BWW Blog: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished by Jeffrey Sanzel, Executive Artistic Director, Theatre Three

In all things, we try to look for lessons and reasons. Things to take away from an experience. Each event hopefully guides us to new insights and introspections, gives us fodder for future choices and perspectives. I guess.

Yesterday morning, as on all Tuesday mornings during this time of year, we had a 10:30 a.m. matinee of A Christmas Carol.

Of course, in the nature of things, there is an impending "snow storm." One school had already cancelled early (around 6:00 a.m.). The other school was still coming but wanted to make sure the show started right on time-early if possible-and no q&a. Fine. Doable. Everyone come in, get ready, no warm-ups and be ready to go.

About twenty minutes before call-time, I get a phone call from one of our actors. Bobby Montaniz is stalled on Sunrise Highway. (A little background. Bobby, who is also in Barnaby Saves Christmas and is therefore working for us seven days a week, also has another job that he goes to every weekday at 4:30 a.m. He also has the devil's luck with cars.) He is at least thirty plus minutes from the theatre.

Doug Quattrock, who is on his way in, is enlisted to rescue Bobby from the side of the road and get them both to theatre in time for the show. Doug, as mentioned previously, is Bob Cratchit. Both actors appear in the first scene of the play. It is also somehow appropriate that Bob Cratchit-the long-suffering clerk who always does the right thing-is the knight in this story.

Doug picks-up Bobby and proceeds on Sunrise Highway. Only to have a rock go through the passenger side, shattering the window all over Bobby.

Oh, by the way, it's snowing. (Pretty much the only real snow that we got yesterday.)

They call to let us know of this recent development-but that they are still on their way. (Of course, they are.)

They arrive ten minutes before scheduled curtain. They are dressed in three minutes. No one misses a beat. The unit that the cast has become is in full concentration. It is 10:25 and the show is underway. And early at that.

About fifteen minutes into the performance, just as the bells are tolling seven in the countinghouse, Vivian Koutrakos, Theatre Three's Managing Director, walks out onstage. She tells the students the we have to stop the play as the buses will be needed for early dismissal. (Rather disorienting. What went through my head at the moment was "I don't remember casting her." In thirty years of Christmas Carol, this has been Vivian's sole appearance in the production.)

So ... here we are. Mission accomplished. Mission aborted. A company looking at each other, trying to figure out what just happened. And what to do now. Unlike most performances, where actors are out of costume and pretty much gone from the building in ten minutes ... the cast lingers ... fifteen ... twenty minutes ... half an hour ... Gradually, in a slightly giggly daze, everyone is gone.

So what are the insights? The new perspectives? And, even more, where does the rest of the performance go when it doesn't happen?

I'm not quite sure.

Photo: Caitlin Nofi, Bobby Montaniz, & Matt Paduano of Theatre Three's A CHRISTMAS CAROL

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