Oh Great God of Power

We were about halfway through the first act, in the middle of the scene with Claude's parents, right before the big number "I Got Life." And right in the middle of a line...

The power went out.

And the actors kept doing the scene... and they kept doing the scene... And I'm standing up in back, thinking, do I interrupt them or should I wait for them to find a place to stop...? And they kept doing the scene. So finally, I stopped them, asked the crowd to sit tight, and went to find out what I could find out.

We soon realized all the buildings behind our building were out too. Power was on across the street, but not us. The building guard called the Wash.U. folks and I called Ameren UE. We slowly pieced together the story: a drunk driver hit an electrical pole and took out a big area about 7:00 p.m. There was a crew working down the block. But that was at 7:00 p.m. And here we are sitting in the dark around 9:00 p.m. Eventually we find out the crew working down the street took out our power too. We don't know if it was accidental or if they had to do it to do the other work.

Ameren UE had told me to wait fifteen minutes and call them back to see if they knew more. So I did. They told me the power would be back on at 2:30 a.m. On my way back up to the theatre, the cop who had come by to see if we needed help told me he heard it would really be 6:00 a.m.

Now, Ann had a lot of wine she could've sold, but asking the audience to wait NINE HOURS seemed a bit excessive. I'm sure you would have come to the same conclusion.

So anyway, I announce to the audience that we can't finish the show and that they can bring their stubs back on another night to see the show again. Then the guard tells me that the Wash.U. folks are asking us to leave as soon as we can because the emergency lights will start to fade out at some point.

So the audience leaves, the actors change back into their street clothes by candle light (good thing we were doing Hair!), and Trish, Matt, and I go about shutting the place down and locking it up. I came home and emailed Metrotix to tell them they'd be getting calls, and then I changed our voice mail to include info about all that.

It's hard work canceling a show! But now I'm home, cuddled up next to my favorite pipe, and all is right with the world again. And as I am walking in space (you know, to find the purpose of peace...), I realize this is gonna give us bigger houses for the last five shows. It won't be more money, but fuller houses are much more fun to play to...

On with the Groovy Revolution!
Kerouac