It was the encore performance of a sellout show, so the place was packed. The performance was at about the halfway point when a large bat suddenly appeared in the airspace over the audience, bringing the show to an abrupt unplanned intermission. The bat made several leisurely passes over the crowd, its progress marked by progressive screaming moving across the room. Then it cruised over the stage. The skit in progress was set in a church, for which the prop department had provided a foot-high cross mounted on a pole. One of the actors cowered under a blanket, but an intrepid church lady grabbed the cross and brandished it, then crossed herself as the bat fluttered off over the shrieking audience again.

A quick-thinking staff member flung open the side exit door and opened a window just beyond, but the bat did not cooperate. As the bat circled back over the stage again, the youngest actor snatched the blanket off the head of the cowering one and used it to shoo the bat behind the curtains and into the backstage area. He then triumphantly pulled the curtain closed behind it, announcing, "Well, it's backstage now!"

But this is one of those stages where the tech guy sits in a little booth looking out of a window right onto the stage in full view of the audience. In this case, the tech booth was between the open side door and the draperies the bat had just disappeared behind. Sure enough, the audience could now see Tech Guy ducking and swatting at something in the tech booth! He then ducked out of sight and reappeared a second later with the discarded blanket. He somehow pinned the bat AGAINST THE GLASS, and then paused, unsure what to do next. After catching his breath, he managed to wrap the bat up in the blanket and haul it over to the open window, where it was released to flutter off into the night. At this point, the roaring audience leaped to their collective feet to give Heroic Tech Guy a standing ovation!

Somehow the intrepid cast managed to pull it together to pick up the interrupted skit right where they left off (although not before one of them wailed plaintively, "Do we still have to get off the stage within the hour?"). Fortunately it was the last show of the night (of the Fringe, for that matter). So they were able to run over by 10 minutes and finish their show.

It was a very good show, incidentally. But the bat and the Heroic Tech Guy pretty much stole the scene.