I Remember When - A Dance Tale Another story from the early 80's. Mikhail Baryshnikov was coming to our theater! The whole town was excited and I remember there were actually long lines at the box office. This is rare for dance, trust me. I don't think he was part of American Ballet Theater at the time; my memory was that it was his show, his tour. The lighting was "self-contained", meaning that they brought everything with them: the lights, the cables, the dimmers, the color and every bit and piece. Normally, they will use our lights and dimmers in the house, we just switch over control. Dance shows usually are pretty straight forward, lots of side light and dance floor and a few props. In this case, they were not very flexible in that the dimmer racks had to live stage right. All the cables from the trusses over head would dress to stage right and down to the dimmers. Since our "company switch" (three phase, 400 amp breakers) was stage left; that meant that big thick cables had to go up stage, across the back, then down stage again to get power. These cables are huge - think of those big hoses the fire engines use when full of water, that's how wide they are! The standard is that when you have cables on the deck, you cover them up with pieces of carpet and tape it down. The goal is to reduce the trip hazard and point out that there is something there! Of course, in the theater we want everything black. Then when you want to see it, we put white tape or glow tape on it. For this show, I have no assignment. For once (finally!), my boss has decided to be a boss. I do have to attend strike but for the show I am free. I, too, am excited about seeing the greatest dancer of the last 50 years and certainly one of the all time greats. We have lighting coves that run up the side of the house. I choose a cove where I can see the show and settle down for a fun evening of dance and ballet. The curtain goes up and the first piece is "Class", a dance piece about taking class. Barres are on the stage as a prop and ballerinas are lined up brushing their toes on the floor and doing plies. Suddenly, bam!, Baryshnikov enters by taking three long leaps across the stage! He must be only 5'8", our stage is 60' wide and I swear, he made it across in only three leaps. I know that'd be twenty feet a leap, lol, but that's what it looked like. The audience applauds the feat (every pun intended) and it's all great fun and a treat. Half-way through the piece, except for the front lights ....all the stage lights go out! I have no idea if the audience can tell, but I sure can. Just the front wash is on and it's not very flattering. The piece continues, of course, then bows, then the curtain comes down. The house lights rise to a dim level to read the programs. I sit, kinda restless. Nothing happens. Finally I decide I'd better head backstage to see what's up. All the bosses are clustered around the company switch. The big 400 amp breaker has been thrown. Your living room probably has a 15 amp breaker, so imagine that 400 amps is a lot! The very long run of thick cable from the dimmers stage right to the company switch stage left has increased the resistance, generating heat, and forced the breaker to be thrown! The first thing I am told to do is to help pull the carpet off of the cables so they can run cooler. I am pulling up carpet and tossing it into a pile, long strips of it. Finally I come across a man sitting on a chair straddling my cable. Eff. It's Baryshnikov! He is fuming. I could almost see the angry waves radiating off of him. What do you think I did? Here's what when through my mind.... "Move yer ass, bub." Just stop and look exasperated, I mean he can see that I'm working here! "If you want your show to go on, get out of my way." "Excuse me, I have to move this carpet so the cables can cool down." "Move!" Which did you guess? That's right; I just worked around him and left a long strip of carpet. I wasn't going near "famous angry man", notta chance! I go back to the company switch and the people standing around it. I am actually the hero in this story. The connectors have gotten too hot and can't be undone. The decision is to spread each phase over three separate breakers, so if one pops then they still have 2/3's of their lights. Good idea. I suggest we use a fire extinguisher to super-cool the connectors. My boss looks at me like I'm a genius! Quickly we do just that. We open the connectors now and spread the load. We take the panels off the sides exposing all the connections to the electricity. Very Dangerous. Someone shows up with a box fan to blow air over the circuit breakers. My boss looks at me, argh! I am elected to hold the fan and stand guard over the open circuits for the rest of the show! I remember when I saved the day on a show; yet had to stand on my tip-toes and look over heads from the wings to watch Baryshnikov dance.