Day before show...

Being in a 1500 seat theatre that is more or less thrust (meaning the stage comes out into the audience a little) has its definite challenges. Getting kids to stay "open" while they are acting is really, really hard because they never remember.
So today we are running "Leader of the Pack" which is a huge dance number where the wolf pack (which consists of 8 the ditziest 11-12 year old girls we can find) are singing their hearts out to Akela (the studly leader of the pack) and Akela is up on this huge rock flexing his muscles etc... All of a sudden the set, which is about 20 ft high, topples over right on top of him and half of the wolf pack....what followed was the deafening, pre-pubescent screams of 57 children who were all jumping off the stage as if an earthquake was taking place. As monkeys, rock pythons and wolves flew off the 4 ft. stage, I couldn't help but die of laughter. It took about 25 minutes to get every one back under control and our rehearsal was cut short...too bad there is a show tomorrow.