Old Maid and The Thief...A Fun Memory...

It's strange how you will be working on something or watching something and it will trigger a long buried memory. I haven't thought about this for eons, but I was watching a TV show and someone was a thief in this show and it triggered the time I sang in an opera in college. Don't ask how the two are connected but I guess the word thief was the connection.

I was either 18 or 19 and was in my freshman year at the University of Tulsa in an Opera Workshop course. Dan Wright was my professor. Our first production was to be Old Maid and The Thief by Gian Carlo Menotti, A comical short opera in three acts. I was to play the young maid Laticia. 

Oh it was comical that's for sure. I thought Dan Wright was going to have a stroke by the time it was over. After my aria of Steal Me Sweet Thief, Bob, the thief and I rob the old maid. We had this huge sheet and placed all the loose items in the sheet per script. Bob and I carry it up a landing behind a hinged louvered bi-fold screen . This way we could see the audience and the director, Dan Wright. 

What we didn't know was and through no fault of our own, the iron cord was hanging out of the sheet. As we were making our escape up the steps the cord caught the ironing board flipped it which sent it into the bookcase causing it to completely collapse which in turn knocked over a coat tree which fell into a lamp then upset another louvered screen causing it to fall into another bookcase and lamp...in other words the whole set came crashing down like dominos! I kid you not and in slow motion to boot! Everyone held their breath waiting for the next thing to fall.

It was all the audience could do to keep a straight face as Dan Wright kept getting redder and redder as each item of the set fell while he conducted and the music played on and on. The only thing that did not fall was the screen which Bob and I were hiding behind, because we were holding on to it for dear life. My mom had tears running down her cheeks she was laughing so hard, but not laughing. To our horror, Bob and I could see the whole thing unfolding through the screen, yet we were busting up inside. The Old Maid came out and bless her, carried on as though nothing happened. As they say "The show must go on." 

After it was over, we took our bows the audience heartily gave us their approval of the performance even though Mr. Wright kept shooting daggers at Bob and me. 

I got a roll in one other performance, The Marriage of Figaro, the Maid, a very small role. Mr. Wright saw to it that I never got another major roll from that time forward. I guess he was really ticked. It wasn't my fault or Bob's fault that the iron cord was hanging out of the sheet, although it made for a rather interesting performance!

I loved my time at TU and my singing carried to over 10 years with Cimarron Circuit Opera Company with Thomas and Carol Brice Carey.