Thus began our in-class brainstorming sessions for the Christmas program fiasco of '84. When the principal heard what the director had planned, he told him, "That sounds awfully ambitious. If you're planning to mount something that elaborate, rehearsals should have started back in October."
"Yes, there are a lot of acts," the director responded. "What each person actually does in the show won't take that long, though."
As it turned out, the principal was onto something.
Despite having multiple brainstorming sessions in class, the director held only one rehearsal--four hours before the show started. Even then, students were only asked to perform parts of their acts so they'd have an idea of where they'd be on stage.
There were some bright spots. The news, sports, and weather parodies went fairly well, by middle school standards, despite the fact that no microphones were provided, and no one sitting beyond the eighth row could hear them. After completing my weather parody, I introduced our director, who took the mic for a comedy monologue. It was a decent introduction to the show, but as my brother pointed out later, "Why was the teacher doing a monologue? The show is supposed to be about the students."
Other sporadic highlights followed. Germaine sang a strong rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time." Four girls performed a well-choreographed version of Madonna's "Burning Up." One or two other acts went off relatively well. As for the rest of the show, however...
...The first musical act, scheduled to sing New Edition's "Cool It Now," was introduced. (Did I mention this was 1984?) As the curtains opened, however, stage fright set in, as all three students stared, open-mouthed, at the audience. Quickly sensing their panic, the director immediately motioned for the curtains to be closed and announced, optimistically, "But they'll be back!"
...My friend, Mark, was about to go on stage to do a parody of our seventh grade math teacher. The director was going to ask him questions, to which Mark had rehearsed his answers. Just before they hit the stage, though, the director whispered to him, "I forgot the questions," forcing them to ad-lib their way through the entire bit.
...Just before a choral performance of another Yuletide favorite, "Endless Love" by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, those of us whose acts were finished got a stunning surprise. The person manning the curtains was supposed to open only the curtain nearest the stage; instead, he opened both curtains. Unexpectedly, those of us whose acts were over were suddenly on stage. Rather than scurry off, we all formed an impromptu back row of the chorus and attempted to join in on "Endless Love," which none of us had ever sung. We got through it by singing a half-beat or so behind the chorus who had actually sung it in class.
...To top off the whole fiasco, a large group of students acted out the verses in "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" as our director played the piano and led the singing. If there was one act that especially needed more rehearsal, it was this one. Among other miscues:
- The person illustrating five gold rings ran out the first time with five rings jingling on a key chain but skipped out on the rest of the verses.
- There were at least three verses in which no one appeared on stage.
- Three girls walked on stage to represent six geese a-laying, dropping tennis balls from behind, one of which bounced off the stage and hit someone in the audience.
- Shortly before the show, another friend, Mike, asked the director how he was going to represent a partridge in a pear tree. Forced to improvise, someone went outside, broke off a tree limb, and taped a stuffed dog toy to it. Thus, 12 times that evening, Mike walked across the stage carrying a tree limb with an attached stuffed dog, stopped halfway through each time, smiled at the audience, and continued walking. He deserved credit, actually, for being the only person who did exactly what he was supposed to do every time his verse came up.
- During the last verse, the director realized what a fiasco the sing-along had become. He deliberately sped up the tempo, causing everyone to run out on stage at the same time and nearly collide with each other.
"How was it?" I asked.
"It was a lot different than ours," Mike replied. "Basically, each class just walked out and sang 'Frosty The Snowman...'"
