From Leslie Arden, composer/playwright of The Princess & the Handmaiden:
It was opening night of LKTYP’s production of The Princess & the Handmaiden, and I was sitting in the audience beside two of the original cast members from…oh my…over twenty-five years ago. It’s been a long journey. I first wrote the musical in 1982, but it was originally a three-hander, with one performer (me) stuck playing the piano most of the time. We toured
I remember one school in which they had to move the piano to the performing area from a classroom far, far away, so, to ease its journey, they greased the wheels. Literally. Throughout the show, every time I depressed the sustain pedal, the piano slipped out from under me and silently rolled away. I constantly had to stop playing and grab it to keep it from rolling across the stage.
In another school they provided an electronic keyboard which boasted a handy transposition button, but every time I played the keyboard louder than mezzo piano the keyboard would launch into a new key. This happened so frequently and so unpredictably throughout the show that eventually we all resorted to simply shouting our lyrics instead of singing, as we never knew when the accompaniment would fly off into unknown territory.
Then there was the school that provided a piano that had a couple of keys that wouldn’t play. No problem, I thought, I can work around those notes. As the show progressed, however, more and more keys disappeared until, by halfway through the show, it sounded like I was playing some sort of percussion instrument, with nothing but wooden clicking and clacking emerging from the piano.
One school provided a tiny, two-octave mini Casio keyboard, upon which they expected me to accompany the show. They couldn’t understand my hesitancy. After all, it came with the added attraction of a pre-programmed rhythm section. Evidently, with just a push of a button, one could effortlessly begin the beguine.
We drove to
We performed in gyms with no heat, we tap danced on carpets (yes, I’ve been known to tap dance). We were interrupted by school bells, fire drills and p.a. announcements. Kids threw up. They peed themselves, and not necessarily in the humorous scenes. Entire classes arose and left just before the end, so they wouldn’t miss their bus. We drove to venues in snow storms, ice storms and thunderstorms, only to arrive and find no one else there and the show cancelled (yes, it was back in the days before cell phones). And I loved every minute of it.
Today, people ask me why I still choose to work in Children’s Theatre. The answer is simple. It’s the most rewarding work I can do. I cannot count the number of children for whom we were their first theatrical experience. How many behaviorally challenged kids were riveted by our troupe? How many deaf children “heard” our musicals through interpreters signing off to the sides? How many teachers considered our company an inconvenience when we first arrived, and were then utterly charmed and entertained for an hour (after which they would beg us to join them in the teachers’ lounge so they could regale us with stories about their wonderful school and their beloved students)?
I’ve spent twenty-five years entertaining children and young adults with stories set to music. Frankly, it doesn’t get any better than that.
