Musical Theater Part II: WHY I WILL NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, JUMP ONTO ANYTHING. EVER.

[For Part I click here.]

My sophomore year of high school we did “Guys and Dolls.” In comparison to my audition for Bye Bye Birdie, I sang something less awkward but equally off-key, and was again cast in the chorus. I made it on-stage this time, thankfully, but humiliation came in a new form: I was cast as a guy. That is, a guy, not a doll. I was cast as a guy. Are you getting that? I was a guy in “Guys and Dolls.” It was a complete blow to my sense of femininity. While the other girls would be “Hot Box Dancers” dressed in frilly costumes, I went shopping for a suit coat and tie with my mother. 

There was an upside to being a guy in the play – I got to be in guy scenes, one of which was elaborate and required several hours of rehearsal with all of the cool boys that I liked. It was not a bad way to spend an evening.

At the beginning of "the crap game" dance, my job was to stand on the top of two large, wooden boxes painted to look like sewer pipes. When the music started I would jump (with flair) down onto another box, and then to the floor to start shooting craps with my fellow gamblers. It was simple and elegant, exactly how you imagine high-school theater.

One day in rehearsal I was jumping from box one to box two (with flair), when box two suddenly collapsed beneath me. I fell knee-deep into the broken wood and face-first onto the stage. It was incredibly painful. My knees were bleeding, there were splinters involved, and every person (keep in mind mostly male) stopped and stared in shock. I don’t remember whether or not they tried to stifle their laughter. Mercifully, I blocked the next thirty minutes out and the next thing I remember was being at home with bandages all over my legs.

The next day our director called me out of class and informed me that the box was built improperly and that is was not my fault it broke. Um, thanks? Apparently this was so important that I had to be called out of class to hear it. Maybe he was afraid I would sue. (I should have sued!) But litigation was not my concern at the time. I was consumed with the fear that it wasn't the slipshod the carpentry of a junior set-designer, but rather my own body weight that took down the box. Who could know for sure? No one. NO ONE! 

It should be clear by now that I am not totally over this. I bet someone out there is writing a blog write now about the time a chunky girl broke through the set during Guys and Dolls rehearsal and how he'll never forget how hilarious it was and how stupid she looked. If you read that story somewhere, please let me know.

Actually, please don't.