Emergency Planning

The last discussion I sent out dealt with prop gun safety -- we had a lot of good discussion around it, and shared some best practices on keeping things safe around prop weaponry. And then Paris happened, and real weaponry made its way into a theatre.

I don't mean to bring everyone's mood down -- especially on this week of thanksgiving -- but I was wondering if maybe it wasn't time we started thinking about emergency planning around gun violence in our venues. Between the uptick in school shootings, gun violence happening at movie theatres, and terrorist attacks, it seems to be past time to hide behind the veil of "It can't happen here."

So I was wondering: Do you have an emergency plan in place for if violence happens at your venue? Who knows about it? Are you preparing one now? What's stopping you? Do you now want to make one? Are you unsure of how to make one?

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Permalink Reply by Tracy Alexander on November 27, 2015 at 9:26am

Just spoke with my Box Office Manager the other day regarding this . . . we do have an Emergency Plan that trains the House Manager, Stage Management Teams and Actors regarding the Fire Alarm going off. Who does what, where do we go to wait, how we start up again, etc. It was my thought to use that training and if a shooter was spotted to pull the alarm to evacuate the building, but how does that keep patrons and volunteers "safe"??? It does immediately alert authorities to our distress - perhaps.

We can lock the doors to our House and backstage access - crash bars allow folk to exit. A new protocol might be to lock the audience in, but what if the danger is already in there?? We have a lot to re-think about the casual way we do business.

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