"The Gremlins Come Out on the Second Night"

After countless hours of preparation,

it was time to display our work to the entire nation.

The first show went off almost without a hitch:

the lights worked well and the cast stayed on pitch.

 As the second show approached, nerves were felt in the air.

“The gremlins will come out” people said everywhere.

There is an unlucky stigma following show number two

that the cast gets too comfy and so does stage crew.

 When the house lights came up and intermission began

everyone was thrilled that maybe they can

beat the gremlin rumor for once and for all;

unknowing that their hopes were about to fall.

 It was half way through Act II and all of a sudden

Leaf’s light stayed on when I pressed the next button.

Rob thought that perhaps it was his fault,

but on the next cue the board locked like a vault.

 We could not shift the light to the next cue or last,

It would only stay on about half of the cast.

Quickly we tried to swap out the disc

for our backup one, but that posed quite a risk.

 The disc did not work, it would not show up

on the screen, it kept reading as being corrupt.

Finally there was only one option left,

restart the board and hope that worked, except

 restarting the board would turn everything dark,

And run the risk of the actors missing their mark.

After two and a half minutes of running by hand,

the board was reincarnated on its stand.

 The gremlins came out as we expected.

But strangely this year the gremlins infected

the light board. After three minutes of haste

a solution was found that saved out face.