was hurt and the play resumed after less than 15 minutes, Cam Damesworth, master carpenter for the production and junior musical theater major, said. Damesworth, who played Pinocchio, rushed out of his costume to join the crew that jumped on stage to fix the issue so the show could continue.
The arch ran on a track so it could slide on or off stage. It fell off the track when the stopper, the clamp holding it onto the track, fell, he said.
“The wall was pushed just a little bit too hard,” Damesworth said. “Just hard enough to knock off the end stopper.”
Issues with set pieces are unusual for Taylor Theatre, which completes safety checks before every performance to make sure everything is functioning as intended, he said. Damesworth conducts visual checks before and after each show to ensure props and pieces are working properly.
Damesworth was proud of Taylor’s theatre crew for their quick response to the unusual incident.
“I think it speaks well of our program, that in the midst of an arch coming off of its track in the midst of a performance we're all able to walk in and get the job done to keep the show going,” he said.
The work Taylor Theatre accomplishes as an almost entirely student-led program reveals their dedication to their work, Damesworth said.
It’s unrealistic for Taylor’s cast and crew to expect perfection from each performance. Though slip-ups are uncommon for Taylor Theatre, they are common in professional theatres, and a natural part of life, Damesworth said.
“That's generally not something that happens a lot in Taylor theater,” he said. “It happens all the time in the industry, though. Knowing that this kind of thing happens all the time, it's not so much just trying to prevent it and making sure that it never happens but I guess it's how you respond to it.”
Both the performers and audience responded well to the incident, Tracy Manning, managing and artistic director of theatre, said.
The incident didn’t injure anyone, so no one was really concerned, she said.
“Some people tell me how much they enjoyed watching the process of students fixing it and making it work,” Manning said. “Everybody responded really well. I think that everybody did exactly what they were supposed to.”
No one even noticed the incident until the orchestra stopped playing and actors cleared off the stage, Gracie Kruyer, a freshman math education major and audience member when the incident occurred, said.
Audience members were never concerned for their safety, Kruyer said.
“It was like five minutes before the intermission, so they all wanted breaks anyways,” she said. “I didn't hear any mean comments about it.”
Part of live theatre is knowing things are going to go wrong, Manning said.
What matters is how people respond to issues, she said. Events like this reveal the hard work and ingenuity that goes into the magic of theatre, she said.
