This Shouldn't Be Doing That

From the audience, everything looks effortless. Backstage, someone is quietly saying, "This shouldn't be doing that."

Welcome to the world behind the curtain, where the equipment is expensive, the deadlines are impossible, and the people responsible for making the magic happen are often the least qualified to behave like responsible adults.

For more than thirty years, sound engineer Terry Bledsoe has worked behind the scenes of concerts, theatrical productions, television broadcasts, and Las Vegas extravaganzas. Along the way, he's witnessed enough spectacular failures, questionable decisions, and extraordinary human behavior to fill a book.

So he did.

This Shouldn't Be Doing That - And Other Lessons from Behind the Curtain is a hilarious, irreverent collection of true backstage stories from an industry where the show must go on, regardless of how badly things are falling apart.

Meet the touring crew that needed children's chalk drawings to understand stage directions. Witness a practical joke that turns a sound technician into an unguided human projectile. Discover what happens when a motorcycle, a camel, and a machine gun become part of the same corporate entertainment event.

And those are just a few of the smaller disasters.

From encounters with legendary entertainers to the everyday insanity of keeping live productions running, Bledsoe takes readers into a world where professionalism and complete idiocy frequently occupy the same room.

But beneath the chaos is something else: a genuine affection for the misfits, craftsmen, artists, and lunatics who devote their lives to making audiences believe everything is going according to plan.

Part memoir, part backstage confession, and part cautionary tale, This Shouldn't Be Doing That is for anyone who's ever wondered what really happens behind the curtain.

The audience buys two hours. Backstage gets twelve.

And the audience usually gets the better lighting.