Please Enjoy the Show

In which I break a proverbial leg, take my final bow, and get starstruck.

This final SHOW GIRL post is for paid subscribers and chronicles my experience performing in a local theater guild’s Fall 2024 production of The Music Man—my first foray into musical theater in over 30 years. Get the background here and here, and please consider upgrading your subscription to support my future writing efforts.

It’s three days after our final show and I am starstruck. For the first time since joining the theatre guild for its fall performance of The Music Man, I am going to see The Music Man—as himself, The Deli Man, behind the counter of Lido Deli in Long Beach. I’m not sure why I feel starstruck. He’s been a fellow castmate for the past four months and is just another town local like me. It’s not like I’m attracted to him or anything either. We just haven’t had much interaction except when we’re in character, like when he’s singing “Trouble” and asks the ensemble if we’d “ever try to give an iron-clad leave to yourself from a three-rail billiard shot.” When we make eye contact on stage, he seems to see me even though we’re doing a bit. Out here in the real world, though, I’m not even sure he knows my name.