Safety and Health for the Stage: Collaboration with the Production Process

Safety and Health for the Stage: Collaboration with the Production Process is a practical guide to integrating safety and health into the production process for live entertainment in the context of compliance with applicable codes, standards, and recommended practices.

This book explores the need for safety and health to become an integral aspect of theatre production and live entertainment, focusing on specific steps to take and policies to employ to bring a safety and health program into full collaboration in the production process. Readers will learn how to comply with legal codes and standards as they initiate and implement an effective safety and health program in their theatre production organization or academic theatre department. The book includes references and links to other industry-specific safety and health resources, as well as a Glossary of Safety and Health Terms to navigate the safety and health jargon in the context of theatre and live entertainment. Safety and Health for the Stage: Collaboration with the Production Process provides links to electronic versions of sample safety and health programs, industry-specific policies and recommended practices, and forms and templates related to many of the topics covered in the book.

Written for practitioners who are engaged in all aspects of theatre production and live entertainment, as well as educators who train and influence the next generations of these practitioners, this book is an essential resource for creating a positive culture of safety in live entertainment.

Bill Reynolds joined the faculty at Yale School of Drama in 1982. He retired in 2017 as the Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre (YSD/YRT) Director of Theater Safety and Occupational Health. Prior to the creation of this position at YSD/YRT in 2009, he served as Associate Technical Director for YSD (1982 to 1987), and then as Director of Facility Operations for YSD/YRT (1988 to 2008). He graduated with a BA from Northern Michigan University in 1973, and he received an MFA in Technical Design and Production from Yale School of Drama in 1977. After graduating from YSD, Bill was the Technical Manager for Tri-Cities Opera Company, Binghamton, NY, from 1977 to 1981, and then Technical Director for State University of New York at Binghamton from 1981 to 1982.
Bill has presented theater safety and health sessions at the New England Theater Conference (NETC), the United States Institute for Theater Technology (USITT), and the InfoComm conferences, and for the University Risk Managers and Insurers Association (URIMA), the Center for Campus Fire Safety (CCFS), the American Occupational Health Conference (AOHC), and the Campus Safety, Health and Environmental Managers' Association (CSHEMA). He has taught safety theater classes and consulted on theater safety for such institutions as: The Julliard School; Wesleyan University; Carnegie-Mellon University; the University of California Risk Summit; Minnesota Theater Alliance Statewide Safety Conference, and Eastern Connecticut State University. Bill previously served USITT as the Safety & Health Vice-Commissioner for Programming and then as Safety & Health Vice-Commissioner for Education and the Student Alliance Program. Bill is an OSHA Authorized Outreach Trainer and has taught OSHA-10 and OSHA-30 classes for several theatre organizations.