Tale #33: The Show Must Pause?

The show must go on!

It’s said the phrase was first coined in the circus. When the animals would escape their cages, the ringmasters would assure their audiences by saying “the show must go on.”

Cosmo Brown in Singin’ In The Rain said, “Come rain, come shine, come snow, come sleet, the show MUST go on!” Queen sung “the show must go on” to thousands of fans. Finn of the Glee universe inspired his fellow glee club members when he said “the show must go on all over the place or something.” You get the jist.

The show does most often go on, but sometimes it takes a quick pause.

In the Fall of 2014, Mama Terry directed a youth production of Getting to Know The Sound of Music. R&H Theatricals had released a lovely, 60-minute, version of the classic musical for kids to be able to perform.

Like all of the other junior musicals on the market, the show came with a full performance soundtrack. This included performance tracks of all of the songs as well as any sound effects that would be needed for the show.

The first scene in the Von Trapp house starts with the butler. He enters tidying the living room when the doorbell rings. He goes to the door to welcome Maria into the house.

We had a very sweet young man playing the butler in our production. During one of the performances, he entered the scene right on cue. He was holding a feather duster and dusted around the set. The doorbell rang on cue from the performance soundtrack. He walked to the door like he always had done. The door was a glass door, so the audience could see through it. The young butler got to the door and then stopped confused.

Maria was not there.

He opened the door, stepped all the way through it, looked side to side, and then awkwardly closed the door. He wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

He continued to dust the living room. He tidied some of the set decorations. He walked all around the stage. Through it all, he kept looking back at the door. Still no one.

The young actor playing Captain Von Trapp jumped in to try to give him something. He walked out and said, “well is she here yet?” The butler said, “no, sir”. Unfortunately, Captain Von Trapp didn’t have much else prepared because he said, “well let me know as soon as she arrives.” Then he left the stage.

The poor butler went back to his dusting. It had probably been about five minutes at this point with no sign of Maria.

Out of things to dust, the young butler sat down in the arm chair. At first he sat all upright and proper to stay in character. However, the longer the scene went with no Maria, the further down in the chair he slumped. By the time Maria finally appeared in the doorway, the butler was completely slumped down in his arm chair holding his feather duster.

Like an old dad having to get out of his comfortable LazyBoy, the butler grunted and huffed as he pulled himself out of his arm chair to walk over and get Maria at the door.

I was sitting in the back of the theater, losing…my…shit. I was laughing so hard.

It turns out, that the the young actress playing Maria had buttoned up all of the buttons on the white dress shirt that went under her convent dress when she had been instructed to only button the top button so that they could get her changed into her second costume quickly. Maria and her handlers all got stuck on those buttons.

So the show did go on, it just took a very long pause.

The set was exceptionally clean that night though.