i was evelyn when my high school performed "ragtime" this past fall.
we had my swing rope thrown over one of the I beams at the top of the fly system similar to a pulley system. we then had another rope that would pull the swing to the side of the stage and up out of the wingspace when it wasnt needed.
during the friday night performance i had climbed up to the platform during a blackout and when before my swing had come in and i was set on it, the lights and curtain came up for "Crime of the Century"! turns out the TD had tied the swing in too tight of knots to prevent it from making an early appearance.
by the time the curtain had come up it was about 2 feet away from me on the edge of the platform. i kept looking over at it out of the corner of my eye the whole song b/c i was scared it was gonna keep flying in and hit me! i ended up doing the whole song just trying to improvise some sort of blocking while i was singing about an invisible swing! haha.
a bunch of people told me they couldnt tell that there was supposed to be a swing, so in a way im glad it happened because i know i can keep going even with a malfunction and not just run off stage crying. LOL!