You know, I wasn’t always going to be a musician and performer. It took a couple of excellent teachers who saw potential in me to give me the courage to discover one of my greatest passions, and even then it was almost a disaster.
When I was in 8th grade, the high school was auditioning non-high schoolers for roles in their production of The Sound of Music. I had never been in any sort of show before, and it never occurred to me that I might try out to be one of the younger Von Trapps. But my home room teacher, who saw me making up songs and generally hamming it up at all times, encouraged me to check it out. I was on the fence about it, but she reminded me every day, and practically forced me over there to the auditions. Feeling that it was out of my hand, I walked across the parking lot to the high school to see what would happen.
When I got to the auditions, I was immediately terrified. For one thing, I was at the high school, surrounded by high schoolers. For another thing, I had never sung in front of anyone before in a situation in which it was appropriate. Normally I just sang songs to annoy people or be silly. Now I was going to be judged. I almost fled right then and there, except my 6th grade chorus teacher, who was also music director for the show, asked if I wanted everyone else to leave the auditorium. I nodded shyly, and all of the other kids filed out into the hallway, leaving me alone with the director and the best teacher I have ever had. I sang something, unaware at the time that obviously all those other kids, my future friends and comrades, were on the other side of those doors, ears pressed against them hard, listening to every note I sang. But I felt better. I felt supported. I felt brave in my timidity, and I got the part.
So now I was over at the high school every day after school, rehearsing lines, learning songs, and doing things I had never done before. It was all very exciting, and I knew that this was what I needed to be doing for, well, pretty much ever after. Until opening night. That was when my mind suddenly changed. And it wasn’t the audience that almost did me in. I was completely energized on stage with a crowd in front of me. As always, the biggest problem in my life was myself. There were microphones held by tall microphone stands spread out across the front of the stage on the floor, for slight amplification, and as I stepped forward for my little solo in “So Long, Farewell,” catastrophe struck.
I was to step out to the lip of the stage, sing my line in turn as all the children had done before me on their way to bed, and then give a bow articulated by a large hand flourish, which I did magnificently. In fact, I did my flourish so magnificently that I whacked the microphone right off of the mic stand and into the air, where it landed violently onto the piano accompanist, our poor band teacher. I ran off stage, almost in tears, determined to never go back out there again.
I sat huddled in a dark corner backstage, refusing to go back on to finish the show, while my colleagues desperately tried to convince me that what I did was not so bad, and that the show must go on. I did not care about the show, or about going on. All I cared about was that I had just embarrassed myself in front of all of my friends and family, probably become the laughingstock of the whole school, and definitely killed the band teacher with a blow to the head. No amount of coaxing was going to get me back out there for the escape from Austria. And yet, deep down somewhere, I did know that the show must go on, and that I had a responsibility to my castmates. Eventually, it turned out that there was an amount of coaxing that was going to get me back on stage, and I went on once more, shaking but determined.
The band director survived, although there was a big chip taken out of the piano bench that was never found, and that bench stayed chipped as long as I was in school, or perhaps to this very day. I joined the drama club as soon as I got to high school myself the next year, and I never looked back. I have had more disasters on stage than I can almost remember, and triumphs as well, and I have loved every moment of all of them, Except maybe that first one, when I almost quit the stage forever. I’m glad that I didn’t. I had some good teachers.