Shot down...

Oh man did I have a rough night last night. We had gotten to work and preped evereything for the first show on what is my last night of the week. (The show is dark on Wed. and Thur.) Everything was going fine until about 15 minutes into the show. They had just finished the act and the last actress was off stage, but the musicians had begun looping and improvising. That continued while nothing else happened for a minute or so. Then the house lights came up.
"Ladies and gentlemen, due to an unexpecteted technical malfunction, we will be taking a short pause. Please remain in your seats. Thank you."
Hmmm. Not a good thing. I know from talking to the performers and technicians that Cirque plans into every show a number of contingincies for when things go wrong. But there's nothing they can do when the hydrolic system fails. So a few minutes later they announced a ten minute intermission. And after twenty minutes it was inevitable.
The show was canceled.
Now we all knew that cancelations are part of the game, especially in a production this technical, but since it was our first, we were in the position of having to put what before was just theoretical procedures into place. We told everyone to get a refund voucher in the lobby and they can either get a full refund or reschedule for another show. We wern't sure if the second show would happen, but we had our fingures crossed. Then we went out to the box office to help control the lines and give info to people. One lady almost bit my head off because I couldn't tell her if the next show was cancelled or not. Most people were very understanding though. It proved my faith in people's good nature.
Eventually everyone got settled and the second show went on without a hitch, save starting about ten minutes later than usual. But by the end of the night I was so mentally and physically exsausted, I wanted to just sleep in the theatre.