Lost: The Musical...sortof

*** Dreamt: June 30 - July 1, 2007 ***

I was at the performance of a musical being put-on by my highschool drama teacher. In fact, the performance was in my high school auditorium, except that it had somehow been converted into an amphitheater; basically it looked EXACTLY like my highschool auditorium, except that (A) it was quite a bit bigger, and (B) there were no walls nor a ceiling. I have no idea what was supporting the stage curtain or backdrops. Surrounding both the seats and backstage was a HUGE grassy field...it was actually quite cool.

Right before the performance (which was to be of "State Fair") my brother's friend Rachel, who was apparently in the musical, ran out and asked if I'd come up and be in the show because it didn't have a full cast. This was no surprise to me, because the director had often done this to make rehearsals easier, then would grab random people at the last minute to fill in the rest of the roles. I said, "sure" and went up on stage and pretty much immediately the show began.

I don't really remember what happened in the musical, but it was more like "Lost: The Musical" than "State Fair". There was a plane crash, and my character had been hit with some shrapnel in the gut during the crash, so I actually spent much of the first act lying on my back acting as though I was in grave pain. Then the song "The Wells Fargo Wagon" - yes, from Music Man - began, and my friend Rachel came and grabbed me and pulled me up to be her dance partner. I kept trying to tell her that this was completely unbelievable, because my character had some large chunks of metal in him, so he really shouldn't be up dancing, but she insisted that some time had passed so my character was much better by now. We sortof danced off stage and she told me, "okay, I'm going to run out there and you follow me; I'm going to jump up and you need to catch me and lift me up high over your head." "WHAT?!" I gasped, but it was too late, she'd already started cruising out on stage again, so after her I went. We got near the center of the stage where she raised up her arms to her sides and lept up into the air fully expecting me to be there to lift her even higher. Being that I'd never fully caught up to her, however, I didn't quite catch her in time to lift her up. Rather, I just sort of got my hands on her waist and she immediately came back down with me not really doing anything to even slow her fall. I apologized, but she seemed okay with it.

Then it was intermission. I walked a little way out into one of the grassy fields off to the side of the backstage area, and Ferrell Cool (an elderly man who lives up the street from my parents) came over from the audience to congratulate me on a job well done, and even gave me an Halmark 'congratulations' card. I thought it was an extremely nice gesture.

Just then Ray, another older fellow from my parents' neighborhood shouted over to us, but then realized that he'd probably interrupted Ferrell congratulating me, so he kinda got embarassed and apologized, telling us to continue our conversation, and that he'd tell us what he was going to say when we were finished.

I never did hear what it was, though, because I - as always seems to happen at the end of my dreams - woke up.

***

Being in musicals is a rather common dream for me. I'd say at least once a month or so I dream about being in one musical or another. It's interesting to me, however, that it's usually for an impromptu performance, and yet I feel no anxiety over it. This - of course - isn't always the case, as you know if you happen to be one of the lucky people whom I told about my dream where I was supposed to be in an all-french version of West Side Story.

The most distressing thing really about this dream was that the musical was set to be "State Fair." Ugh, if you have never seen this stinker of a musical, consider yourself lucky and steer clear of it. The only people known to like it are those who saw the movie version when they were little kids, and since they were too young to realize how horribly stupid and cheezy it is, they grew to love it, and they still hold a special childhood affinity for it in their hearts.

My favorite part of this dream was how the director was known for not fully casting the musical, then just grabbing additional people from the audience at performance time. Wouldn't it be fun if that's how shows really were? Just think, you Wicked fans, if you went to see your beloved witchy musical, only to find yourself getting pulled on stage before it started to be part of the ensemble!