I'm at the
theater and it's almost
showtime. The band is warming up, sounds like
Glenn Miller. Actors and stagehands are running around getting ready. I'm there for a reason, which seems reasonable. One of my customers is a theater chain, and I have worked on a theater's
fire alarm during a show. Still, I don't have my tools, and I'm dressed in civvies. I find a man who looks remotely like
Allan Jones from the
Marx Brothers' classic film
A Night at the Opera. I ask him what he wants me to do.
"Do? Why, you're the director!" With a wink he hands me a playbill. There is is right there in black and white, I am listed as the play's director.
Oh boy. My cell rings, it's my stepmother. "We're right outside," she says. "Now what is your part in this?"
Unwilling to tell her an outright lie, I tell her she'll see soon enough. The stagehands are all grinning at me, they know better. It's like the play's entire cast and crew has conspired to play this elaborate joke on me, naming me director of a musical I can't even name. Still, the show must go on. I clap my hands, getting them and myself moving. If people are going to think I directed this, I'd better do whatever I can to make sure it comes off.
I hear the opening chords of the overture and as the curtain starts to rise I find myself praying this show will be good.