For every opening night in a new city on this South American tour I was a stage manager for, the kitchen would always prepare a huge opening night feast with local delicacies.

This particular opening night dinner was filled with wonderful shellfish and an amazing array of seafood.  Dinner was served at 5pm to give people enough time to eat and then get ready for the performance at 8pm. If the cast performed in the 2^nd half then most of them would eat prior to the show. Those performing in the 1^st half would wait till intermission or after the show to have their dinner.

At 8pm the show begins and things are going as planned. At the end of the first act a few people were complaining that they were not feeling very well.  A few people were going back and forth to the restroom.  As the second act starts a couple of people missed separate walk on cues as they were in the rest room.  A young woman who is the 2^nd to last act of the show, is not really warming up, just looking nervous.  I asked her if she was okay. She said she wasn’t feeling very well. She went to the restroom and then came back and said she was fine.  She continues to warm up.  As the act prior to hers goes on she heads up to take her place in the 2^nd level, as she is an aerial artist.  The final act of the show is starting to warm up at this point. I hear the transition music from the 3^rd to last act into our female aerial act and as I receive the radio call that our lady has left the 2^nd level, just as she runs by me through the backstage yelling for wardrobe to help her out of her costume on her way to the bathroom.

Meanwhile- onstage- her music is playing as the 5 other girls that do the transition into her act are still there.

The band vamps…   While I page all 8 of the members of the final act take their places stage left….

Luckily they had seen our lady run out and started to head to the stage….

It was a case of food poisoning for a few of our cast and crew and with the next few shows being a bit thin to say the least.

While working on a tour as the calling stage manager in the Middle East,  I volunteered to help the crew load out the show. In this particular load out we had to load all of the set and road cases onto airplane palettes to bring to the airport that night to fly to our next city. I was placed in a parking lot where the crew of locals would bring out the road cases and I would organize them onto the correct palette.

So here I am, female (5’2- 130 ish pounds) alone in a parking lot at 11pm. I’ve just brought a few cases and I start to sort the cases that had already been brought out.  I move one of the large wardrobe cases out of the way and when I do, standing behind it is a man. He has his back to me and is hunched over.  I scream. He turns around and see that he has his pants undone and he was “arm wrestling the one eyed vessel”.  He stops to look at me and then continues. At which point I scream a few profanities including WTF, which although I am certain he did not speak English, I think he got the point. I however run over to the security officer directing the exiting traffic and try to explain to him what I have just witnessed and as I acted out what I just witnessed the man is very confused and just walks away from me the screaming foreigner.

Meanwhile the random stranger doing his handy work has fled into the woods at which point I radio for a member of our crew with male genitalia to take my place as I was done for the night.

In Shanghai; we were rehearsing and we had security in place around the stage and guarding the entrance to back stage. Each guard was instructed by a translator to the not let anyone into the backstage area unless they had a pass from the show. That not even venue staff could enter via this particular entrance (as it pretty much is breaking the 4^th wall!).

We continue to rehearse and I notice that on the stage left side, the guard is letting several people backstage. I walk over and ask him if he understood the directions and that no one was permitted back stage except staff of the show. He says yes he understands. I showed him my show pass and he assured me he understood that only people with the exact pass I had could go back stage. I return to front of house. Twenty minutes goes by and he lets another person go by and I rush over to him and ask why he did that. He says that that particular person has a higher rank than him and he can’t tell him no.

I asked the translator for the highest level security guard!