Day 558…
Long after I left the tour of The Phantom of the Opera, I was still racking up frequent flier miles every time they made a jump. The Company Manager would always buy some dummy tickets in case somebody on the crew needed to stay later than planned and often bought one in my name. Nobody checked IDs at the airport in those days, so he’d hand the carpenter “my” ticket and off they’d go. The miles would show up in my account a few days later.
Back during the 1960’s airplane hijackings happened so often that “Take me to Cuba” became a television punchline. Regardless of where they flew, every airline had a map of the Caribbean in the cockpit - just in case. At a Senate hearing in 1968, the idea of using metal detectors was floated, only to be dismissed by the FAA over fears that “it would scare the pants off people”. On July 17, 1970, New Orleans International Airport (just across the Gulf from Cuba) became the first airport to start screening passengers by sending them through metal detectors. By 1973, the FAA began requiring that all passengers in the United States be screened, and in 1974 the Air Transportation Security Act made that a law.
Screenings greatly reduced the number of hijackings, but they didn’t eliminate them. Airlines, working with government agencies, worked through a series of risk analysis to try and balance how many safety measures could be implemented and to what extent, to provide maximum safety without scaring off potential passengers.
Up until September 10, 2001, if you got on an airplane you didn’t need to prove who you were. You didn’t need to take off your shoes or your belt or take your electronics out of the bag when you got to the airport. You could carry on a bottle of homemade wine or fresh lemonade you’d made from the tree in your backyard, and nobody thought twice about it.
A writer and journalist named James Mann wrote recently that the events of September 11 changed our country, "automatically, immediately, into one obsessed, in big ways and small, with protecting its security. The way that 325 million Americans go through airports today started on September 12 and has never gone back to what it was on September 10."
On November 19, 2001, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed into law, and we’ve never looked back. That’s when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created. By the following year, they had nearly 60,000 employees. That was the moment my extra frequent flier miles stopped appearing.
In 2006, a plot to smuggle liquid explosives onboard an aircraft was discovered and that was the end of being able to carry liquids onboard that you hadn’t gotten at the airport after going through security. That same year, after the notorious “shoe bomber” was caught trying to smuggle some weapon on board in the sole or heel of his shoes, that was the end of being able to walk through security wearing anything other than socks.
By 2010, the equally notorious “underwear bomber” tried to bring down a flight with a devise hidden in his clothing. That was when full body scanners started being used. In 2017, after evidence that terrorists were exploring how to hide explosive devises inside electronics, we all started having to take out our laptops and iPads.
That we’ve only had to take computers and other electronics out of our bags for the last four years was a surprise to me. I thought we’d been doing it much longer than that.
I am working on a new musical based on The Karate Kid. Roll your eyes all you want, but it has the potential to be something quite special. We did a short 29-hour reading of it back in February of 2020. It was one of the last things that I worked on before COVID struck. To clarify for the layperson, a 29-hour reading does not mean that that is how long it lasts, that means that’s how long you are given to rehearse it. The actors carry their scripts. There are no costumes or sets. The actors sit behind music stands. It is a chance for the Creative team to hear what they’ve been working on spoke and sung aloud.
This time we are doing a full workshop. There will be some presentations at the end for industry people but not for the general public. We have four weeks to teach the material and get it up on its feet. We will stage it but there won’t be costumes and the props will be mock-ups rather than the real thing.
Having worked on the Jersey Boys streaming project in Cleveland this summer, the protocols around the virus are not nearly as jarring to me as they are to some of the people for whom this is their first time back at work. We are working under the theatrical union, Actors Equity Association, this time rather than SAG/AFTRA, the film union. The rules are somewhat different.
Everyone needs to be vaccinated and be able to prove it. Before anyone is allowed into the room, they are required to present a negative PAC test within a certain amount of time from when they first start. Throughout the process, we will all be given rapid tests at least once a week. The protocols are ever-changing. There are break-through cases happening in shows all around Broadway, and the union is keeping a close eye on that and adjusting accordingly.
We are all wearing masks in the room all the time. Even the singers are required to remain masked the entire time. We can pull them down briefly to sip water or coffee, but then they must go right back up. We all are required to fill out an online COVID questionnaire every morning before we begin and have our temperatures taken. Next to the sign-in sheet are two cups. One for clean, sanitized pens and one for the ones that have been used and now need to be wiped down. Once we start with props, they will also need to be wiped down after they are used.
How do you work under those conditions? You just do. I don’t even think about putting a mask on when I walk inside a building these days, it’s a reflex. Working for hours on end with a mask on is, however, remarkably uncomfortable. When we leave the building at lunch or at the end of the day and can take them off, it is a joyful relief.
Within the next few days, New York will require proof of vaccination to enter establishments from gyms to movie theatres. Many places are already mandating it. To eat inside at a restaurant in the city, you already need to show either a screen shot of your vaccination card or your Excelsior pass. We are becoming a society where most things are becoming virtual. My gym card is now a scanned barcode off my phone. I rarely use cash these days - for almost everything I buy I use a credit card - the card readers all being on the customer side of the plexiglass barrier at the checkout.
We’ve been doing the workshop for a week already and there are still people that I have now gotten to know a bit whose faces I have never seen. I am sure that one of them is going to come up to me on the street without a mask and say “Hi”, and I’m not going to have the slightest idea who they are. I’ve filled in imaginary features for them in my mind that I know have no bearing on reality.
Life, as we know it, has changed. Yet again. And we have adapted to it. There are plenty of people who complain about the security gauntlet we need to go through when we fly, but there has not been an aviation incident on the level of 9/11 since those measures were implemented. If we follow the COVID protocols, maybe we will be equally fortunate.
Across the country, as they rail against the vaccine, the unvaccinated are dying at rates 11 times that of the vaccinated. All the data coming out of our nation’s schools supports the fact that masks and social distancing can cut the spread of COVID 19 down considerably. I am only able to be back at work because of the protocols that are in place. We are figuring out how to navigate through this and adjust our behaviors to make interacting with each other safer.
Each Broadway show heading towards reopening is doing the best that they can. Mistakes are being made and then, hopefully, learned from. We are out of the starting gate in terms of what happens back and onstage, the next hurdle is going to be figuring out how to include the audience into the equation. Michael and I have tickets to see a show in about two weeks. We found seats in the front row of the front mezzanine, thinking that having all that space in front of us felt better than being trapped inside the middle of a section. I wish I could say that I am confident that we will be completely safe, but I’m not. Not yet. This is us sticking our toes in and trying to adjust to the new temperature. One step at a time.
Twenty years ago, the first few flights we took after the events of that terrible day were nerve-wracking to say the least. We were more than glad to have the new security measures in place, happy that we were being taken care of. Now we expect that level of scrutiny when we fly. It is equally comforting to me that everyone will need to be vaccinated to enter the theatre.
I’m both excited and anxious about heading back inside a theatre. I felt the same way just before we started rehearsals for The Karate Kid. For me, that’s the indication that I’m heading the right way. Looking forward to the experience but uncertain of some of the new challenges keeps the blood pumping. Without both of those feelings being there, there really isn’t any reason to embark on a new adventure. Heading as responsibly and safely as we can into the unknown is the best, I think, that we can expect of ourselves.
Helmets on. Flashlights up. Here we go.
❤️💕Mask up, helmets on, flashlights up
here we go
Security has become a personal issue
my response to myself
my security...my being secure in this world
safe...not about any one’s laws for me
but my response to others safety and security
begins with me
Compassion for myself
then spilling into compassion for others
why are we here, if not for others
💕❤️🙏