Actors' Equity Releases Safety Procedures Statement

Presumably in response to the flood of Equity members who contacted Actors' Equity after hearing of Monday night's injury to Christopher Tierney, the union has posted a AEA Safety Procedures Statement to their web site, explaining how their staff receives and handles information about safety. The site notes:

Actors' Equity is committed to making the theatrical work environment as safe as possible. We start to identify potential risks in new productions as early as possible, examining such potential risk elements as raked stages, smoke and haze, stunts, firearms, flying, and unusual or overly-demanding choreography.

Equity staff begins looking for these elements with the first readings of early drafts of scripts or production concepts. Our staff is in regular contact with production and stage management as soon as those parties are identified. Our staff has significant experience identifying risk elements and working with the production to develop safety protocols. However technology is rapidly evolving as theatre artists push the boundaries of creativity. As these boundaries expand, we constantly monitor these developments in order to best protect our members.

As performers well know, the backstage area is a dense, complicated, and fast-moving area of live activity and machinery. In older theatres, we are faced with massive technology jammed into buildings that are over 100 years old. Theatre professionals are expert at making it all work, however, despite these efforts, accidents do occur.

Every theatrical accident or injury is cause for urgent concern, thorough investigation, and active follow-up. Equity logs each and every accident no matter how seemingly minor or major the circumstance. The database this provides us, yields vital information that shapes our daily procedures as well as preparation of contract proposals.