"Will The Show Really Go On?"

If you were to wander into the cockpit of a 747 jumbo jet or the cabin of the Space Shuttle, you'd be  struck by the redundant systems on board these engineering marvels.  Okay, you'd probably be shot by an Air Marshall or an Air Force Marine first, but as you were falling to the floor that's what you'd see!   The builders of these technological marvels realized that no machine is fail safe.  Sooner or later the best designed and built systems will mallfunction in some way.  If the failure occurs in a primary system in mid-flight, the result can be distastrous, even fatal for hundreds of people.  There's no pulling over to the side of the road to wait for the Auto Club to bring a tow truck!

The same is true if you're the producer or director of a live show - or plan to be one somewhere in your future. Personally, I've produced everything from small church events to VIP black tie Hollywood Charity dinners for a thousand, arena shows for 50,000, stage plays and movie premiers, and my share of music concerts for 30,000 screaming teenagers.  The principles at work are the same for all of them.  Once the curtain goes up or the show starts, there's no stopping until the final curtain call or the smoke clears from the finale pyrotechnics and the hall empties.  Yet all too many producers and directors fail to take precautions to avoid showstoppers of the non-welcome variety! 

Several years ago, I had an experience that jolted my awareness of this truth.

I was producing and directing what turned out to be the last public event of the legendary "King and Queen of the Cowboys", a star-studded tribute to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.  Co-hosted by Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, and Roy and Dale's close friend Dr. Billy Graham, the guest list read like a who's who of a bygone era of television and the movies.  But my favorite guest, the one star who made the event special for me personally, was none other than the masked man himself, The Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore.  I remember going out to meet him and his dear wife at their home outside  of Los Angeles several days before the show.  I'm driving down the freeway when it suddenly hits me.  I'm about to meet the Lone Ranger himself and without his mask.  This is an awesome moment for a kid who grew up watching re-run cowboy movie serials every Saturday morning.  The visit was no less delightful.  The Moores graciously hosted me in their home.  Before I left, Clayton autographed pictures for both me and my young son, even though David's movie stars were still confined to the Sesame Street Muppet universe at that point.   I reluctantly left, feeling higher than a kite!  I had met the Lone Ranger.  How could your life be the same after that?!

So here we were on the day of the show.  It was a black tie, $1,000 a plate dinner, the proceeds going to the good work of The Salvation Army (a group of dedicated folks I've had the privilege of serving on several projects over the years).   We finished rehearsals with the young singers and dancers who were to perform on the show, then took a break.  It was early afternoon.  The show call for cast and crew was several hours away.  I needed to go back to my office for something (I forget now just what) but in any event, I left the venue, the Universal City Hilton ballroom, perched just above Universal Studios.  My office was in Hollywood, just over the hill.  I could easily make it back before the show call.  I hurried outside and drove away.

A couple hours later, my mission away accomplished, I'm driving back to Universal City on the 101 Hollywood Freeway when I suddenly had a frightening thought.  Were something to happen to me right then and I didn't get back to the Hilton ballroom, the entire show would collapse.  No one else knew all of the cues, knew the live script well enough to call the show backwards and forwards, knew it well enough to deal with anything that might come up.  In short, I was indispensible to the show's success - not a good thing, not a good thing at all!

I made a decision that afternoon that would forever change how I work.  I determined I would never again put myself in a position to be indispensible to the succcess of a live show or event I was producing or directing. I would make certain that someone else knew everything they would need to know to replace me without the audience ever knowing I was not there.  But not only me, I determined on shows I produced  to make certain every department head assigned someone on their team to be their shadow as well, in the event THEY were prevented from carrying out their responsibilities for a performance.   Stage performers have done this for generations.  How many famous careers have been launched because a celebrity couldn't go on and their understudy filled in at the last minute?   I simply applied the same principle to the positions of producer and director and the other staff positions vital to a live show.  I DID make it back that night.  The Roy and Dale tribute was a great success, but more about that in a moment...

Fast forward a few years.   David Moore, Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a close personal friend, calls me one afternoon about producing and directing the official Groundblessing Ceremonies for the new Cathedral of Los Angeles, "Our Lady of the Angels".   I'm thinking 'groundblessing', 'groundbreaking', a few old guys standing around a hole with gold painted shovels, wearing hard hats, making a few boring speeches, posing for pictures. Why do they need me?

I found out soon enough.  Not only will this be the last cathedral to be built in the world in the 20th century, but the GroundBlessing is to be a City of Los Angeles official event.  A parade of 6,000 in uniformed dress will march through the streets of downtown LA from the old cathedral to the site of the new one. A thousand voice choir will greet the parade at the new Cathedral site where the mayor and city officials join church leaders for a festive ceremony.  Pope John Paul II will send a Papal greeting to the audience of 20,000 assembled from across Southern California (a traffic logistics challenge).   A bulldozer will move the earth as balloons are released over the sky above Los Angeles.  This is a big deal!

I have three dozen department heads managing an event staff of some 200, who in turn oversee over a thousand volunteers.  The event is a year in the planning.  At our first planning meeting, I hand out a form on which each department head not only fills out their own information, but must identify and provide contact information for the individual they have designated as their shadow, the person who will do their job on the day of the event should they fall sick of donut poisoning and die during rehearsals the day before.   The 'backup' staff will be asked to join key planning meetings.  In most cases, the person chosen is already the senior assistant to the person they are shadowing.

Beyond insuring that there is a backup person for every vital position on the live show crew, I have learned in the years of doing this that it makes everyone a better manager (including me), more thoughtful, more careful about the details of their job.  It makes sense.  If you have to communicate everything you are doing to someone else, you become more aware and intentional about what you're doing yourself. The level of excellence rises at every level of the production. 

 The night before the Ground Blessing  event  I walk through the empty site.  A bright moon pierces a star filled night sky overhead.  Long silk banners flutter from the white towers that frame the stage I designed to evoke a sense of Cathedral towers of yesteryear.  A holy peace seems to fill the space.  In a few hours thousands of the faithful will gather to make history as they dedicate this site forever to the worship of almighty God in the great Cathedral that will soon rise on this land.  I walk to the spot in the middle of the audience where blueprints tell me the altar of the new church will be built.  Tomorrow, the Cardinal will walk from the stage to this spot and bless it.  I am humbled to be here.

The last rehearsal ended hours ago. Every department head has checked in.  We are ready.  I go home. But the night is short.  I return just after dawn.  Monsignor Kevin Kostelnik, who will be the Cathedral's first pastor,  holds mass under the choir bleachers for the production staff and volunteers.  It is unofficially the first mass to be held at the new Cathedral. I have a sense I am part of something historic.  The Cathedral has been planned to stand for hundreds of years.   

The event goes off without a hitch.  No staff backup replacements are needed but they are there and ready had they been.  I go home exhausted and pleased.  So do 20,000 people who have taken part in an historic event in Los Angeles today.

Back to that Roy Rogers tribute event...  It's a good thing I DID make it back.  In the middle of the show, a big musical medley was being performed by a soloist and a troup of dancers.  The opening dance sequence had bridged into a solo performance by the vocalist while the dancers (still on stage) waited for the next section to begin. Suddenly in the middle of the singer's solo, the background music stopped.  The audio engineer and I looked at each other totally perplexed.  The playback audio deck had frozen without explanation.  On stage, the singer amazingly kept singing like this was SUPPOSED to be an acappella section. What a trouper!  But I knew what was coming.  In 60 seconds,  the dancers are supposed to join the singer to complete the eight minute sequence with a high energy vocal / dance finale.  It will not happen without music.  The show...MY SHOW...will come to a crashingly embarrassing halt.  

The audio engineer checks the playback deck.  Whatever caused it to freeze has unfrozen!  The deck is working fine.  I have an idea of how to save the show!   I throw on a pair of headphones and fast forward on the track as quickly as I can to find the point on the track where the dancers come back in.  (If you are a musician you know that there is no melody line on background tracks for vocalists, only harmony.  The singer provides the melody.  Finding the downbeat for an edit point on a harmony track in the middle of an 8 minute medley is easier said than done!)  With only a few seconds to spare and a silent prayer, I find the note starting the next part of the medley.  I signal the engineer.  I will hit play and he is to instantly slide up the volume, not fade it in.  If we do it right, it will seem to the audience that this was the way it is supposed to be!  I count the beats of the music as the vocalist approaches the mark for the dancers to join.  On stage, I can tell they have no idea what's going on and we have no way to warn them.  We hit the moment.  I restart the track.  On stage the dancers don't miss a beat.  The show is saved.  So am I.  Disaster is averted.  Had I not been there, no one else could have saved the moment.  No one else knew the show, knew the music, would have known what to do.  Today, they would!

Why wouldn't anybody working on a show want to have a backup to protect the continuity of a live performance that their absence could jeopardize.   It's simple. It takes a risk to make yourself 'dispensible'.  It goes against what we have been taught about job security.  It defies our selfish logic that tells us we SHOULD make ourselves indispensible to any endeavor's success, that to do so affirms our worth, increases our value.  But in the world of theater and live events, a higher logic must prevail: a commitment to the success of the show that compells a true professional to make certain you have done your very best to insure that no matter what, "The Show WILL go on!"   The person who works with that kind of attitude is someone I want to work with...someone that to me IS indispensible!