Oklahoma!

Well, dear friends, I'm back, and I'm here to bring you a funny story.

I am currently in a production of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, "Oklahoma!", at the Fishing Creek Playhouse (shameless plug time: go see it, it runs weekends until May 9th, go to http://www.fishingcreekplayhouse.com for tickets). I play the role of "Persian" peddler Ali Hakim, and it's a lot of fun.

Our opening night performance was on Friday, April 2nd, which some of you might also realize is Good Friday. As some of you also might realize, I am the paid bass soloist at my church. So, suffice to say, I found myself in a bit of a bind.

I had organized with the director of the show that I would leave church slightly early, and she would hold the curtain for roughly fifteen minutes. My first entrance in the show isn't until about twenty minutes into Act I, so this was a viable plan.

So, here's the story: At 7:00, the church service starts. It's a lovely service, very solemn, we all contemplate about the Passion, all that good stuff, there's some lovely music, and basically, I don't leave until 7:45. The curtain for "Oklahoma!" is at 7:30. As I said, they were going to hold the curtain. So, I tore out of church, and headed down to the theatre. It took me about ten minutes to get there. Every red light I hit, every person I ended up stuck behind seemed to last an eternity. Finally, I got to the theatre. I ran towards the building, and one of the guys in charge, along with two of the cast, were waiting outside, acting as a sort of pit crew. They strapped my microphone on me, and put as much of my costume on as they could (coat and hat, as it turns out). Ado Annie was almost done singing "Cain't Say No", which is about a minute before I walk on. It's a good thing I was dressed as snappily as I was.

Afterwards, the stage manager told me that when I walked on, everybody on headsets started "giggling like they had just survived a plane crash." Their backup plan was to have one of the backstage crew walk on while the stage manager read my lines from the booth.

If I had arrived one minute later, I wouldn't have made my entrance. Miracles do happen.