Bringing the House down!

Normally, "bringing the house down" is a good thing when you're a theater. Not today. At approximately 11:30 this morning, a car drove through the east wall of the Baytown Little Theater building! Here's a cell-phone video of the car being towed out of the building.

As I understand it, the woman driving the car had some sort of medical condition (seizure, diabetic reaction, or something to that effect). She ran a red light, drove across a field, missing several trees, taking a divot out of the parking lot, and striking square into the building.

We were in rehearsal for Titanic, and today is Friday the 13th. Guess we were doomed from the start. Fortunately, nobody was in the theater at the time. Jason, the director, was supposed to be there, but he was delayed, fortunately. All I could think about was what would have happened if this had taken place during a performance. The east side of the arena was completely destroyed, and I don't think the west side is much better. If there had been people in those seats, I don't see how they could have survived. As it is, the only person hurt was the driver (I have no idea what her status is).

We're looking for a new venue for the show. I suspect something will come along. Of more concern are the sets. A lot of money, time and effort was spent getting them together, and the show is already over budget. I don't know how we're going to replace them.