Accident exposes gaps in theater's safety

Lynne Beasley, 60, was taking in a performance of Woyzeck, her son's theater studies senior project, on Fri., Jan. 21, from the top row of the audience bleachers. Standing up to get a better look as the play reached its climactic stabbing scene, she leaned on a railing. The railing immediately gave way and Mrs. Beasley plummeted about six feet to the floor, suffering a fractured skull, swelling and bruising in her brain, two fractured vertebrae, and a ruptured disc.

ANDREW HEID/YH The collapse of a poorly-constructed railing at 'Woyzeck' last weekend left a 60-year-old woman with a fractured skull.

Mrs. Beasley was moved from St. Raphael's Hospital in New Haven to Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital on Wed., Jan. 26. "She's been conscious, but she's not totally lucid all the time," said her son, Angus Beasley, DC '00, who built the bleachers. She will eventually need surgery to fuse the vertebrae around the ruptured disc and prevent damage to the spinal cord, but her brain injuries currently make anesthesia impossible, he said.

It's the third accident in as many years to occur during a student theater production—and by far the most serious. In response, Yale is examining its safety regulations and procedures. On Tues., Feb. 1, Theater Studies Director of Undergraduate Studies David Krasner will meet with representatives from the Dean's Office, the Provost's Office, and the Office of Environmental Health and Safety to determine how to prevent future accidents.

Krasner believes the solution is to hire a technical director, either a full-time professional or just a part-time employee, perhaps a School of Drama student with technical training. With strong professional oversight, the accidents of the last three years might have been prevented. In November 1997, an actress in Spring's Awakening broke her arm when she fell off a platform after the play's crew ignored instructions to mark the platform's edges with Glo-Tape. During the November 1998 production of Two Gentlemen of Verona, a poorly-constructed platform collapsed under the weight of the dancing chorus, causing 12 minor injuries to the student perfomers.

The cause of the Woyzeck incident is still under investigation by Yale's safety office, but Krasner and Beasley believe the railing Mrs. Beasley leaned on may not have been properly attached.

Under Krasner's plan, a technical director would consult on all 80-odd productions Yale undergrads stage every year, helping students with the construction process. "We've asked for the position for about a year, but we don't have the funding—that has to come from the Provost," Krasner said. The Provost could not be reached for comment.

Currently, sets are required to be inspected once on paper and once after they are finished. The inspectors have the power to cancel or postpone a show they believe is unsafe. "Usually, the safety inspector comes in, looks around, stands on it, jumps up and down on it, and says it looks safe," Beasley said. Thus, internal flaws of complicated structures may be impossible to detect. The Woyzeck set was inspected on Wed., Jan. 19, just a day before the show opened.

Rob Klein, the safety office's manager of occupational health and safety, recalled that the set had "a number of structural problems," and said the short notice was also a problem. A safety inspector returned the following morning and again in the afternoon to make sure the required changes had been made, but it was impossible to check every screw, Klein said. He believes the railing Mrs. Beasley leaned on was staple-gunned, rather than screwed or bolted, because the crew was short on time and resources.

"The main problem is that there's a lack of standardization," Klein said. Construction is done differently in each production, and student set-builders may or may not have carpentry experience. Making a professional available to guide students would solve this problem, he said.

Previously, students were required to notify the fire marshal and safety office themselves in order to get their sets approved, but Krasner says from now on he will personally alert the inspectors of upcoming theater studies senior project shows. "I'm deeply reluctant to treat students like children, but I have no choice," he said.

However, no central authority oversees the wide variety of performances that aren't connected to either theater studies or the Yale Dramatic Association. "If [a performance] is using space in a college, like Nick Chapel or the dining hall, usually the Master's Office or the Dean's Office calls us," Fire Marshal Michael Johns said. Johns looks for flyers around campus and notices in campus publications to find out about upcoming plays. "Very little gets by us," he said, "but it is theoretically possible that something could."

Beasley had limited time to install his set and rehearse in the space because it is used for classes during the day, and thus couldn't pay as much attention to construction details as he would have liked, he said.

In his view, it all comes back to Yale's performance space shortage. "Yale needs to put a little money into the theater studies program," he said. "They're building a $500 million science lab, but theater studies gets no money and no help."

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