One of these seagulls flies through the air during the show, too.
One of the amazing things about The Little Mermaid at 5th Avenue Theatre is how many performers fly through the air, including one of these seagulls. Mark Kitaoka

Hey everyone, I made a joke on Slog last week that made some stagehands very upset. I was being facetious. I think it was obvious I was being facetious and I don't think there's any reason for stagehands to be this upset—writing me personal letters, writing blog comments on the post. But just in case you didn't catch that I was joking—there are a few of you in every crowd—I'm writing this to let you know what the joke was, what the truth is, and why the stagehands are very upset.

Here's the controversial passage in my Little Mermaid review (scroll to the end for the important part):

Moment I died of happiness. When Prince Eric gets tossed off a ship in act one and falls into the ocean. The easy way to stage this would be for him to be tossed off the ship and then to cut to Ariel tending to him on the beach. But no. You know what this absolutely fantastic Seattle production of The Little Mermaid does instead? They have Prince Eric tumble off the side of the ship, then immediately fall through midair, through "water," from the top of the proscenium, slowly, while Ariel, also "swimming" through midair, swims up to him and grabs his limbs and pulls him—in midair!—to safety. Do you know how complicated it is rigging someone to a harness and hoisting them into the air and then having the actor suspended there pretend to be floating weightlessly through water? It's so much more complicated than you realize. And yet every single moment in this show is accomplished with water-like grace. It's unreal.

Moment I died of happiness again. Diana Huey singing "Part of Your World" in midair. Again, it's hard enough to float around looking like you're swimming when you're just attached by cords to the ceiling and some guy in the wings is yanking your cords up and down while he's eating a bagel or whatever—but to do that while singing?

Couple things:

1) I didn't actually die of happiness. That was a joke. I'm alive.

2) I didn't actually die of happiness a second time. That was also a joke.

3) "Some guy in the wings is yanking your cords up and down while he's eating a bagel or whatever" is not a sincere or technical description of what is going on backstage. Stagehands who control the rigging for performers flying through the air are serious people, they are highly trained, they are unionized professionals, and they do not necessarily like being joked about. (Makes sense. No one ever gives stagehands the love anyway. They never get applause. And now this?!?! "Eating a bagel or whatever"?) Let me clarify, in all earnestness: I guarantee you they are not "eating bagels or whatever" while they literally have someone's life in their hands, nor would they ever want to! They are concentrating hard on the task that has been entrusted to them, that they have been trained to do, that they have been rehearsing for months, that they take seriously as professionals, and that requires two hands. If you actually read that and thought I was serious about having died (no one even sent a card) or union stagehands "eating bagels or whatever" while lifting live performers into the air (which they're not), well, now you know.

4) If I were writing a sincere, technical description of what's going on backstage during I flight sequence, I wouldn't use the word "guy" either—many of the city's awesome stagehands are women, and it takes more than one stagehand to make a flight sequence happen.

To recap: it's not "a guy," it's not someone "eating a bagel or whatever," it's a lot of hardworking and highly trained people who make stage magic happen, and stagehands deserve more love and credit than we give them.

Now, back to the main point: The Little Mermaid at the 5th Avenue is so much better than it needs to be, and its stage magic is a reflection of the talent and hard work of a bunch of people, including tons of folks you never get to see. Go support good theater.