Troupers
We had a purely astonishing show last Sunday when WRP's
Junior Theatre presented
Oklahoma.
About a quarter of the way into the matinee, when Ado Annie was singing her solo ("I'm just a girl who cain't say no") there was a sudden BOOM and subsequent power failure. A handful of emergency fluorescents came up in the house, three floodlights lit the stage, and the sound system died. Our young lady hesitated for a second, recovered her smile, and continued her song a capella. She stayed on key, gave her best performance, and when she finished the house gave her an ovation. I was at the stage manager's position consulting with the crew over the radio, and the cast crowded around. "What do we do now?" "Roll on" I replied, twirling my wrist and gesturing toward the stage. "And project!"
Our crew quickly established that the power failure wasn't a simple matter of circuit breakers needing to be reset -- the problem affected at least the entire campus. During the scene change to the smokehouse, our producer announced to the audience that the power problem was bigger than we were, and that we would do the very best we could.
And the show went on. Every number got an ovation from the audience, and the kids sang without hesitation. The audience clapped along when we did "The Farmer and the Cowman" and when the dancing interlude came up one of the cast yelled "C'mon everybody... let's dance!" Hootin' and hollerin' filled the musical void.
There is a "Dream Ballet", where Laurie dreams on stage, surrounded by dancers. Without music -- how do you manage? Laurie counted softly "1...2...3...4" just loud enough for the dancers to be able to keep time. Another "o" from the audience.
The final scene rolled in, with a wedding, a fight, and the cast singing Oklahoma. They poured more energy into this than I'd seen throughout tech week. The kids took their bows, to enthusiastic applause, and the cowboys shot their cap pistols into the air. I started to close the curtain, then quickly changed my mind. It didn't seem right to separate the audience from the cast at that point.
These kids pulled it off, despite technical catastrophe. The last 15
minutes I stood at the SL wing, tears running down my cheeks. I was
full of pride for these young people, who make it all worthwhile.
posted at: 14:56 | path: /dailies | permanent link to this entry