Tramps Like Us

[Real-life background: When I was at the University of Utah, my friend Anthony and I co-founded a student opera organization named Zero Budget Productions. Our first show, Gian Carlo Menotti's one-act opera Amelia Goes to the Ball, took place in February 2004.]

I dreamed that my friend Anthony and I decided to reunite the original members of Zero Budget Productions for a one-night-only revival of our first show, Amelia Goes to the Ball. Since we had performed it once before we naturally assumed that we wouldn't need to rehearse beforehand, and we sent out invitations to the veterans of the Zero Budget company, asking them to please arrive at least five minutes before the show so that we could get an accurate head count.

I was in charge of assembling the band, and I scored a major coup by getting Magic Johnson on bass guitar. Right before the show I decided on a whim that I was going to play mandolin with the band. Magic saw me pull out my mandolin and asked if we could switch instruments, since had never actually played the bass guitar but was a closet mandolin virtuoso. I said too bad - if he had put "mandolin virtuoso" on his resume I would have let him play, but it was too late to switch now.

The curtain went up (the venue was never certain - sometimes we were in Dumke Recital Hall at the University of Utah, other times we were at the University Commons in Ann Arbor, and other times we were out on the four-square courts behind my old elementary school) and we started to play the overture. The members of the band were actually pretty good individually - even Magic on bass - but we couldn't stay together because the conductor couldn't keep a steady beat. The conductor was none other than the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, and he had detached his nose (the tip of which lit up like a laser pointer) to use as a baton.

I realized very quickly that I wasn't good enough at the mandolin to sight-read a Menotti score (should have switched with Magic!), so I snuck out of the orchestra pit and went backstage. Anthony rushed over to tell me that we had a major problem: none of the singers who showed up had been a part of Amelia Goes to the Ball - they had all joined the company later on. The overture was about to end and we couldn't send the clueless singers out on stage, so I told Anthony to stall until I came back with an alternate idea for the performance.

My quest for inspiration lead me to a mall in Simi Valley, California. The first thing that caught my eye inside was a wild labyrinth of wildly colored escalators spiraling downward in bright splashes of reds, yellows, and greens. Perfect, I thought, I'll make an experimental film about the escalators!

Meanwhile, Anthony stood alone on stage trying to keep the audience (about a dozen people) from getting restless. He was doing stand-up comedy after trying (and failing) to juggle. He was losing their attention fast, but he had a sudden flash of inspiration: he launched into the first principle of the old missionary discussions. At the end of the discussion he asked if someone in the audience would volunteer to say the closing prayer. A hand raised in the back, belonging to former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. His prayer included the line, "And bless these two Mormon boys as they continue to stall," which sent Anthony into a panic. He grabbed his phone and called me, saying that the audience had caught on to our stalling and that I'd better come back with a solution fast.

I knew that the escalator film was going to take too long to make, so I abandoned it. On my way out of the mall I passed by the multiplex, where a live performance of the play Amadeus was taking place. The actor playing Mozart was standing alone outside the multiplex, about to make his first entrance from the back of the house and up the aisle. He was predictably dressed in an 18th-century long jacket and a powdered wig, but surprisingly he also wore an eyepatch and had a plastic hook on his left hand. As soon as I saw him, I knew exactly how we could save our show.

I sprinted back to find Anthony and the rest of the cast pacing furiously backstage. I unloaded my idea on them: instead of Amelia Goes to the Ball, we would perform Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run album in its entirety (except "She's the One" - the one track on the album I always skip). They all looked confused and told me that they'd never heard it. "Nonsense," I replied. "It's one of those albums that exists in everyone's collective unconscious. Just follow my lead."

Just then we heard the low rumble of Magic Johnson's bass, followed by giant crashing chords from a Fender Telecaster. I got a running start, the curtains parted, and I glided across the stage on my knees in a trademark Springsteen power slide:



Freeze frame, fade out.