Moment of Theater Department: I played the big regional cattle-call auditions last night that all of the Northwest theater companies come to to check out talent. There's always one unforgettable moment every year, and last night's was this:
An elderly (relatively speaking, most of these people were still in high school or just out of college) woman traipsed in wearing a kind of belly-dancer flowing gown sort of thing. Behind her was a man carrying an accordion. I knew we were in for something good (a Richard Rodgers reference). So, she gets up on stage, and begins to speak, and it gets better: she has a very heavy eastern European accent. I can't remember her name but she announces she will be performing Granada whilst her husband accompanies her on accordion. So in she launches on a delightful rendition (she actually had a nice, semi-operatic soprano), replete with beautiful (?) dance moves. She clicked her fingers together as if she were holding castanets, which she was not. Then, as an encore, she began to sing Memory. Now here's the hilarious part (at least to me): as I'm sure y'all know, the song is sung "Mem-ry, blah, blah, blah," but because of her heavy accent, she sang all three syllables of the title: "Mem-o-ry, blah, blah, blah," whilst her husband provided lilting accordion accompaniment. Ready for the punch line? I was talking about this with some of the theater staff after the auditions (all of the audtioners had left, obviously) and it turns out this lady was the Gymnastics coach for the East German Olympic team in the 70s.