Good day, all! It’s been ages since I’ve posted. To recap, I’m working in an office of a outdoor gear store, so I don’t see many customers (sucky or not). I previously worked as a waitress, cashier and on a cruise ship for a few years. My husband and I were at a reunion party a month or two ago with other crew members we haven’t seen in years…..and some more stories came to mind. This one is long, so I’ll just post it for now. I’ll try to post more later.
Cruise ship backstory – I worked behind the scenes in the theatre……setting up lights, speakers, the band, sets. During the shows we did set changes, props and occasionally costume changes.
After 2 shows of one of our major production shows, we started to tear down the set to get the set ready for the next day. The shows ended at a little after 10pm, tear down took 40 minutes and setting up the band for the next night’s show usually took 25 –Yay! Still 2 hours in the crew bar.
After the pax had left the theatre, we close these HUGE automatic doors that have “Do Not Enter” on them. These doors were heavy and hard to open. We’re about 30 minutes into teardown and getting to the hardest part that takes everyone and takes a good amount of concentration. From the back of the theatre we hear:
“Oy! Can you guys start over so we can watch the whole thing from the beginning??!!?”
In the empty theatre, voices travel and echo – scared the crap out of one guy who ended up dropping his end of the set piece. It ended up bending some of the metal and needed to be fixed before we could continue. Our Production Manager went out to talk to them. Luckily, because of aforementioned traveling voices, we heard every word.
PM – production manager (who was on 22 and looked it)
SH – Sucky Husband
SW – Sucky Wife
PM: I’m sorry, the theater is closed. I’m going to have to ask you to leave
SH: But we paid good money for this cruise. I want to see this!
PM: This is not a show. We are getting the theatre ready for tomorrow night’s event and we cannot have any passengers in here for safety reasons.
SH: I want to see how everything comes apart. I should get what I want, sonny! And what I want is to see this from the beginning.
PM: Listen, sir. We have a limited amount of time to get this done. I must insist that you leave.
SW: I want to talk to your manager, boy!
PM: I am in charge of all 3 theatres on this ship.
SW: You’re 12 years old! They would never put you in charge!
At this point, one of the other crew members paged the Cruise Director (luckily his office is about 20 feet from the theatre doors). We’ve been continuing on with our work and are mostly finished with taking down the first set – half of us are finishing it, the other half are prepping the band equipment.
SH: You need to make these people stop what they are doing so they can set the show back up!
PM: I’m sorry sir, that is not going to happen! If you would like to see how the set changes are done, there will be a backstage tour later on in the cruise.
SW: Do you want to be responsible for ruining our vacation?
Cruise Director gets there (now know as CD) **side note – this CD was usually a huge douchbag, but he wasn’t too bad for once)
CD: What seems to be the problem?
SW: We want to watch them take the set apart and they wouldn’t start over for us!
CD: (looks at stage, now bare with the beginnings of the band being set up) Ma’am, the crew is on a strict timeline for their set ups. They are as choreographed as the dancers are. When those doors are closed, it is for passenger safety.
SH: But we’re not disturbing anyone!
CD: Sir, each and every crew member on that stage knows what is moving and when. They are all wear steel toed shoes and they are highly trained in what they do.
At this point, just to make them just, our lighting guy lowered one of the lighting riggs that was hanging about 10 feet in front of them. The motor is loud, and the entire unit shakes and looks like it will fall at any minute the whole way down (it always looked like that). We had all be warned over headset that it was happening, so none of us jump. The pax, however, almost shit themselves.
SH: What the hell is that all about?!?!?!
PM: Well, sir, lights have to be reprogrammed for each show
SW: What if we have been underneath there? We could have been killed!
(The lighting guy cut all lights except the work lights on stage and started goofing around with his automated lights….not actually doing anything that needed to be done, just trying to get the pax out! Only the emergency floor lighting is on in the audience. The sound guy, who has finished testing the band mics, starts playing random tracks from shows at a pretty good volume.)
By this point, we have finished. 2 guys have run up to the crew bar and came down with drinks for everyone. We were all sitting in the wings since we can’t hear them anymore. We got the rest of the story from the PM and CD afterwards (took another 10 minutes before they left). The pax demanded to know who was in charge of the theatre again since they didn’t believe “this boy” could be. CD confirmed that PM was indeed in charge of all 3 theatres on the ship, and he was PM’s direct supervisor. They didn’t believe it and felt they were “covering for someone”. They decided that they were going to “file a complaint with the Captain” because they felt their “needs were not being met”. The CD told them they were more than welcome to file a complaint at the purser’s desk.
After they left we finished our drinks, headed up to the crew bar with the PM and CD, and we bought them some drinks for having to deal with the suck.
PS:
Here is a look at the set we tore down. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s almost 3 stories high and the beams and floors are heavy. There are also 2 staircases that come off the side balconies that you can’t really see, but they are heavy and the balcony pieces that had to be put back in are 90 lbs each.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IghgEepii28
You don’t get a full view of the stage until around 3:30 and even them parts of it are hidden behind some fly pieces.
Cruise ship backstory – I worked behind the scenes in the theatre……setting up lights, speakers, the band, sets. During the shows we did set changes, props and occasionally costume changes.
After 2 shows of one of our major production shows, we started to tear down the set to get the set ready for the next day. The shows ended at a little after 10pm, tear down took 40 minutes and setting up the band for the next night’s show usually took 25 –Yay! Still 2 hours in the crew bar.
After the pax had left the theatre, we close these HUGE automatic doors that have “Do Not Enter” on them. These doors were heavy and hard to open. We’re about 30 minutes into teardown and getting to the hardest part that takes everyone and takes a good amount of concentration. From the back of the theatre we hear:
“Oy! Can you guys start over so we can watch the whole thing from the beginning??!!?”
In the empty theatre, voices travel and echo – scared the crap out of one guy who ended up dropping his end of the set piece. It ended up bending some of the metal and needed to be fixed before we could continue. Our Production Manager went out to talk to them. Luckily, because of aforementioned traveling voices, we heard every word.
PM – production manager (who was on 22 and looked it)
SH – Sucky Husband
SW – Sucky Wife
PM: I’m sorry, the theater is closed. I’m going to have to ask you to leave
SH: But we paid good money for this cruise. I want to see this!
PM: This is not a show. We are getting the theatre ready for tomorrow night’s event and we cannot have any passengers in here for safety reasons.
SH: I want to see how everything comes apart. I should get what I want, sonny! And what I want is to see this from the beginning.
PM: Listen, sir. We have a limited amount of time to get this done. I must insist that you leave.
SW: I want to talk to your manager, boy!
PM: I am in charge of all 3 theatres on this ship.
SW: You’re 12 years old! They would never put you in charge!
At this point, one of the other crew members paged the Cruise Director (luckily his office is about 20 feet from the theatre doors). We’ve been continuing on with our work and are mostly finished with taking down the first set – half of us are finishing it, the other half are prepping the band equipment.
SH: You need to make these people stop what they are doing so they can set the show back up!
PM: I’m sorry sir, that is not going to happen! If you would like to see how the set changes are done, there will be a backstage tour later on in the cruise.
SW: Do you want to be responsible for ruining our vacation?
Cruise Director gets there (now know as CD) **side note – this CD was usually a huge douchbag, but he wasn’t too bad for once)
CD: What seems to be the problem?
SW: We want to watch them take the set apart and they wouldn’t start over for us!
CD: (looks at stage, now bare with the beginnings of the band being set up) Ma’am, the crew is on a strict timeline for their set ups. They are as choreographed as the dancers are. When those doors are closed, it is for passenger safety.
SH: But we’re not disturbing anyone!
CD: Sir, each and every crew member on that stage knows what is moving and when. They are all wear steel toed shoes and they are highly trained in what they do.
At this point, just to make them just, our lighting guy lowered one of the lighting riggs that was hanging about 10 feet in front of them. The motor is loud, and the entire unit shakes and looks like it will fall at any minute the whole way down (it always looked like that). We had all be warned over headset that it was happening, so none of us jump. The pax, however, almost shit themselves.
SH: What the hell is that all about?!?!?!
PM: Well, sir, lights have to be reprogrammed for each show
SW: What if we have been underneath there? We could have been killed!
(The lighting guy cut all lights except the work lights on stage and started goofing around with his automated lights….not actually doing anything that needed to be done, just trying to get the pax out! Only the emergency floor lighting is on in the audience. The sound guy, who has finished testing the band mics, starts playing random tracks from shows at a pretty good volume.)
By this point, we have finished. 2 guys have run up to the crew bar and came down with drinks for everyone. We were all sitting in the wings since we can’t hear them anymore. We got the rest of the story from the PM and CD afterwards (took another 10 minutes before they left). The pax demanded to know who was in charge of the theatre again since they didn’t believe “this boy” could be. CD confirmed that PM was indeed in charge of all 3 theatres on the ship, and he was PM’s direct supervisor. They didn’t believe it and felt they were “covering for someone”. They decided that they were going to “file a complaint with the Captain” because they felt their “needs were not being met”. The CD told them they were more than welcome to file a complaint at the purser’s desk.
After they left we finished our drinks, headed up to the crew bar with the PM and CD, and we bought them some drinks for having to deal with the suck.
PS:
Here is a look at the set we tore down. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s almost 3 stories high and the beams and floors are heavy. There are also 2 staircases that come off the side balconies that you can’t really see, but they are heavy and the balcony pieces that had to be put back in are 90 lbs each.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IghgEepii28
You don’t get a full view of the stage until around 3:30 and even them parts of it are hidden behind some fly pieces.
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