Loader.load SWF without "playing" before addChild?

The setup:

parentClass.as/parentClass.fla <-- document root, has several Loaders which load external SWFs:

externalClass.as/externalClass.fla <-- one of the external documents

In externalClass several things reference the stage. In the constructor function I have added a trace which outputs “externalClass has been initialized.” When I addChild the Loader.content, I trace “addChild: externalClass” … when I run the parentClass, this is what gets traced:

  1. “externalClass hass been initialized”
  2. “Loader: Event.COMPLETE callback handler”
  3. “addChild: externalClass”

This causes problems because the constructor of externalClass references the stage, which doesn’t “exist” until the externalClass has been addChild’ed. Is there a way to load an external SWF in the background and “run” it later?

Thanks, I’ve been pounding my head on this for a while.

Hunter