Police Add Realism to Terrorism Drama

A theater-in-the-park melodrama about airline hijackers got a little too real Saturday night, causing an unexpected audience of about a dozen Burbank police officers to storm the building, guns drawn and ready for action.

Neighbors around the park were calling for help.

The police thought the actors were terrorists.

The audience thought the police were actors.

And by the time the confusion was cleared up, the show’s producers were feeling a bit chagrined about their exercise in “hostage” theater.

The play, called “Gate 11,” calls for the audience to be “hijacked” sometime during Act 1. The Burbank Theater Guild playhouse in George Izay Park has been redesigned like an airplane interior, with metal detectors and seat belts. Then, at intermission, the captured playgoers are allowed 15 minutes “for exercise and to use the washrooms.”

As the patrons exited the theater, the terrorist-actors--each brandishing toy machine guns and wearing guerrilla garb--keep close tabs on the playgoers’ movements on the patio, standing guard and even escorting then to and from restrooms.

That’s what neighbors saw from the shadows--about 100 playgoers in the clutches of gun-toting “terrorists.” Calls went out to Burbank police headquarters, said assistant producer Joan Nelson.

For a few tense minutes, officers surrounded the area. A police helicopter hovered overhead.

“At first, I feared for my actors,” Nelson said. “In their battle fatigues and camouflage, they look real, very real. It is almost impossible to tell whether they are actors or terrorists.”

Nelson spent the next hour convincing police that the simulated hostage scene was just that, she said. The intrusion brought rave reviews from the audience, however. “When the police arrived all of the customers loved it,” Nelson said.

The play has been running every Friday and Saturday night at the 99-seat theater since Sept. 20, but until Saturday night, police had not received any calls about the unusual intermission.

Nelson believes nearby residents probably had not noticed the carryings on during intermission because until last weekend the park had been used at night by city softball leagues. When the diamonds are lighted, she said, it is difficult to view what is happening on the theater’s patio.