I love live theater!

The March sisters, Thursday, August 30
From left: Summer Sloan (Beth), Maddie Tarbox (Jo),
me (Amy), and Jillian Tirado (Meg)

There's a pretty famous storyline in Little Women, where Amy does something horrible to Jo, and Jo cannot forgive her until Amy falls through the ice when ice skating and almost dies. Jo realizes then how much she really loves Amy, and the two patch things up. It's pivotal to both characters, and also solidifies their kinship with the boy next door, Laurie, who is the one who saves Amy's life.

The "ice skating scene" caused us no little concern during rehearsals, and is one of the most stressful for me onstage. To prepare offstage, I take off my regular boots, skirt, and petticoat, and put on the skates, a coat, and a soaking wet skirt (but I don't fasten it). During the scene, Laurie carries me onstage and places me on the couch. My sisters take off the skates, wet skirt and coat, put slippers on my feet and a blanket around me, and later put a robe on me so I am more or less covered during the ensuing dance number. This all takes place while I pretend to cry and we all shoot lines at each other.

Last night was my third performance and... it didn't quite go as planned. (Oh no, I'm already laughing again!)

Laurie came running onstage with me in his arms. I felt him trip over something (someone said later that it was the stairs) and he started to stumble... and wasn't able to catch himself. We both fell on the floor behind the couch, I tumbled out of his arms and nearly hit the wall to stage left of the couch. The panic that ensued was real as he and my sisters struggled to stand me up and make sure I was really okay! I stood in shock as they stripped the coat off me.

It was when my skirt just fell off while I helplessly stood next to the couch -- and the audience roared with laughter -- that I knew I wasn't going to make it through the scene without laughing. I was still wearing the ice skates, and everyone was running around. I honestly have no idea what they were doing. My choices seemed to be to walk awkwardly around to the front of the couch and sit down, or just flop over the arm on my back... I chose the latter... and that's when the rest of the onstage cast started choking back their laughter. (Oh, man, I am crying right now because I'm laughing so hard.) Beth said that I looked so stiff, and with my corset on, it was like a turtle on its back! At least my skates came off when I flopped over. I put my face in the back of the couch and laughed for just a second before I turned and saw that poor Jo was frantically pacing back and forth in front of us. I realized someone needed to jumpstart the scene again, and it was probably my line anyway, so I said the only line I could think of:

"I was skating so beautifully!"

It may or may not have been completely random, but at least the minute of pandemonium was sort of over. My motivation for the rest of the scene and the song that followed was "do NOT start laughing again!" Beth giggled the entire time she buttoned up my robe, and Meg laughed when she ran to get my slippers. 

After the scene, I had a quick costume change before running back onstage again. It wasn't until about 10 minutes later we all had a chance to sit backstage and just laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Laurie apologized profusely, but I wasn't injured, and even if I had been there wasn't anything else he could have done. It was an accident! I laughed so hard I still had tears streaming down my face for my last scene in the first act. Oh, the whole thing was just so priceless!

I realize that this may not be nearly as funny if you weren't there, and one of my friends in the audience didn't even mention it afterwards. Another said (after I brought it up) that we all handled it so well it almost looked like we did it on purpose. They were too busy praising the show to remember those completely crazy couple of moments! Yay!

I love live theater. Every performance is totally different, and I never know what exactly will happen onstage. That whole thing could have been a catastrophe, but it ended up bonding us all closer together, and made us step up our game so that last night's performance was probably our best yet. 

I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!! 

BTW, we've already been reviewed a couple of times, and it's all good so far!

• Deseret News (my cast, T/Th/S) 
• UTBA (M/W/F cast)
• The Davis Clipper (M/W/F cast)
• Broadway World (T/Th/S cast)
• Front Row Reviewers Utah (T/Th/S cast)
• Notes from my Notebook (T/Th/S cast)