An Enemy of the People

Beau was so upset
After our fifth season
He went to Italy
And none of us were sure
He was going to come back

Now that there was a Board in place
Beau didn't feel like he could 'create'
The way he used to

What that means is
He wasn't going to be able
To run the place
Like a dictatorship

We talked about potential replacements
Who could be our new Artistic Director

Then, with one week to go
Until we started rehearsing our season opener
The always-uplifting An Enemy of the People
Beau shows up at the theater
Looking tanned and refreshed
With an even more tanned and refreshed Italian girl
Walking alongside him

He checked his messages
He signed his divorce papers
He had sex with the Italian girl on the desk in his office

We all knew this
Because his Italian girl
Was louder than a freight train

It might have been quieter
If he actually had sex with a freight train

Then he called a company meeting

We weren't sure if he was going to quit
Fire all of us
Or tell us he was turning the theater
Into a pizzeria

Italy does things to people

My cousin went to Italy
Came back with three tattoos
A new haircut
And a French accent

Don't ask
Nobody knows

Moving on

Beau says that we're going to start doing things different
That he wants to make an impact

We all look at the actors in the company
That serve on the Board
But Beau knows what we're thinking
And he points out to us
That the art and the business
Are two separate things
And wasn't he still in charge of the art?

So what could we do?

We went along with it

That production of An Enemy of the People
Was like nothing I've ever been a part of
Or seen since

There was so much attention to detail
Everything had to mean something

The movement
The way we said things
The way we told the story

Suddenly that was everything

The story

At first we all balked
It felt wrong

And we weren't being allowed to do
What we thought
Was acting

Suddenly everything
Had to be about
This play
That none of us liked very much

Suddenly
We had to make it sing

And then
At some point
And I don't know when
But at some point
We did

We clicked

We sort of...

Everything...just...clicked

What we were doing
What we were working on
What Beau wanted from us

It all just started to happen
And all of a sudden
We weren't just 'playing' anymore
I mean, we were
We were playing
But we were also...doing something

We were doing something
That we felt was...important

We got so caught up in it
It never occurred to us
That it wasn't going to go over well
With the audience

That first preview
More people walked out
Than stayed in

There were complaints
There was resistance
There were even death threats

Most people just weren't ready
For what Beau was trying to do

But the smart people
The people who really loved good theater
They got what we were doing
And they told us

'Keep doing it.  We'll stick with you.'

And they did
For a long time
Until...

Well

That's not my story to tell

All I'll say is this

I was so proud to be there
The moment we stopped just being
That place downtown
That does the plays

And started being a theater

A real honest-to-God theater

That was one of the best moments
Of my life

Making that play
Sing