1 hurt as backstage fire halts performance of ‘Peter Pan’ at Elgin high school — chicagotribune.com

ELGIN – A small fire broke out Saturday at a high school dance performance of “Peter Pan” in Elgin, forcing the audience of about 300 to evacuate.

One person was injured – nothing fatal or too serious, fortunately. The Tribune has amateur video that has a surreal sequence of various costumed cast members evacuating, some calmly, some in a panic. Tinkerbell trots down the sidewalk pretty briskly, and another character screams “It’s horrible!” as she races by the camera, but one of the mice was quite calm about it and gave a description of what happened backstage.  If she decides on a career in broadcasting, she may want to lose the ears and tail. Later in the video, a female Captain Hook describes how she tried to go down with the ship, but was dragged offstage when the order was given to evacuate.

Actually, it sounds like it took a while for the adults to realize there was a problem, because none of the kids seemed to think they should pull a fire alarm, they were standing around backstage looking at the burning embers that were dropping down from the curtains overhead. It’s lucky that no one was more seriously injured. Strange, though – the mouse says she noticed the ember during the “Indian scene” but an adult in the audience said the announcement to clear the building was given during the “Tinkerbell dies” scene, as they were getting ready to clap in order to “revive” her.