DON’T BREAK A LEG
TO PURSUE A LIFE IN THE THEATRE IS TO EMBARK on a precarious path of rejection and intermittent employment. All theatre artists, even successful ones, face financial instability, cutthroat competition, and long hours. There are plenty of perils to face even when a job is booked, as one choreographic misstep or dropped cue can have a career-altering effect. The eight-show-a-week grind by itself, even minus any missteps, can have a lasting impact on a performer’s body for life.
There have always been, and always will be, injuries incurred in the realization of theatre magic. Most of that ostensible magic, after all, is crafted in the dark by stagehands on headsets, flymen watching infrared screens, and automated set pieces in motion. Performers are tasked with executing extraordinary things onstage, night after night, often amid such occupational hazards as theatrical smoke and haze, raked stages, and loud noises—all while decked out in unwieldy costume pieces and towering wigs.
The infamous 2011 Broadway production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark made headlines when a number of faulty harnesses and unsafe mechanical set pieces caused injuries, leaving at least one actor hospitalized after a free fall of more than 20 feet into the orchestra pit. Idina Menzel fractured a rib after falling several feet through a trapdoor while performing in Wicked in 2005. Groundhog Day’s Andy Karl was sidelined in 2017 when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament onstage. Recently Andrea Martin bowed out of this season’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus after breaking four ribs in rehearsal.
But aside from show-stopping injuries that make the news, there is a culture of silence around the subject of theatrical injuries, particularly those involving
