My first theatrical show in 1979, at Seminole Community College Theater. Opening night….I’m in the scene where I’m talking with the other actor expecting a knock on the door….except the knock comes from the adjacent closet door…after a few knocks…I look at her and say, “Must be squirrels?”…I get up, go to the closet and open the door, which is a fake internal closet with steps, and facing me is the stage manager signing me to “stretch”, and I look over his shoulder and the lead actor who is supposed to enter from the main door, is sitting down being fanned with a newspaper by an assistant….she was having a panic attack and didn’t come on….So we continued the scene, improvising some dialogue for about 2 minutes until the curtain closed and a voice over told the audience, that there were technical difficulties and we would continue after an early intermission…..the director came on stage with book in hand to finish the play…After the show the director told me, “you can only go up from here”…My introduction to improvisation!