The final show...

 This afternoon we put on the final performance of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever."  It was the same script, almost, that we've followed for the last five performances and all the many rehearsals, but today felt like we were in the middle of "The Play that Goes Wrong."  Yesterday one of our little actors, with a fairly major part got sick and another young actor had to step in to the part with a few hours notice.  He read the part of course, but did a good job carrying it off.  Today, when we arrived the usual hour before the  performance, this time a matinee, our director gathered us together to tell us that another young actor was sick, and explain how roles would be rearranged so another young person could cover the absence (she went from being an angel to being a little hellion, and did it very well).  In the meantime her role, as the charming little 'angel' who narrated the Christmas story, was covered by our 30 something chubby stage manager, swiftly stuffed into an angel costume.   All proceeded pretty smoothly until the second act.  At the beginning of the act five musical groups performed, nicely spotlighted until, about 3:30pm, when all the lights went out. I mean all the lights went out.  It was not a sunny day and the shutters had all been closed so it could be darker, to make the spotlighting more effective.  We were performing in the sanctuary to give the feeling of a true church Christmas pageant, and also to let the youth theater perform Frozen Jr. on our real stage, which was very, very dark when the lights went out.  Turns out it was a several block wide outage with no sign of lights coming back on soon.  Nothing, to her huge relief, that our lighting and sound director had done wrong.  But the show must go on, so our final singer performed on a gray dusky stage and then our pageant players finished up the show in the semi-dark.  We even took our bows in the glooming.  Live theater is such fun.