Reprinted from the May 2005 Issue of: Projection, Lights and Staging News.

As the Technical Manager of a mid-sized community theatre, one of my duties is to review all proposed Special Effects for safety.  About a year ago I was presented with a situation that reminded me to expect the unexpected.

A local organization that provides an educational alternative for ‘at-risk’ high school students rented our theatre to present an anti-gang themed play created by their students, for presentation to other local high school students.  The Director of the group called me to ask permission to use a pistol in a fight scene.  After a brief conversation about rules regarding firearms, I asked him to drop by with the gun so I could check it out.

The Director arrived the day before their load-in and proudly presented me with a shoebox.  I opened the box to find a fully functional, and fully loaded .45 semi-automatic pistol.  He had also conveniently brought along the blanks they would be using, mixed loose in the shoebox with more live ammunition!

I politely reminded him that for approval, all stage guns were required to have a solid barrel or no firing pin and live ammunition was never allowed in the theatre.  I told him that this gun was not acceptable unless the firing pin was removed and to never mix live and blank ammunition.  He apologized for the live rounds and said the gun wasn’t his and he couldn’t get permission from the owner for the modification.  Considering his proven inability to obtain a safe stage prop, I suggested they use a small starter pistol we had.  The Director wanted the look of a larger gun so we settled on a full sized toy gun painted black, with sound effects through the on-stage sound system.  They brought the prop gun for their first rehearsal, ran the sound cue and it all worked out fine. My job was done……or so I thought.

During the afternoon of the second rehearsal I got a call from our receptionist.  A police officer was in the front office telling us to evacuate the building due to a SWAT situation.  I went to the stage to round everyone up and we discovered that two of the cast members were missing.  They were last seen 20 minutes ago headed to the alley behind the building.  I carefully opened the back door to an amazing sight; multiple Police cruisers, eight SWAT Team officers, the business end of way too many M-16’s, and the missing cast members spread-eagled on the pavement.

The two actors had taken the toy gun from the prop table and gone out behind the building to rehearse their fight scene choreography, which must have been a bit too realistic for someone in the building across the street.

They both could have been killed over a squirt gun!

We sent their Stage Manager back for retraining and amended our rules about prop weapons: "They are to be locked up at all times when not actually on-stage."

© Dennis Potter, KiMo Tech. Mgr.