Footlights Shines On: Fill & Download for Free

When have you been physically hurt during a performance?I remember it well. ‘Twas the night I walked offstage and left the glow of performing behind.No, I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean I actually walked off the frickin’ stage.It was my first and only encounter with a blindingly bright spotlight and with talent shows…and it was brutal. Just imagine trying to get stuff done while a train’s headlight is just shining right through your eyeballs. Unnecessary for the space and just viciously bright. Thanks to this, I was basically working blind for everything above the hard edge of the light beam. My hands and upper body were in bright-bright light, but below the hard edge of the lit space, it was darker than inside a cow. Probably one of the least effective ways to light a stage show. I’m sure for the audience it was probably cool, but for the people trying to compete it was a trial by fire deal. Nearest comparison some people might’ve experienced, imagine wading in waist-deep water that’s not clear; you totally can’t see what your feet are or what’s underneath your next step. I had a roughly meter-wide disc of intense blinding light, and everything that wasn’t within that illuminated space might as well not exist because you can’t see it.It got my spatial awareness a bit wonky.With many of my tricks, I tend to close distance for the reveal. I hang back a bit while I’m doing the work, but when it’s time to go for the payoff I like to make sure they can see it, so naturally I move forward. Not a mile, maybe a half-step. That’s fine when you’re working a nursing home and are at the same level with everyone else. That’s fine when you’re on the same level with everyone at a restaurant. The setup guy told me the stool was placed four feet from the edge. His “four feet” was more like “a little less than three”.I thought I had more space than I actually had and…I stepped off the front edge of the stage and landed between the front row and the stage. About a 3 foot drop, but the only damage was a badly sprained ankle. (When I realized I was falling, I pushed off with the other leg. It kept me from faceplanting, but all my weight came down on one foot/leg. I could have broken that leg really easily, so I still say I got lucky.) With a bit of help I got back on the stage. Moved the case down to the stage floor and sat on the stool.“Be fair, y’all, it might not’ve fooled the front row, but to the ones in the back it had to look like I disappeared into thin air! If I hadn’t made a big thump when I hit the floor, y’all would have thought that was a great trick!” I figured the odds of pulling off the debonair magician were shot, so go for the cheap joke.I didn’t win. Apparently, the judges thought acts that didn’t involve the performer falling off the frickin’ stage were more entertaining. Strange concepts. Oddly though, I finished pretty much middle of the pack. I didn’t get to see the acts that scored lower than I did…but I’m guessing they were worse than an act that involved a clumsy magician falling off the frickin’ stage. Not sure which would be worse, really; to score 5th of 12 because you fell off the stage, or to perform everything perfectly as designed and practiced and score lower than the guy who fell off the stage.It did teach me a lot about stage and show design.Footlights are awesome for a reason. Not only do they help light the performer, they also offer a physical barrier to help the performer keep track of where they are in the space.Flat stages with no lip or anything, they’re not smart. If there’d even been a board or trim piece nailed down for my foot to bump into, I’d have known that I was at the edge. Even footlights that weren’t on would have helped me realize I was nearing the abyss.If your spotlight is so bright that the performer is effectively blind and can’t even see…maybe turn that down a bit?Always leave a generous space at the front of the stage. If they’d had seats right up to the edge, I’d have fallen on someone and they (theater owners) would have been really open to lawsuit. The smartest thing they did, considering the edge of the stage was bare, was to leave a designated landing zone at the stage edge.

The theatre hall itself was lit by small chandeliers. The stage, however, was lit by foot-lights and much larger chandeliers referred to as girondels. Footlights (candles) lined the front of the stage, with metal reflectors to intensify and direct the light onto the actors. The stage chandeliers consisted of downward-shining lights arranged around a wagon-wheel-like frame. These could be raised or lowered using ropes and pulleys, like the curtains. They were lit from the overhead catwalk using long tapers. You wouldn’t ever see these girondels because they were above the bottoms of the interior curtains. When you go backstage, you’ll see multiple curtains, and the girondels would hang between these.Did this kind of lighting cause fires? Absolutely. A lot of the lavish decorations of these theatres was made out of papier-mâché, cloth, and wood. If something on stage caught on fire, there were special, heavy fire-curtains designed to drop down and slow the fire’s spread (as there still are in theatres). Fire curtains were (and are) usually made out of flame-resistant materials, and they can be extremely heavy.Below, you can see what a large theatre looked like, and where the light was coming from. This is the new Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, c. 1808 (the old one having burned down in the late 18th century). This theatre was designed to accommodate well over 2,000 people. Note, too, that the stage is actually slanted, and rises about 1 foot from the front to the back, giving an optical illusion of greater depth.

My mom went through this with my dad, when he took early retirement…she told him to go organize his side of the garage. He came back after half an hour and said it was too hard…so he went to his office and organized his computer area. Either way, one problem solved.If domestic duties and errands are out, is there a part of his life that he might want to dictate as a story? I tried to get each of my parents to do this, because they’d learned a lot of interesting things, growing up in the Depression, but it never happened…But, who knows? Could there be a screenplay lurking in your spouse that needs to shine in the footlights? You never know! Maybe you each have a story and could take turns working on bringing them to light, in the free hours…could be nice!