WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS:
IRRELIGIOUS, IRREVERENT, AND IRRELEVANT.
THE PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EVENTS CONTAINED IN ST MUCKYMUCK ARE COMPLETELY FICTIONAL. ANY AND ALL RESEMBLANCES TO REAL PEOPLE, REAL PLACES, AND/OR REAL EVENTS PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.
IN FACT, ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANYTHING AT ALL WILL BE REMARKABLY COINCIDENTAL.
KBC Rehearsal Auditorium
4:00 pm
A balding gentleman stepped forward, handed his form to Jo and proceeded to the center of the rehearsal stage. "My name is Derek McClintock."
"And what are you going to do for us today Mr. McClintock?" asked Mys Tery.
"I'm going to perform 'Seventy-six Trombones' from The Music Man. He turned to the accompanist, a slender, balding man from San Francisco who was studying composition at Kilcathclyde University with the world famous composer Matthew Eugene Sorenson-Stuckington, "Ok, Brad, I'm ready." He smiled meekly and plowed ahead. From his right pocket Derek produced a kazoo and proceeded to completely wow the audience with a thoroughly rousing rendition of the famous song, which completely brought down the house. "That was very nice but you forgot to announce your act," said Jo, motherly. She turned to the awaiting auditionees "Please state your act so that we are sure we have the correct person."
"Yes, Jo," they chanted back along with a bark and a meow.
Following Derek McClintock, a sharply dressed young woman stepped forward. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a neat bun and she wore smart black shoes that matched her outfit perfectly. She had two mallets in her hand. She went offstage and returned pushing a large xylophone. "My name is Tania McPhee," she stated with a gentle Irish accent. "I'm a xylophonist and will be performing 'Cool' from West Side Story. Within seconds, the mallets were flashing across the instrument. People looked at one another. They'd never seen anything like it. When she was finished, her hair had come down slightly but she received no less applause than Derek had.
As three stagehands helped her move her xylophone from the stage, a familiar figure came onto the stage. Big Fannie White, otherwise known as Monsignor Marco Black, who had won the Glasgow Gay Pride drag show, Glitz! Glamour!! Glasgow!!! some time earlier, controversially snatching the title away from the reigning queen, Mys Tery, came onstage.
"My name is..." said the drag queen.
"Oh we know who you are!" came a voice from the back of the auditorium.
Everyone present knew it was Mys Tery but no one dared to turn around to look. Big Fannie was wearing a white pant suit with a matching white scarf that was wrapped around her head in a startling imitation of Maria Callas. As during the drag show, the monsignor had not bothered to shave his heavy, wiry black beard.
"I will be singing 'O mio babbino caro' from Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini." He, that is to say she, began singing as Brad closed the introduction. It was magnificent. A third ringing ovation.
Big Fannie White curtsied masculinely and then walked offstage, her scarf trailing behind her. Immediately a smartly dressed elderly gentleman came onstage. He was wearing a pin striped suit and he sported highly polished black shoes with spats, a cane that matched his outfit, and a shiny blue tie. There was an instant murmur.
"Wow." "He's so handsome."
"What a dresser!"
"My name is Billy Burt Flanagan," he said, stepping to the center of the stage after handing Brad music. "I'm going to be singing 'My Way'." Brad played the introduction and Billy Burt began to sing. He sound exactly like Frank Sinatra. He flashed a toothy smile and winked at several different people as he sang. When he finished, every woman in the auditorium including Jo, Venus Divagawa, and Mys Tery, was on their feet whistling and howling. As he bowed and began to move offstage, someone threw something at him. He picked it up and facing everyone, opened out a pair of bright red knickers. He winked and flickered his eyebrows several times. This was followed by a wolf whistle from Venus.
Everyone was still murmuring when out came a nun in a traditional habit. She had something in her left hand but no one could see it. She spent quite some time speaking with Brad but finally turned around. "Ethel, could you bring the stool out?" she said.
"Stool?" everyone said to each other, still basking in the afterglow of Billy Burt Flanagan's knickers-earning Sinatra tune. A stagehand brought out a stool and put it in the center of the stage. The nun sat down and announced, "Hello, everyone. My name is Sr Edwina Elmore and this..." she pulled from her behind back a puppet. "...is St. Heehaw!" Everyone laughed out loud. The puppet was dressed in all white with a giant "H" in the middle and a shiny golden halo perched above it. "HI!" said the puppet. When the laughter died down, Damian Swashbuggles chimed up from the back of the room. "And what are you doing for us today, Sister. Bless us?" He sounded distinctly bored.
"I'm a ventriloquist and Heehaw, here, and I are going to perform 'The Lonely Goatherd' from The Sound of Music. It turned out she had a lovely singing voice, virtually identical to Julie Andrews. But the most remarkable part came at the climax of the song when by some miracle the sister was able to perform both the coloratura part sung by Julie Andrews and the words to the song sung by the children in the film. How had she done it? The audience went wild for yet a sixth time.
As she exited the stage to tumultuous applause, people were once again talking among themselves. "How did she do that?" "That was amazing!" "Nice voice she has, huh?" and "Wow, I barely saw her lips move when Heehaw sang."
But the next act was already making its way to the stage. An average height man came out and said, "My name's Frank O'Dhoul and this is the Fantastic Four Ferrets!" Onstage came four bouncing ferrets. They were all cream colored with various stripes but they immediately did a series of jumps and acrobatics and ended up forming a letter H. The audience shouted out the letter. They then formed an "I" followed by an exclamation point, which the audience shouted out also. Everyone was clapping and laughing. No one had any idea there was so much talent in Kilcathclyde.
A recording came on at which Brad quickly ran down to the house to get a glimpse of the show. The audience began clapping as the familiar strains of "Dancing Queen" filled the hall. It was unbelievable. The ferrets tumbled and twirled and did all manner of disco moves across the stage while Frank sang the song. When it was over and everyone was clapping loudly the ferrets moved into formation. V E N U S they formed while the audience shouted out each letter in turn. H A S B I G T But they got no further. Jo sprang forward, "Thank you, Frank. Can you take the boys offstage, please. Thank you!" Everyone was howling with laughter including Mys Tery and Venus. Damian Swashbuggles was laying sideways on the back row of seats laughing so hard.
As Frank and the Fanatastic Four Ferrets moved offstage waving at the audience, onstage came a pale figure dressed all in black. She pushed a cart with a small chihuahua standing on it wearing what looked like ice skates, standing on a sheet of ice. She handed Brad some music and came downstage, pushing the dog on the cart with her. People craned and strained to see. "My name is Myra Dick and I will be singing 'Popular' from my favorite show, Wicked." People whispered to each other.
"Myra Dick. That's Myra Dick!"
"Does she always look pale green like that?"
"What's the deal with the dog?"
She began to sing in a cackly, raspy voice that increased her remarkable resemblance to the Wicked Witch of the West. People didn't like it at all and when the dog began to ice skate very badly, the boo's and cat calls increased. When she had stopped singing and the dog had finished a poorly executed triple axle, Myra moved offstage, muttering curses at the crowd. "Come on Chi Chi, we'll show them!"
But the sudden shift in the mood of the audience was turned to curiosity when a dashing young man came onstage wearing a Star Trek uniform and a very tall and strange looking stringed instrument. "My name is Dwight de la Lune and I am a bass rebec player."
"What on earth is a bass rebec?" said someone in the front row.
"It's from a family of stringed instruments that come from the Middle East. They were popular in Spain in the Middle Ages and Renaissance." Accompanied by Brad, Dwight launched into the theme from the original Star Trek series. The sound was so lovely that people were on their feet, seemingly having forgotten all about Myra Dick's chihuahua calamity.
As Dwight made his way offstage out came a middle aged woman. She was dressed in a brown dress and had her hair neatly coiffed in a tight bun. "My name is Maggie MacAw and I will be singing 'Drink to me with thine eyes only'." Brad played the introduction and from this rather frumpy looking woman came a grand operatic voice. When she finished everyone clapped for her.
"She looks so old."
"I had no idea there was such a big voice in that little roly poly woman!"
She blushed and made her way offstage.
She was replaced by a man wearing a kilt and carrying a set of bagpipes. On his shoes appeared to be two sets of spoons. "Good afternoon, judges. My name is Ronald Rotter and I am a piper and spoons player. I will be piping and spooning 'Scotland the Brave' for your delectation." And with that, he activated the pipes and was clacking and clicking across the stage with incredible speed and agility. Everyone was clapping along to the song and when he finished down on one knee and clicking the spoons at the same time, the audience went wild. A stunning display of agility, rhythm, and breath control.
This was followed by a tap dancer named Sarah Pearson who continued the dancing acrobatics by tapping gleefully to 'Kansas City' from Oklahoma!
But it was the following act that brought the house down before a single note was sung. A priest stepped onstage, "My name is Fr. Eric Lloyd Griffiths. I'm going to be singing 'How Great Thou Art' accompanied by Nettie."
"And who is Nettie, Fr. Eric?" said Jo, not bothering to look up from her clipboard.
"My cat...she...she...she knits," he said, meekly.
"She what???" said Damian Swashbuggles.
Onstage came Chris Smith, the accompanist from St. Mocheomoc. He pushed the cart which had previously supported the ice skating chihuahua Chi Chi. On it was a very small, tortoiseshell kitten, and the unmistakable sight of a drum set, including a bass drum, a snare and two cymbals. From a small green bag, Chris pulled out two metal sticks and a ball of yarn. He handed them to the cat and then moved downstage, kneeling in front of her.
Fr. Eric nodded to the accompanist Brad, who played the introduction. As the priest began to sing, the cat could be seen clearly knitting, spurred on by Chris who was making some sort of motions. The audience gaped on in amazement and said all together "Awwwwwww..." But that wasn't all. The knitting needles were clacked together in time with the music and when Fr. Eric launched into the refrain, the kitten hit the cymbals deftly. People's jaws were dropped. Mys Tery came down from the back of the auditorium and stood directly in front of the priest and Nettie the Knitting Kitten. She turned to the audience who began to hoot and holler. "It's a miracle!!" When the song finished and Nettie had hit the cymbals one last time for a bang of a finish, the whole auditorium was on its feet.
But the best was yet to come, no one had noticed that Nettie was knitting something on her needles during the song and she let the creation fall open. In a splash of different colors of yarn was a sweater that read "I LOVE DAMIAN!" This brought the loudest ovation yet. Everyone was clapping and hollering madly as the kitten sat holding her knitting for everyone to see.
But nothing could have prepared anyone for the final audition of the day. An elderly woman came onstage bent over with age and using a cane. The audience immediately went quiet. No one knew what to expect now. "My name is Raina MacDonaghue," she said in a thick Glaswegian accent. She was missing several teeth. "I've brought my pet Elsie, who is going to play the organ for you this afternoon." There were pipes all over the place so the presence of an organ was obvious as people looked around for an organ console - but none was to be found.
Chris the accompanist and a stagehand brought out on the very same cart that had now had an ice skating dog and a knitting kitten on it. This time there was a large glass case and inside it was a very small organ console...and a very large spider. "This is Elsie, my tarantula. She is going to play the Little Fugue in G minor by Johann Sebastian Bach and then 'Shall We Dance?' from The King and I.
Jo stood up and faced the rear of the auditorium. "Hey Carol, you can bring the screen down now."
There was a whirring sound and a giant screen was lowered from the stage ceiling to just behind Elsie and her organ. A flash of blue light and then Elsie was magnified on the screen for everyone to see. She was sporting a pink bow and waved courteously. And with that, she went into the Little Fugue. People were looking at one another. All three judges came down to the front of the auditorium to watch Elsie as her eight legs flew across the miniature keys and pedals. When she finished, the roof nearly came off the auditorium as people whistled, clapped, and yelled.
"How did she learn to do that?"
"How old is she?"
"How did they get that bow on her???"
Elsie waved appreciatively at the crowd. She adjusted her pink bow and then began to play the famous song from The King and I. What unimaginable luck that the auditorium instrument was also a Wurlitzer style organ. The audience began to sing and when the talented tarantula changed keys and opened up the swell, the whole audience danced the polka. Sr. Edwina's habit was swirling everywhere as she danced with Ronald Rotter, whose spoons were clinking in time to the music; the Fantastic Four Ferrets were dancing with each other while Frank, their owner, was dancing with Big Fannie White; Damian Swashbuggles was dancing with Venus Divagawa in the aisle and Billy Burt Flanagan was whirling Mys Tery around the stage. It was completely and utterly unforgettably unbelievable.
©2010 Steven Gorman. All rights reserved.
