In North Hampton, New Hampshire, the second grade acted out the Nativity story from the Gospels, for a Christmas pageant in 1965. Karen, poor thing, (“The Angel”) looked great in her wings, and made her first entrance, but gave her second-entrance speech, causing us to leapfrog over a big chunk of the script.
There was no turning back: we were suddenly post-partum, and hands swiftly brought out the Christ Child and popped him into the manger. So the teacher shooed me (Wise Man #2) and my colleagues to go out for our number. I saw the malicious faces of a few rotten kids in the audience, but I was impervious; the song came off all right. And they should have been grateful: we got it over with at least five minutes faster than planned!