"Titanic" Closing - And The Tilting Stage Breaks!


(Left) A cracked, upstage supporting timber. Cracking wood was heard in the same general area where cracking was heard just prior to the start of the performance run, four weeks ago. Sunday's cracks were apparently merely a continuation of that process.


HMS Titanic did break in half as it sank, didn't it?

We closed "Titanic - The Musical" at DMTC on Sunday, March 19, 2006. And the worst-case calamity we had occasionally feared finally occurred. On the very last performance, the tilting stage broke!

In its three, fixed, tilted positions, the stage was designed to be supported by wooden blocks. The cause of stage failure appears to have been operator error: a designated cast member failed to place a block on the upstage side of the tilting stage. When people filed onto the (unsupported) tilted stage for the "To The Lifeboats" scene, two ominous, very loud cracks signalled a mechanical demise to Set Designer Michael McElroy's vision, about half an hour before its scheduled time. Fortunately (and as anticipated), this kind of support failure did not signal the threat of bodily injury. Still, and very suddenly, the cast was faced with a very different kind of show!

The curtain was not opened as usual for "To The Lifeboats." Instead the upstage cast members scrambled off the tilted stage and joined the downstage cast members in front of the closed curtain. The staged lifeboat mob scene then quickly evolved into something like a real mob scene, where there was so much pushing and shoving that we were in danger of stumbling and falling (I believe I stepped on Hal Wright's foot during this scene, and apparently Lauren Miller felt she had to rebuke others in her vicinity). Charles (Henry Holloway) almost didn't make it out of the scrum to briefly rejoin Caroline Neville (Jill Wright) for their brief downstage moment. J.P. Villa was so rattled by the turn of events that he forgot to come onstage for the scene immediately following, requiring us to improvise in his absence.

Michael McElroy was able to do his solo scene, "Mr. Andrew's Vision," with the sagging stage more-or-less stuck in "To The Lifeboats" position, but most importantly, for visual purposes, the scene was done with the curtain open. Once the curtain was closed again, oddly enough, there were difficulties lowering the stage: we nearly had to improvise a finale with the curtain closed. But we muddled through, in the best tradition of the British maritime industry, and were able to open the curtain for the finale after all. Some audience members even granted us a standing ovation!

The moral of Sunday's adventure was easy to learn: Focus, focus, focus!

The show itself was fun. We had a silly time in the dressing room. Alex Powell (I believe facetiously) sang the merits of America's favorite tune, "My Humps," by the Black-Eyed Peas:

What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your trunk?
I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps. (Check it out)

I suggested that all musical tunes from all genres should sound something like "My Humps:" Alex suggested Mozartian arrangements, but others are certainly feasible: ragtime arrangements, lounge arrangements, etc. Later, apropos of what, I don't remember, Andrew Lemons enthusiastically stated that he was a musician. A musician only capable of playing "My Humps," I averred. The idea of any musician being capable of only playing this one (catchy, but somewhat limited) song seemed inherently funny on its face!

Then, a long, tedious, and not even necessarily complete process of striking the set!

Backstage at intermission: Robert Coverdell and Bethany Pederson.






Josh Smith discovers stage 'bling' during strike. Background left, Alex Powell. Next to Josh, Julia Spangler. Background right, Steven Ross.






Despite Scott's shoulder rub, this odd conclave of DMTC's 'utes' signals a strike decision-making process. (Scott Griffith, Lauren Miller, Alex Powell, Kristi Avila, Jabriel Shelton, Julia Spangler)






After strike, Steve's Pizza! (Gail Lampinen, Lauren Miller, Steven Ross, Emily Beal, Scott Griffith)