Tale #7: This Isn’t Going To Work

By 2020, our lighting guy Steve had finally gotten the tech assist of his dreams: a drivable scissor lift. The days of having to climb on a ladder stacked on a scaffolding piece or pushing the high school’s outdated genie, setting the breaks, and slowly rising up were officially memories of the past. 

It was a cold January Saturday when a very large and unexpected snowstorm hit. We were supposed to move our production of Mamma Mia into the high school performing arts center that weekend. However, the district had closed all facilities due to the storm.

That was just unacceptable. We had a show to do.

After much negotiating with the various decision makers of the school district, and the promise of a few complimentary tickets, they finally agreed to let us in so we could move our production into the theater. We spent the afternoon hauling in all of the costumes, small set pieces, and props. I was incredibly grateful for every cast and crew member who came out during that cold storm. We made as much progress as we could that Saturday afternoon so we were ready for the big set pieces to move in on Sunday when my Uncle Charlie brought down the big gooseneck trailer.

To finish out our Saturday work, Steve wanted to get a jump on light hang. NOTE: For you non-theater people, light hang is when you put up all of the lights that will be used during the show. You hang the fixtures on the pipes and then focus them. He asked us if we could get the new fancy scissor lift from our VACT building, put it on our trailer, and drive it to the high school.

Simple in concept, ridiculous in execution.

Do you remember the part about the snowstorm? Well a big component of that storm was freezing rain. We got back to our building to find that our small trailer was caked in ice. It was as if Elsa herself had gotten really pissed off. The most basic knowledge of physics will tell you that it is rather impossible to push a 500-pound scissor lift onto an ice rink of a trailer.

Now it was myself, our Assistant Stage Manager Bill, our producer Dale, and our teenage ropes operator Patrick tackling this impossible task. Patrick and I immediately started scraping the ice off. It was taking forever and really not doing anything. Bill grabbed a hammer and started smashing the ice which did break it up allowing Patrick and I to sweep the ice chunks off with brooms.  

Unfortunately, under the ice was a slick wet residue that proved to be highly problematic.

As we attempted to lower the loading ramp and get the lift ready to load, we could not stop slipping. We could have given the Three Stooges a run for their money with the ridiculousness of our attempts. As one of us would get higher on the slanted trailer, we would slip right back down into our fellow crew members. One on particularly bad attempt, Patrick took me out with him on his way down.

We finally got the trailer ready for loading. However, every time we attempted to push the lift onto the trailer, it just slid right back down towards us. We made way too many attempts before accepting defeat and giving up. Hey, you can’t fault us for our perseverance, right?

As we resigned ourselves to our painful and bruised failure, we loaded what other necessities we could onto the trailer and headed back to the high school. 

The next day, we pulled the trailer all the way into the heated scene shop and let the sucker melt and dry. 

As for Steve, he was stuck with the outdated genie.

We can’t always get what we want, but we got what we needed and that was for four important members of the production team not to give themselves concussions from an icy trailer.