Let there be no mistake in understanding the having a NEW theatre has little or nothing to do with how safe it is. I visit many theatres each year, both new and old, and find them almost equally dangerous in many aspects. Unfortunately, many theatres are designed and built by people with no understanding of theatre, theatre operations, or personnel safety.
Just because a building has a Certificate of Occupancy does not mean that anything has actually been correctly designed, built, or inspected. There are too many holes in the construction process that allow willfully negligent conditions to exist after the Architects and Contractors have been paid. Some states have exclusionary (sovereign immunity) laws on the books that protect the schools from being sued if a student or teacher is injured, so they have little to no incentive to make things safe other than intimidation through public outcry. Only the visible things like armed guards (when they mistakenly think 'security' is the same thing a 'safety'), and school bus brakes get fixed (school bus accidents always make the news), everything else is ignored until after the football budget has been thoroughly depleted.
Need 10 $5 hard-hats? NO. Need 50 $500 football helmets? YES.
Need a sprung floor for actors and dancers on the stage? No - you get concrete.
Need 100 acres of Grade A turf and drainage for athletic fields. OK - here's a check.
Fall hazards are the most common thing I see, particularly missing safety gates at the tops of ladders. Keeping access doors to ladders and catwalks locked is a continuous challenge, as there is a tendency to unlock them and forget it. Nothing like finding a student laying at the bottom of a ladder in a crumpled heap.
As mentioned by others - it is imperative that you personally supervise the students in elevated work spaces. This takes time, so it can eat into your man-power budget for a show quite rapidly.
I fully agree that theatre training should include taking students (in small groups of 3-5) to the gridiron deck, fly galleries, and catwalks. They need to have the hazards clearly pointed-out to each and every one of them so they grasp the seriousness of the working condition. Issuing hard hats, gloves, and safety glasses as a standard operating procedure before entering the workspace is just as important as emptying pockets of loose items (no, they really don't need their cell phone up there - and it can severely damage anyone it strikes when they drop it - not to mention what it does to a $600 iPhone.) and securing work tools (wrenches for lights, etc.) on lanyards. Just as important as teaching the students how to work safely at height is teaching them how to NOT be underneath some else working at height. All too often I see entire classes wandering about cluelessly below crews working on catwalks, gridirons, and/or moving the stage rigging . . .
There are some students that are naturally adventuresome and may try to climb out over ceilings and go other places besides the catwalks, and they must be informed that falling through the ceiling will get them expelled (so they can attend their funeral).
Yes, theatre spaces can be a dangerous place. So be prepared to establish a system of training, permission slips, and reqests for improvements in order to be allowed to teach the students these basic skills. Just don't be surprised when an administrator needs to be educated about how a theatre works when you need to change the lights. It's not your job to teach the janitor to do it - if it is too dangerous for the students to access, then it is also too dangerous for the you or the janitor to access.
------------------------------
Erich Friend
Theatre Consultant
Teqniqal Systems
------------------------------