Undefined Properties after Reorgnization

I’m figuring this is a pretty easy one. I used to have just my .fla file and all the Actionscript (3) on a .as file. Then to organize my site better for allowing splash screens and how to play screens etc… I followed a tutorial to have:

1 - a main .as file called the_game.as which does all the addChild and removeChild commands of the other .as’s. It initially calls the splash screen.

2 - splash.as which will call the original file I had CatchingGame() located in CatchingGame.as

3 - CatchingGame.as which was originally my only .as file that originally played perfectly before it was called outside of the .fla file, and now broken when called from the_game.as

So now it won’t work anymore. I get
1120: Access of undefined property levelDisplay, for:

levelDisplay.text = "You Win!"; 

This is a dynamic text box that is sitting on Scene 1 of the .fla (ie. not in the library). In fact anything that is not in my library and is already on the screen gets issues.

I’ve already tried calling them by _root.levelDisplay.text or this.levelDisplay.text but neither of them work either. I’m not initializing them from anywhere in the file, but I didn’t originally when they worked and I’m not exactly sure how to do that if I needed to!