Worst show mishap — Page 3

Most onstage mishaps with which I've been associated have involved dancers. The accidents were never visible to the audience; the injured dancer covered until he could get offstage and go to the hospital.

SPIDERMAN and pulled dancer muscles excepted, given all the stunts used in theater, doesn't it seem the industry is relatively accident-free?

Noted Broadway character actor Arnold Soboloff died of a heart attack while waiting in the wings for his second act entrance in Sandy Duncan's Peter Pan. He played Smee.

When searching Google for him, I found this list of deaths that happened onstage at Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/onstage.asp

French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully died from an accident that occurred while he was conducting a performance of his music in 1687. Conductors had not yet begun using batons; they stood and and beat time by pounding the stage with long hand-held staffs. Lully wasn't paying attention and stabbed his foot with it. The wound didn't heal well and eventually gangrene set in. His doctors told him that he risked death if they weren't allowed to amputate. He refused, the gangrene spread, and he died.

Updated On: 11/4/14 at 03:53 PM

just saw this article on EW... some fun stories!

although i do think "disasters" is a bit much... but whatever
http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/11/04/10-big-broadway-disasters-according-to-seth-rudetsky/

As a general rule, it is critical to have alternate staging prepared in the event that something happens at a critical moment during the show as STOPPING the show is the absolute last resort.
Yes, the mechanical arm (cherry picker is so reductive to the effect) has malfunctioned before, but the machinery is also designed to work perfectly by NOT going forward with the effect if there is actor error or any question of actor safety, so no. Just because she does not fly does not mean that the effect failed.