orchestra fat passes out So the venue we're at this week is an older building and has a crazy layout and there are many staircases. There are elevators out in the public area, but backstage is mostly strange little stair configurations. Of course this has caused much reeing and complaining among the fatter musicians (not as many as usual in this particular city, thank goodness). The most commonly used entrance involves an upstairs journey of about a floor and a half, then walking a narrow ramp for about 30 seconds and then a two flight downstairs path into the actual pit. The fats arrive sweaty and out of breath, so much so that they have to "rest" before setting up. After a couple of days of this the stage manager pulled me aside and told me about a freight elevator location, but after some discussion we decided the path to it was too complicated and narrow. It's easily accessed at the back of the theater but then all the fatties would want to park back there and there are barely enough spaces for the crew as it is. Yesterday we had two shows so the fats really had a workout with the stairs, what with leaving the pit at intermission to get snacks, coming back, leaving for dinner break, coming back, etc etc. Last night about 2 or 3 minutes into the second half of the second show I see movement out of the corner of my eye and hear a crash. A fat woodwind player has fallen off her chair and taken a couple of music stands with her.  Quiet chaos ensues as nearby orchestra members go to her and I'm watching the stage to see if the performers heard anything and my mind is racing trying to put together how much time do we have before the next number, do we stop the show, is she dead?  Long story short, the paramedics came for her and we stopped the show for about 10 minutes while they took her out. When we resumed, another woodwind player took over some of her cues and we just made it work somehow. I heard afterwards from the crew that the paramedics really struggled getting her huge semi-passed-out body out of the labyrinth that makes up the backstage area. A couple of the musicians told me she had been out of breath all day and was having trouble playing. I'm still waiting this morning to hear how she's doing. Fats gonna fat I guess.