Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1977 - 30

a hazard built into a building is never small. We do find
major problems: built in, unfinished, overlooked, passedby, become accustomed to. Choose your poison. Someday, will there be, when the buildings have fallen into
oblivion, a time when they will rise up and point their
collective spires at those who designed, constructed,
and operated them?
One is asked to be objective when viewing entertainment disasters. A professional is requested to be objective
when collating and reading the statistics which cross his
desk each day indicating the number of injuries, accidents,
fires, maimings and deaths. Human resources lost to the
performing industry via negligence and stubbornness
do not inspire one to be totally objective all of the time.
The immersion of oneself into caring for the lives, the
health and safety, the economic well-being of one's
confreres, over a period of forty-two years in the performing arts, is not conducive to the greatest objectivity.
These people have families and they have friends. The
statistics affect the day by day health of the Entertainment Industry. They are part of the healthy environment of show business and become the vital segment
of longevity as regards our livelihood. One domino affects
the entire spectrum. Although none of us are indispensable, we are part of the intricate system of entertainment. If we are down or out or if our physical resources
(buildings and equipment) are vitiated in some manner,
then the domino effect does take place. There is a dilution
of services, the spectrum of cultural effect is reduced and
a viable industry, or a portion of it, is shut down. We, in
USITT, and its allied services, cannot function on the day
by day possibility that something, whatever it may be,

will not happen. Panic codes, health, and safety regulations are promulgated for the good and betterment of
all serving that industry. They are not meant to be used as
a club over someone's head. Our interest, and that of
USITT's should be to develop, in conjunction with other
entertainment groups and associations, a strong set of
guidelines and regulations which will enable the personnel of those organizations to ajudicate and negotiate
the safety and health practices concerning their employment. USITT then becomes a focal point for applying
the technical know-how to the industry.
Although we are but a small segment of the total
entertainment world, we are in a position to aid those
in the larger areas with our technical knowledge and
expertise. We are in a position to recommend, at this
point, to government, to architects, to manufacturers
and to builders, as well as producers and managers, that
there are significant gains, both in image and economically, to be immediately insured, by an application of
health and safety standards and regulations. There is a
need. It is an obvious need. It is a need which needs
to be fulfilled for our existence. That is the objective
in every type of argument. To speak of it is fine, to
write of it is creating awareness, but to develop and
augment it in the lives and practices of the hundreds of
thousands of show business personnel and their places
of work is a plan and requirement too long put off.
The knowledge which the Beverly Hills Supper Club
Fire has brought us is not significant. We have known
these areas and these failures and we know they exist
across our country at this time. What is significant is

Continued on

Page 37

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WINTER. 1977

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

USITT

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1977