When you're involved in your high school's production of "The Music Man," how do you get the entire audience to stay through the intermission and find out if the predicted trouble in River City materializes? If you're an actor, you can convey gravity and urgency in your performance, drawing the audience into the story. If you're a pit orchestra musician, you can play the tunes with a deft touch, in hopes of getting people to hum or sing along. If you're a director, you can oversee both of these performance aspects and also give the audience one more incentive...
..."We have ice cream outside, folks! We have ice cream outside!" the play's director bellowed during intermission.
"It's like we're at Busch Stadium," the pit orchestra director joked.
Perhaps, it was...As Cardinal baseball fans know, good production on the field, plus ice cream for the fans, convinces most spectators to stay through the ninth inning. The same principle applies on stage and in the pit orchestra.
