Has anyone out there ever been involved in a production of "Smile," the little known beauty pageant musical from the early 80's?

I am in the midst of designing it and am a pretty difficult time wrapping my head around a major set piece.  Essentially, there is a lot of conversation about a ramp for the pageant - apparently it juts out over the audience cutting off a lot of seats and the pageant coordinators are not pleased about it.  But, after a girl trips and falls on a different set piece, they announce to re-install the ramp.  25 bars of music later, its opening night of the pageant.

The script is very confusing, as it does not fully explain:

1) What exactly the girl trips and falls on - they say its a loose nail from some set piece - but its not clear what it is.

2) How the runway is supposed to exist, specifically, how it is able to be moved out and jut in to the audience within 25 bars of music.

I would really appreciate some feedback on this set piece, especially how other productions have handled it (because it is a major piece of conversation throughout the show, however, no major details are ever provided other than it juts in to the audience and its not there until the first night of a pageant). 

Thanks so much!