Musicals - Part 1

Have you ever been in a musical show? I have done some, so this is how I know. They first hooked me when I was in high school, but stage fright made me feel the fool. So, I began on the backstage crew, Oh the things we had to do. Painting sets and handling props, sometimes I wished I was a farmer harvesting crops. Dressing all in black the day of the show moving sets in the dark so no one would know. We did some things that only a crew can do I'll try to list a few here for you. For example, during the "King and I", There is a tearful scene with a Buddha to cry. Since our Buddha was a person who spoke to Tuptim, We did all in our power to get a laugh out of him. Two of us moved his pedestal onstage, his scene was to be all the rage. We had to hide below his pedestal for his soliloquy, So we tried to crack him up for all to see. I worked behind the scenes again, for "My Fair Lady", Some of the things we did there were also shady. Professor Higgins takes a big drink in one scene so we decided to pull one of our pranks on him. The bottle he poured from was usually filled with ginger ale, when we switched it to the real stuff he turned pale. He could barely speak the next few lines and was off key in his song the next time. The classic we pulled was in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", our prank was the talk of the town. If you don't know the story let me enlighten you because then you may get a laugh or two. Molly is aboard the Titanic's first trip and the scene has to deal with the sinking of the ship. We had a lifeboat with people on stage with waves across the floor, she gets their attention by firing several shots in the air. During the final dress rehearsal before show night we knew this scene would be just right. The Titanic sinking in the background, the waves, the lifeboat, Molly pulls her pistol, raises it to the sky, and began to shoot. The auditorium goes silent as the people raise their eyes to her to engage, When a rubber duck came flying from the wings and landed on stage. You never saw a director as mad as that if she had a gun she would have blown off your hat. "Who did that? Who did that?" was all she could say, as the stage crew just laughed as we went on our way. I finally got the nerve to perform in some shows later on, But for now...this is just an introduction.