Show Business

Show Business

Before I got involved in the games industry and moved to Holland I spent a lot of time working in the theater business in England. However, I never got to play Romeo or even Juliet because I was one of the many people working behind the scenes as a member of stage crew. It was a great job but for someone who can be a little accident prone it was work that should have come with danger money.

I’ve been made deaf for two days after working on a music concert, I’ve fallen into a lighting rig and I’ve had a speaker dropped on my hand which in itself was not as worrying as the rather camp first aid person who tried flirting with me as he bandaged my hand.

However, the most cringe worthy incident probably happened during my work on ‘They shoot horses don’t they?‘ It was a show about a marathon dance set during the 1930s great depression. Since the stage crew was going to be seen quite a lot as they changed the scenery the director decided to incorporate us into the show by having us in costume as janitors. It was a chance to move from back stage to center stage.

My real chance to show my star power came when the crew got to play an integral part in one of the scenes. I got to play a post, a boxing ring post to be more accurate. The scene required the actors to race around the inside of a boxing ring so four of us (the crew) stood in each corner and held ropes between us. It was my big chance. There might have been talent scouts in the audience looking for someone to play a tree or lamp post in the next Robert Deniro movie.

During the rehearsal the director warned me that several members of the cast would collapse at my feet as they ran around. Using my method acting I stood as still as a post should when this happened and resisted the urge to flinch. Every night the scene took place with out a problem… Until the night my parents came to see the show.

The actors fell at my feet with out incident as they had done every night but on the following lap one of the cast members tripped for real and fell towards me. It is a natural human instinct to reach out for something to steady your self with when caught off balance but another person’s genitals are not a good choice. Her arm flung outwards in an attempt to break her fall but her fist connected very hard and painfully with an area that she did not know me well enough to be touching. She had twisted her ankle but was not in as much pain as me who suddenly had a new career option as a Bee-Gee impersonator. I had to stay on stage trying to look like I was not in deep and intense pain. Dogs from miles around probably heard my high pitched sounds of suffering. When the scene was over we both limped off the stage but unlike her I could not sit down for a while.

Sitting behind a desk might not always be as interesting as working back stage but at least it means my genitals are a lot safer.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

29 Responses

  1. BlondebutBright says:

    Only in the live performance, of course. :) Ouch!

  2. JaG says:

    OK. So were you drunk last night?

  3. JaG says:

    Well, you being a native speaker and making so many spelling mistakes kinda gave it away.

  4. Emiel says:

    Great story. I know of similar incidents, except that it involved people playing sports. So, with your accident record, I advice you not to start playing tennis. :) (Unless you need a new topic for your blog.)

  5. Jodie says:

    Hahaha, fantastic post! I did a lot of theatre stuff at school, everything from stage-manager to actor to understudy lamp-post and can remember many a laugh-worthy instant but none are ever as funny as the genital-mangling accidents… its amazing how many ways a man can damage his meat and two veg actually… I’m so glad I’m female :P

  6. marycub says:

    OUCH!! I’m not male so i haven’t had a similar experience but really i feel your pain. I can but imagine.

    BTW what happened to the avatars? you were going to fix them but now theyre gone completely?

  7. Ash says:

    Yes, I still think uniforms are shexay. Lol.

    I did theatre stuff at my school. Once I was going costumes and our job was to take the actors outside to enter at an entrance in the back of the house, and then bring their shoes back inside. Through I side entrance, on some uneven stairs, in the dark, without making any noise (i.e. the actors got to have their shoes while we were out in the parking lot in the rain, but we didn’t!!!!). Needless to say, I fell down the stairs and got a harsh scolding from my ASM. Ugghh. I mean, REALLY. Lol.

  8. zed says:

    i’m very accident-prone when drunk, but this had me laughing for hours. oh, and i’m not even drunk.

    work that one out.

  9. Jodie says:

    Maybe its a conflict between WordPress and Gravatar. You never had this problem with Haloscan did you? I tried testing on your old blog but you have turned gravatar off there :)

  10. Invader Stu says:

    BlondebutBright – and only at the live performance my parents were watching

    JaG – What gave me away? It’s not my fault. A friend from work who is leaving the country forced me to go out drinking :p

  11. Invader Stu says:

    JaG – You’ve never seen my stuff before I spell check it then :p

    Emiel – Any activity that involves fast moving objects could be a potential risk :)

  12. ellen says:

    I’d still wear a cup, if I were you, Stu. In offices, there are lots of power cords people can trip over, and one can never be too careful.

  13. Alan says:

    I once broke two ribs on stage, but thankfully no testicular accidents so far!

  14. Invader Stu says:

    Jodie – Luckily they are still attached.

    Marycub – I’m still trying to work out what went wrong so I’ve turned them off for now.

    Ash – There is a certain amount of risk running around back stage in the dark.

  15. Invader Stu says:

    I’ve turned avatars back on for now. Still not sure why most of them are not showing. Best I can guess is something is wrong with the gravatar website itself.

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