Front of House: Observations from a Decade on the Aisle by Denise Reich Page B

reposed on her deathbed, and the poor actress had to break character and raise her hands to protect her face. Apparently, malfunctioning prop chairs have the power to resurrect the dead.
    Over at Cats, most of the errors I witnessed were small. The lights on the Siamese cat costumes in “Growltiger’s Last Stand” didn’t always illuminate; the wings on the beetle outfits in the Gumbie Cat tap dance didn’t always open. Occasionally a performer slipped and fell. There were several flashpots on the stage; during the “Mr. Mistoffelees” number, Mistoffelees pointed at them and they “magically” exploded with sparks and smoke. I was told that when the charges didn’t go off it was sometimes a matter of safety; if the crew felt that one of the performers was too close to the flashpot, they didn’t discharge it.
    In The Life, a dark musical about prostitutes in 1970/80s Times Square that played at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Pamela Issacs was supposed to storm offstage during one particularly tense scene. One evening when I was there, the door in the set wouldn’t open for her, so she couldn’t make her exit. She struggled with it for a moment, and then regally stalked around the edge of the set to take her leave, her head held high.
    In the musical version of Jekyll & Hyde at the Plymouth, the eponymous characters went through several dramatic transformations onstage. The metamorphoses were fueled by injections of Nasty and Nice serums Jekyll had created in his laboratory. During one performance, at a point in the show where Hyde was being especially creepy and scary, the syringe he was about to jam into his arm slipped out of his hand and rolled away. The actor had to crawl around the set to find it, since the scene couldn’t continue without the injection sequence.
    This wouldn’t have been particularly noteworthy, if not for the fact that the actor muttered, in his perfectly eerie Hyde voice: “Oops.”

My Broadway Debut

    In the spring of 2006, a few months after The Phantom of the Opera became the longest-running show in Broadway history, I made my official performing debut on the Great White Way. You can blame Phantom for that. The show had been invited to sing David Friedman’s song, “Help Is on the Way” at the New Amsterdam Theatre as part of the grand finale of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ spring benefit show, the Easter Bonnets. Phantom has long been a huge supporter of BC/EFA, and every fall and spring the show embarks on a massive fundraising drive.
    Being asked to close the Bonnets was an incredible honor. The show brought together performers and crew from almost every play and musical on Broadway, as well as many off-Broadway and national tour productions. Every show put together a skit, a song or a dance and designed an Easter bonnet. Some productions took a silly approach; others were serious, and the range of talents on display was remarkable.
    I was stunned when the stage managers at Phantom invited everyone to participate: ushers, bartenders, merchandising crew, stagehands, and wardrobe. Phantom was always wonderful to its support staff, but this really went above and beyond. They had just handed me a chance to sing on a Broadway stage.
    I decided to participate; so did another usher, Stacy. When we arrived at the first rehearsal, things were awkward. The ballet dancer who handed out the sheet music passed us over, even though we were standing right in front of her. I had to wave her over again once she’d walked away, and she made it clear that she was not thrilled that we had been included. I didn’t care; she was not in charge, and we had been given a direct invitation. As I looked around the room I was relieved to see that many backstage and front of house folks were participating; I spotted a few of the bartenders, some merch staff, makeup artists and crew members.
    There are two major reasons why I’m never going to be a professional singer. Both of them reared their