Another Story

After several weeks of rehearsals and about 2/3 of our performances were under our belts, Abby started to improvise. At one point in the play, a police officer is scolding Annie and a group of people who have been living under a bridge. At this time, Annie has caught Sandy and is holding her on a rope. So the police officer scolds the people and Annie talks back and while the officer is disbursing the ruffians he realizes that Annie is the runaway from the orphanage and takes her into custody (Sandy gets loose and lost in the scuffle). That sets the scene. So at one of the afternoon performances (we were doing two or three every weekend), we get to this scene and when the police officer starts scolding the group - Abby starts barking back at him. She had never done this before. She barked right back at him like, "Don't you yell at Annie!!" She almost drowned him out. The actors just played along and the crowd loved it, of course, and we just chuckled and shook our heads, "That's our Abby." She proceeded to do this at ALL of the remaining performances.

Even funnier was that backstage she would sidle up to the man playing the police officer (a really nice guy who liked her a lot) and she would wag her tail at him and ask for pets. I always interpreted that as her saying, "I was only ACTING out there. I really like you!"

That crazy Abby...