Tale #5: Up A Chocolate River Without A Paddle

Continuing on the subject of parades, let’s jump ahead to a more recent example.

In the summer of 2018, VACT was set to take a trip through Mr. Wonka’s mysterious chocolate factory with our production of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Immediately after we officially procured the licensing rights, I learned that this trip would not be an easy journey. My pink candy boat would be sailing on a turbulent chocolate river.

Between flying double-casted children and wrapping hundreds of Hershey bars with Wonka labels, my first (and last) time producing for an all-ages production was slightly scarring. I definitely could have used some Oompa Loompas to help me make it through. But we’ll dive into that more in future posts. For now, we are specifically going to focus on the annual Hometown Days Parade.

Our old rehearsal space in the pole shed building was located right by the parade route. My Uncle Charlie would drive his trailer down to the building in the morning. We’d load up a few costumed lead characters and a gaggle of kids in show t-shirts and head to the parade route. The parade ran through the central part of town and the route ended right by our building. It was easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Willy Wonka was the first summer show to be rehearsed in our new rehearsal building which was on the other side of town from our old building. When it came time for the annual parade, as producer, I thought I had everything covered. I got leads in costumes, we loaded up some colorful set pieces, we made all the kids go to the bathroom and fill their water bottles before they got on the float. I even got us down to the parade holding area without a problem. So far, I was rocking parade duty.

I sat in the cab of the truck with my uncle during the parade. I watched the glowing faces of the children of Verona as they caught candy and waved at Mr. Willy Wonka himself along with his crew of Golden Ticket Winners, Squirrels, etc. It was a smashing success. We were rounding the final corner of the parade route when I had a dire realization.

I had no idea how to get us back to the rehearsal building.

We had been able to drive through the parade route to get to the starting area because the parade hadn’t started yet. But our float was in the middle of the parade line-up and I couldn’t exactly take us back through the parade again to get back to the building and drop all the actors off.

I was up a chocolate river without a paddle.

I realized the only option was to cut through the neighborhood that sat between the parade route and the building.

Now, if you read my previous post than hopefully you remember a pretty important detail: we used my uncle’s giant gooseneck trailer for the parade float.

These small neighborhood streets were way more crowded than usual as many parade attendees had parked in the neighborhood so they could be close to their parade viewing spots. My uncle was trying to very carefully maneuver the truck, the trailer, and thirty cast members to avoid hitting any parked cars. Then there was the additional oncoming traffic that was really not very generous in letting us get through.

Realizing we were going to need some intervention, I took a very large breath, hopped out of the truck, and jumped into the street. In my bright purple Willy Wonka t-shirt and my rainbow sunglasses, I proceeded to direct traffic in order to get this gigantic trailer through. It was chaos beyond my pure imagination.

Apparently the children found my very serious attempts to avoid an accident with this giant trailer pretty funny. As I frantically waved my arms and shouted at cars to stop, the children on the float began to jokingly wave at me standing in the street like a crazy person, as children would.

After about ten minutes of very slowly working the trailer through, my uncle was able to get back onto the main drag that brought us back to the building. I however, was left standing in the middle of the street.

So, I jogged. I jogged in my flip flops. I’m pretty sure by the time I finally caught up with the truck my face was as blue as Violet B’s.

The following summer, I learned from my mistakes.

In 2019, I was out of the country during parade time.