Night Two of Music Man

Tonight was our second night. Supposedly, in theatre folklore, this the night where you have a letdown. Opening night is awesome, you want to give your best performance for the closer, so the second night suffers from the sophomore slump. I don't think we were much different than last night, although there was less adrenaline. I did, however, start out really badly. My entire family and some friends were sitting in the second row and when I came out and saw them there, it completely freaked me out! I messed up my lines during the opening scene with Marcellus and as soon as I made the mistake, I totally blanked! All I could think about was embarrassing myself in front of my family. Thankfully, Pete (Marcellus) is quite the actor, since he's the drama teacher at PRMS and he bailed me out. Even found a way to backtrack to the lines I'd skipped so we got the main point of the dialogue across. After that, though, I settled down and I feel like we put on a good show!

At the very beginning of practices, back in May, the assistant director told me she was going to have me pray before we went on stage. So I'd been working on a prayer for months. I hadn't heard anything else about it though, until our director texted me at about 4:30 on Friday to see if I'd lead in prayer. I told her I don't believe in prayer... (because I'm just witty like that). I won't detail the whole prayer, but I talked about how when we create, as we're doing with this show, we're tapping into God's creative energy and expressing that we're made in the image of our Creator. Just before warm ups, Franci asked me to pray again and I'd already shot all my creative theological bullets the night before, but it was okay.

I received three incredible compliments tonight. One of the "dancing/Pick-a-little ladies" told me that her husband hates musicals but came to support her and their girls. He told her last night, "that guy who played the salesman was pretty good." I had someone else say their spouse thought I was right for the part. And our director, Franci, who obviously runs in theatre/performance circles had a friend there tonight who Franci says is a pretty harsh critic of musicals. Along the same lines as to why I'd never preach at Seminary, didn't want my preaching subjected to the critical eyes of other preachers. Well, this friend thought I did a great job with Harold and she liked the show so much she's staying over tonight to watch it again on Sunday. We've got an AWESOME cast!!! Except for Paul Fibelkorn... Just kidding, Paul!

Now that I've got all of that out of my head, I can go to bed so I'll be ready to lead my congregation in the morning!