Musical Musical Chairs




INDIANOLA, IA - Even after eight weeks of doing the show, it's still difficult to look at one another in our pig costumes while keeping a straight face. Imagine, then, how difficult it was for me during this morning's performance of Three Little Pigs when I looked over at Ben and noticed that he had only one of his two pig ears attached to the side of his head. After eight weeks of wear and tear, one of his ears had finally had enough. Completely unprepared for this unexpected sight, I could barely continue singing without laughing uncontrollably. In fact, I had to do jumping jacks on stage to keep myself from losing it entirely. This little vignette was but a taste of what awaited us in the afternoon.

One of the great dangers about touring with a small company is that the people are always in close quarters. We all share the same air in the van when we travel, and we share rooms with one another in hotels on the road. It's no surprise, then, that we share the same germs. This situation is compounded by the fact that we spend the majority of our time in elementary schools, which are essentially petri dishes made out of brick and mortar. What does this all have to do with what happened this afternoon?

After successfully dodging sickness for the first two months, I caught a nasty bug when I went home to New York during our week of vacation. Last week, I apparently gave the bug to Brian, only he seems to be even worse off than I was. After slogging through this morning's performance, he determined that he needed to give his voice a rest for the afternoon show. He was quite ill, and we had to switch into contingency mode. The show must proverbially go on, so we figured out how we would do the show in the afternoon.

Since Ida and Nicole alternate performances as Despina pig, we had several possibilities on hand. We eventually decided to have Ben take Brian's role as the Big Bad Wolf, while Nicole would assume Ben's duties as Cherubino pig. This way, there were only two people performing "out of role," as to minimize the chances of train wrecks. If any of us had complained during the last several weeks about the monotony of doing the same show ten times a week, today might have served as our comeuppance.



Brian applies the finishing touches to Ben's Wolfgang Big Bad makeup

Showtime rolled around in the afternoon, and with our collective adrenaline running high, we hit the floor determined to get through the show in one piece. I beared down and concentrated hard, knowing that I had to get my part right in order to give the others a fighting chance to do the same with their new assignments. Nicole and Ben blossomed in their adopted roles, feeding off the nervous energy that arises from the uncertainty of a pressurized situation. We had long become accustomed to our 30-minute show going by in the blink of an eye, but this afternoon we definitely felt every second of every minute of that half hour.

Even though the music and the dialogue were essentially the same as always, the show was definitely different. That's what happens when you change the personnel of a show even slightly; everybody brings his or her own energy and personality to his or her character, which alters the entire experience. What was definitely the same, however, was the result. Our audience was suitably entertained by our efforts, which allowed us all to breathe a big sigh of relief when it was over. I didn't even have to sing a different role today, and I felt very nervous. I can only imagine the level of excitement that my colleagues felt as we flew by the seat of our collective pants.

Tomorrow is another day, and in all likelihood, we'll be back to our normal casting assignments. As we learned today, however, there are no guarantees.

Posted: Mon - March 28, 2005 at 08:07 PM      

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