Things Ain't Going Well

In my musician days, prior to my imbuement as a composer, I used to be a pit musician, from time to time. Ah, those were simpler days.

2000. There was not blood this year.

I did my time in the trenches, working my way through Andrew Lloyd Weber and all. I signed on to do a gig for St. Andrew's, I believe. It was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show was held at Archbishop Prendergast, on their main stage.

There's a few memories to be had from that show, but the first and most salient occurred one night where everything was a little off. The star came in late a few times, the narrator missed a note or two. This was a parish show, after all, but it had very good standards since Prendie's Choral Director (a South African man named Mr. Mayes, was it?) was the musical director of the show. A few minor errors were bound to happen but didn't really ruin the show. But this show had a few minor errors clustered together. The musical director was visibly frustrated but soldiered on.

About halfway through the show, when Joseph is imprisoned, we had a heavy set of bars set off the the side. Well, the stage crew must've slacked or something, but during the chorus' part, that set of bars fell, taking out Mr. Mayes' music stand and narrowly missing him. He had shrieked, the flautists screamed a little too, and so did some of the cast.

After everyone recomposed themselves the narrator picked up where she left off. "Poor, poor Joseph, things ain't going well ..." which got a pretty big pop from the crowd. I couldn't help but laugh, and so did Doug and the flautists.