Mother Courage and Her Children

Every year

In the spring

When they put the season posters together

A bunch of us in the business office

Would get together

And determine

Which show

Was going to fail

In 2010-2011 Season, it was Mother Courage and Her Children

We just had a feeling

It would fail

Everybody put money down

Toasted another season on the books

And bid each other farewell for the summer

I went to my family’s lake house

In upstate New York

And read all the plays for the upcoming season

Once again, I was pretty sure

That Mother Courage was going to bomb

The summer goes by

I get back together

With the boyfriend I broke up with

Before the summer started

In the event that I wanted to mess around

With one of the lake boys

We start the season

The first two shows tank

In the Boom Boom Room was a huge disaster

Then Mother Courage opens

And we’re all thinking

This is it

Brace yourselves

And…it’s a hit

A huge hit

People loved it

To this day, I still don’t know why

Not that it wasn’t a good show

But…I don’t know

I don’t know what it was about it

That people responded to

You never really know

You can’t just look at a poster

Or a title

Or a script

And figure out

Whether or not

People are going to check into it, you know?

It never occurred to me until then

That staring at poster art

And making a determination

About what would one day be this full production is…

Silly

Especially for me, you know?

I should know better

But we still take bets every season

Because it’s something to do

Except now, I never count anything out

It’s theater, right?

It’s all about surprises