BnB Part 1: The Chaos

I'm still rather in disbelief that we actually pulled off the show! Both nights were completely sold out... in fact, we were worried that there were going to be brawls over who got to go in, and who didn't!

Friday night can be summed up in one word: CHAOS. First, I was running late because there were 40 messages on our line asking for tickets. By the time I got there, the tech rehersal was in full swing. On top of which, the dancers were all in the theatre for call.

Thankfully, Becky and Miriam were able to deal with the ticketing, so I ran off to deal with everything else. That was mistake number one. I should have been there for the final tech rehersals, because it wasn't clear to some of the dancers how they needed to get on and off stage. I had originally told them that they could enter in from both wings - a comment I later regretted.

At 6:45, the House Manager told us that the studio was actually vacant early, so thankfully we were able to move people up earlier than expected. After running around a bit more, I went out to check on the lobby situation, which was a mess. People were desperate for tickets. One woman actually drove up all the way from San Diego without buying a ticket! I ended up pulling more seating out of my a**, and selling tickets for standing room only.

We started the show at about 8:20, and it went ok for the first couple of acts. WHAT and IMPACT are absolutely adorable, and crowd pleasers. But in the middle of Alliance Streetdance's performance, the power blew. At first, we had no clue what was going on - they just told me that the music shut off. We moved them offstage, and while Fernando ran up to the tech booth to figure out what happened, I had to deal with some super-pissed off dancers.

We got through the crisis by having our lovely MCs explaining what happened, and letting Alliance redo their piece at the beginning of the 2nd act. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the drums group totally didn't show at all. Beyond that, we had lighting that didn't go on and off as we needed - lights would go on before people were ready to take a bow; a group that decided to enter offstage, but didn't bother to tell me - so I ended up spending like 2 minutes wondering where the hell they were; not one, but two groups entering in from the wrong wings (and these were supposedly the "professional" dancers); a group who wasn't ready and didn't show up until 2 minutes before they were on; and dancers that were on stage while another group was trying to take their bow. All this because people didn't know that they had to enter the stage from the right wing.

But the night ended, the dancers were amazing, and we were able to cover the gaps for the most part. Kim came up with a fabulous idea when the group wasn't ready in time - we got people on stage for a freestyle, that was a real crowd pleaser. In particular, I thought Funkanometry SF, WHAT/IMPACT, and Freeplay really pulled it out, so everyone enjoyed the show beyond the snafu's.

As for me, I was ready just to go to bed - I hadn't slept for 5 days, or eaten since 11am that morning, and was running on pure adrenaline and caffeine. As Scarlett says, "Tomorrow will be another day."

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