Tale #28: The Night the Police Came Thrice

Tales From A Hometown Community Theater presents “Midnight Move-In 2: The Night the Police Came Thrice”.

For the third all-teen production I directed, Hairspray (Spring 2018), we had the same situation we had with West Side Story regarding our move into the High School Performing Arts Center (see Tale #27).

The day of our second ever Midnight Move-In was a very long day. I taught private dance lessons all morning, had a big lunch with my boyfriend (now husband), took a nap, and then got packed up and ready to go.

We met at our rehearsal building around 9pm. We were in our new location for this show. Our team of crew members, cast members, and parent volunteers disassembled the set and then loaded up all of the pieces along with the costumes, props, pianos, microphones, etc.

Lynn (our producer) and Elizabeth (our assistant stage manager) were carrying a piano from the music room to a pick-up truck outside the front door when Elizabeth nicked her finger on the piano and it started to bleed. They quickly handed off piano duty to someone else and went to the kitchen to get it cleaned up. I saw them in there as I was passing through to the music room and checked in quickly. They assured me it was a very minor slice, just needed rinsing and a band aid.

I walked into the music room to grabbed the box of microphone belts when all of a sudden I heard a loud thud. I rushed back to the kitchen to see Elizabeth collapsed in Lynn’s arms seizing. Lynn said, “call 911 now.”

Now one hiccup we discovered that night with our new building location was that our address was the former address of the hockey rink located on the other side of the firestation. There used to be a driveway that started at our land and wove around to the rink. The hockey rink had a new address to better reflect their new driveway, but in the emergency systems our address still connected response teams to the hockey rink. So, they sent the paramedics there.

My phone started to ring as Lynn and I were trying to make sure Elizabeth didn’t hit her head. They said they were outside but no one was there to let them in. Our building was swarming with teenagers, so we knew they were not in the right place at all. I talked them through how to find our building while Lynn held the seizing teenager in her arms.

The paramedics and police officers finally made it to our building to help Elizabeth. They cleared her of any major concerns and said her dad (who had just arrived as well) could take her home to keep an eye on her. We thanked the responders for their help, sent Elizabeth home, and continued on with our move.

Two hours later, we were finally able to start loading the show into the high school. We had about thirty teenagers loading in all sorts of furniture from their various vehicles.

Well, some nearby neighbors saw the teenagers in action and proceeded to call the cops. What was actually teenagers carrying furniture into the high school was perceived as teenagers taking furniture out of the high school. The neighbors thought the teenagers were robbing the school.

So, the same police officers arrived this time to the high school. Lynn was headed out to her car at the same time and they immediately recognized her from before. They realized the neighbors were just confused about our late move into the high school.

The police apologized for the misunderstanding and left us to keep working.

A couple of hours later, the group of teenagers helping had thinned out and smaller groups remained to help us finish up the projects we needed to complete before calling it a night.

For big working events like this, I would always bring coolers of sodas and water along with multiple bags of candy for the teens and volunteers for helping. Simple gestures to say thank you really do go a long way.

It was about 1:00am and a group of teenagers had stepped outside to cool off and enjoy their sodas when all of a sudden, the police showed up again. The teens handled it very well and just calmly brought the officers inside to talk to Lynn and I.

Lynn and I came around from the stage to find, again, the same officers from earlier. They told us neighbors had called again to report loitering by the school this time.

At least it was a slightly better accusation than theft.

We informed the police that we were all still here working, all of the teens had been nothing but helpful, and we would be finishing up soon for the night.

They once again apologized for the misunderstanding and left us to continue our work.

It turned out that one of the police officers we kept interacting with was actually the cousin of one of our lead actresses, and was planning on attending our performance that upcoming weekend.

Midnight Move-In 2 was the last time I had to do that for a production. We were unable to complete a full trilogy.