America, America

Everything that has ever happened to me in the theatre is a story worth telling, and this story has not yet been told. During the run of The Music Man, back behind all the scenery and such was the orchestra pit and every show, the Wa Tan Ye girls would hang out by the orchestra right before our cue for Wa Tan Ye. The song before this Native American number is "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean", a very patriotic song sung by the townspeople on the Fourth of July. Well, in honor of this patriotic song, during one show, the trombone player decided to bring an American flag without any of the Wa Tan Ye girls knowing it. So when we got to that song, our trombone player stood up and raised the flag. This totally surprised us, so we laughed while we sung (of course the audience didn't know about and they never will). As usual, the rest of the orchestra just put their hands over their hearts and laughed with us. On the last weekend of the run, all the members of the orchestra decided to bring American flags. So we got to that song and on the first note, again without us knowing, the whole orchestra raised their flags. This time, we cracked up because we weren't expecting any of this. But this was a true joy for the Wa Tan Ye girls and this will stay in my memory for as long as I am an actress.