Sunday, June 07, 2009 | News, Atlanta
Safety takes center stage for Atlanta’s arts community

“If whoever is in the audience likes how you look and they are not mentally sane, they are going to try something.”—Zakiya Watford

From left: Synchronicity’s Amy Wratchford and 7 Stages’ Heidi Howard, with 7 Stages staffers Corrie Haislip and Susan McCluskey

BY AARON EDWARDS

The jingling of keys reverberates in the eerie silence of Heidi Howard’s office at 7 Stages in Little Five Points. As the company’s production stage manager, Howard is usually in the building late at night—11 p.m., midnight, maybe 1 a.m. Currently, it’s 3 o’clock in the morning. As she fervently types at her computer and makes final notes for the day, she checks items off of a mental to-do list:

Turn off the lights: check. Lock the theater doors: check. Clear out the actors: check.

The keys on her waist gently shake against her hip as she walks toward the back doors. For Howard, this night is no different than most. But with crime a hot-button issue in Atlanta, where car theft, robbery and burglary rates are consistently more than twice the national average, safety is a key concern for members of the city’s artistic institutions.

That’s especially true for those who keep late hours. After 10:30 p.m., when curtains close and theater lights are dimmed, actors, crew members and theater patrons make their way to parking lots, bus stops and MARTA stations across the city, where they’re hyper-aware of their vulnerability to every car, every stranger and suspicious-looking character that wanders by.

Crime statistics released by the FBI last week show that violent crime in Atlanta decreased by 8.3 percent in 2008 (although property crime, burglary and theft saw increases). And Amy Wratchford, managing director for Synchronicity Performance Group, which makes its home at 7 Stages, says that so far, crime hasn’t been an issue at the venue.

“In the two and a half years that I’ve been here, we’ve had one incident of someone’s car being broken into,” she says. “But other than that, we haven’t found it to be necessarily any more dangerous than any other neighborhood. I don’t want folks to get the wrong idea and think there is a massive crime problem at the theater. We definitely watch out for each other.”

 Howard stresses that going out to a show in the neighborhood is as safe as it’s ever been. Nevertheless, she says, it’s best to be aware and take precautions.

“As the production manager, I always tell the people who are coming into the space, whether it’s renters or my actors or production team or whomever, that ‘Hey, we’re in Little Five Points; be aware of your surroundings.’”
 
            Barbara Uterhardt, artistic company manager at OnStage Atlanta, says security is a prime focus of her theater company, as well.

            “In the contracts the actors and crew sign, we say their safety is our concern,” she says. “We want them to be either walked to their car by someone, or at least have someone watch them [go] out to their car.”

            Uterhardt’s dilemma, like that of other theater company managers, is finding a happy medium between the security the company can provide with the protection provided by the City of Atlanta. 

Howard says she’s adamant about the safety of the actors, crew and patrons at 7 Stages.

“We don’t f**k around,” she says. “This is my home, and when I welcome artists and guests here, I want to help with their safety, as well. I feel like that’s my job as someone who runs the organization. There is a certain level of respect needed for a community to work together and create, and I feel that we have that here at 7 Stages.”

"A UNITED EFFORT"

Zakiya Watford, a local actress and production manager, recalls an encounter with an audience member that made her feel unsafe.

“If whoever is in the audience likes how you look and they are not mentally sane, they are going to try something,” she says.

She suggests that actresses apply the ever-popular buddy system to ensure safety while walking on the streets after performances.

             “If [an actress] is going to buddy up with somebody, it pretty much needs to be a man. I don’t even think it needs to be pairs. If the cast is leaving at one time, they need to leave together. It needs to be more of a united effort when it comes to safety.”
           
Randall Cobb, a board member of the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance and chairman of the Midtown Neighbors’ Association Safety Committee, says coalitions of actors and citizens are making strides to resolve the issue.
           
“We’ve sort of taken matters into our own hands,” he says, pointing to neighborhood organizations that spread awareness and share tips to keep residents alert and secure.

“Don’t take the side streets where there are no lights,” he says by way of example. “If you want to walk up 10th Street, walk up 10th Street; don’t cut through [other streets] at certain hours of the night. Stay off your cell phone. If you’re leaving a dark theater at night, go right to the car.”

 Cobb says that in the past couple of months, “we’ve seen a significant turnaround” in Midtown. “With the help of our Zone 5 commander, Major Khirus Williams, we’re doing a pretty good job.”
            But, he says, this “turnaround” won’t stick if Atlanta citizens remain in fear of criminals.

“There’s a mindset of fear, and people are wondering if they are going to be able to get out of their car and go into the theater and come out safely and in one piece,” he says. “And that is something that you have to retrain your brain for. There has to be a no-fear mentality.” SP