Act 1, Scene 1.

Sydney Opera House

“There’s water leaking into the orchestra pit!” On hearing those words, Opera Australia Head Mechanist Dan Paine snapped his head away from his computer and looked in my direction. I was standing at the doorway of the designated Opera Australia (OA) office/chill out zone within the Sydney Opera House green room, where Paine and half a dozen of his OA crew were in various states of rest and relaxation; reading books, sending emails and napping. Barely a second passed before Paine, having ascertained that I was in fact not joking, rose swiftly to his feet and headed for the doorway. “Let’s go,” he called to his troops, who all abruptly jumped into action.

I watched Paine, barely 30 years old, with his shoulder length, ginger hair and trucker’s blue singlet as he came towards me – leading the charge. The look on his face suggested a mixture of curiosity, calm urgency and determination to sort out whatever this problem may look like when he got to the pit. He and the crew marched out the door, through the green room and headed swiftly to the scene like a posse enroute to a shootout. Other backstage mechanists from the Opera House crew realised that something was up and joined the mob. I followed closely behind Paine, excited and intrigued to see how we were going to stop a 1000 litre on-stage water feature from soaking the 30-piece orchestra playing below in the middle of an opera....

The event described is indicative of what challenges are thrust upon the backstage crew at the Sydney Opera House (and crews anywhere for that matter). I'll get back to the water issue eventually but in the next post I will backtrack a little, so I can share my experience of being a fresh-faced, greenhorn stage hand working deep inside the belly of one of the world's most recognisable buildings.