Divine Comedy: A Few Memories

As I wrote my last post, a lot of memories were stirred of my first years in Divine Comedy. I thought I'd share some of them here:

--One night after a show, the whole group went to Rob Marsh's house to watch the new DC Pro Tour DVD. By happenstance, I'd ended up with some stuff that I was supposed to give Dave Hedengren, so I called him and told him I needed to bring it to him. He told us to come to Rob's and invited us to stay and watch the DVD. This was incredibly exciting to me, because I'd been at the taping of the DVD, AND I was in Rob Marsh's house. Back in those days, Rob Marsh seemed like the biggest celebrity in the world to me, so I couldn't believe I was in his house sitting on the couch with him. After a while, he looked at me and said, "Who are you??"

--At the second show I worked, a nice lady came up to me and bought a whole bunch of t-shirts. She told me her son was in the cast. I said, "Oh! Which one is he?" and she said, "Joey." I looked at her blankly. Then she said, "Hilton. Joel Hilton." I pretty much flipped out. I told her how great I thought he was, and ever since then, I've been friends with the Hiltons. They came to every show, and I was always glad to see them.

--After one of the shows, I was helping pick up trash, and I needed to find a garbage bag. I went to look for one in the green room, and as I was walking in, I thought, "Maybe I should make sure no one's changing in here before I go in." But it was one of those fleeting thoughts that barely even registers as a thought, so I just burst right in, only to discover Joel standing there with his shirt off. I was mortified and ran out of the room to die.

--Two words: Spring Haven. I could write a whole post on Spring Haven. We go there each semester for a retreat, and it's a very valuable time for everyone to bond and develop trusting relationships. Plus it's a lot of fun and has been the inspiration for several popular skits. My favorite part of Spring Haven is playing Murder in the Dark. I loved the time Paul thought I was Will Rubio and tried to accuse me of murder; the time I heard Will fall down the stairs in the dark; the year Trevor brought red glowing glasses and freaked everyone out during the game; Jono climbing up into the rafters and then praying that he didn't get bitten by a spider; the time I was the murderer and successfully killed every person; and most recently, Kabe screaming like a girl when someone jumped out and hissed at him.

--When they did Charly and the Creamery on Ninth, Matt Stringham was supposed to start the skit by singing the parody of "Candy Man," with the line, "Who sells frozen waffles?" The problem was that there was no intro, so Matt had a hard time knowing when to start. He finally asked if an intro could be added to the music so he didn't just go, "TwfftwwWAFFLES!" (Ok, spelling it out looks stupid, but it was SO funny when he said it!) Our stage manager tried to oblige him by adding four clicks to the beginning. Knowing that he had four clicks before he started gave Matt a lot more confidence. However, on the night of the show, instead of hearing, "Click...click...click...click...Who sells frozen waffles?" we heard, "Click...twfftwwWAFFLES!" I don't know what happened to the other three clicks, but it was hilarious.

--At that same show, I was filling in for the stage manager, so I was running the lights and PowerPoint slides. I was more nervous than I think I've ever been in my entire life. Right before the show started, I went up into the booth, shut the door, and started crying. But it ended up being an AMAZING experience, and I loved being that involved with the show. The cast gave me major kudos as well, so it's still one of my favorite memories ever.