[rumors - 2004]
 

When the name of the show is Rumors, you know something somewhere is going to go wrong.

Rehearsals go fine. It's a Neil Simon show, my second time being directed by Dee Cothern, and it's a great cast of natural comedic actors. The run begins. But Katie, the actress who plays my wife, begins to take ill. We can see it. She can see it. But she insists she can go on. Dee, the director, allows it, but surreptitiously hands a script to Rachel, one of the bar staff at The Cabaret Theatre who fits the part and says, "why don't you take a look at this?"

"Why?" Rachel says.

"... no particular reason," says Dee.

Twenty minutes into the next show, it becomes clear Katie cannot go on with the show. Dee calls poor Rachel about fifteen minutes before we're due onstage and says, "Think you can do that part? Like, right now?" Rachel races to the theater and gets into costume with great aplomb. She only buckles once, in the dark right before they open the door for us to go onstage. "Holy crap I'm scared," she whispers, grabbing my hand.

"You're gonna be great," I say. "And remember, we hate each other."

When the door opens, she looks like she had hated me all her life.

They taped the first show we did. The camera battery ran out at intermission, right after Katie and I had entered. They taped again the next week, during the incident. As a result, the official Cabaret Theatre file tape shows my wife becoming a blonde mid-show.

Now that's showbiz.