The Desperate Month of May

Today is the first of May, which reminds me of  "The Lusty Month of May,"  a song from the musical Camelot. Ah, CAMELOT! While the word may conjure up images of brave knights sitting around a table and fair damsels in distress, to me it only brings back glorious memories of epic high school humiliation. You guessed it-another DON story!

If you're not familiar with "Don," he's a boy I obsessed over for a year in high school and showed my devotion to by doing subtle, romantic things like rigging a Mystery Match and wearing a crown with the word HO on it. Y'know, classy stuff like that. And this next story I might have forgotten, if it wasn't for that song always popping into my head this time of year.

About fourteen or fifteen years ago (WOW), our school was doing Camelot for its annual spring musical. Since our theatre guild was pretty hard up for semi-good looking straight male participants (except for ALL my male friends from high school, who to this day are still ridiculously attractive), Don landed one of the lead roles as the strapping, gallant knight Sir Lancelot du Lac. Sure, Don had a very mild lisp and couldn't hold a French accent for more than twenty seconds- but that didn't seem to bother anyone (especially me).

I NEEDED to get into this musical, and there was only one thing standing in my way: a complete lack of singing and dancing ability. But since I had established myself as a psycho-stalker who wasn't below any attempt to get near Don, I had a two-part plan. Part one: AUDITION (insert hysterical laughter here). Needless to say, I did not get in. Part two: sign up for EVERY CREW AVAILABLE. Done and DONE. I literally walked up to the board by the chorus room and scribbled my John Hancock on every single sign-up sheet there was. Set Crew? SURE! Scenery Painting? WHY NOT? Heraldic Insignia? I didn't know what that was, but you can bet I signed up for it!

Each rehearsal I toiled both on and offstage. The head of the building crew was a LITTLE miffed that I didn't know how to use a drill... or a hammer... but once I had a paintbrush in my hand I was slightly more useful. There I'd be, on the floor fixing something as Don would stride onto the stage with his sword. I had "Officer and a Gentleman-like" images of him sweeping me off the stage and carrying me away. Instead, he stopped mid-scene, looked straight down at me, and said "Um... would you mind moving? You're kinda in the way."  Sparks flew. He actually talked to me, man...

In the end, I had the last laugh (not really, but whatever). They wanted gymnasts in one scene and I enthusiastically volunteered myself and two of my teammates. For the record, I was (and am) 5'8" and WELL over a hundred pounds. But I made it into the show in the eleventh hour, cartwheeling and back-handspringing across the stage to the best of my ability (they should have had a structural engineer come and make sure that I wasn't endangering the rest of the cast).

Don did not ask me out. And the following year, the director decided to use gymnasts again and I was, um, not invited back. But who's laughing NOW? Nevermind- don't answer that.

Happy Freakin' May!

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