I couldn't help it

    It's amazing how the busy part of my day doesn't usually start until about 6:30 p.m. It's at that point that I make it to the theater, joke around get ready with my friends, and put on a show.

    And on lucky days like this, I then hop on over to The Universal City Walk to have a late dinner with my brother Josh. We talk over shrimp and connect with our waiter as we discuss with him everything from football to Mel Brooks to the suite in Cinderella's Castle.

    I get home at one o' clock, crawl into bed and ice my knee (gotta up the hamburger intake again, I guess!), but am not nearly ready to put an end to the good times quite yet. And really, can you blame me? 

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     But let me tell you about the worst time I cracked on stage. It's pretty fresh in my mind, seeing as it just happened this past Sunday. 

       Those of you who know ACL will recall the most poignant part of the show. It's when Paul falls down and hurts himself, catalyzing an intense discussion among the remaining actors which encompasses the risks of our business as well as the looming question for every dancer, 

      What would you do if you couldn't dance anymore? 

        So there is the back story, and now let me tell you my recent...um...unanticipated choice for my character in this scene. 

        Right, so Paul had just gotten hurt and we were mournfully watching him get carried off stage. Well, everyone was except for me and Colt, that is...

         Colt and I had been embracing, and as soon as we stopped I happened to glance at another actor on stage I will call "Pat."  Pat was standing there, looking very concerned over poor injured Paul, with hands demurely clasped behind her back. The audience could only see Pat's front, as she was facing squarely forward. 

         Being further upstage than Pat, I, however, could see what was going on behind her.

          Or more appropriately, what was going on in her behind.

         As I mentioned, Pat had her hands clasped behind her, but her thumbs pointing downward.  Well, not downward, exactly, as they were literally digging deep into her crack, for lack of a better term.

         Slowly and methodically, she was moving those thumbs up and down, so as to reach the entire length of the crack--all while keeping her face arranged in a manner as to look very concerned for Paul and give away nothing of the virtual butt-scratching marathon that was going on. Seriously, you could barely even see her hands anymore, she was that far in.

           Well, I saw this in the blink of an eye. The next moment Colt happened to look over and see the exact same thing. Our dreadful mistake was meeting eyes.  

            We absolutely lost it. 

             We both hunched over and made the kinds of noises that one makes when either spewing out an undesirable drink or simply trying to suppress a laugh.

             We tried and lost. Miserably.

             So while Paul was being carried off stage because he just sustained a career-ending injury, Kristine and Al were laughing. Like I said, it was a choice. I never said it was a good one.

              The next moment we were all supposed to be looking towards the upstage right wing, where Paul had just left, frozen and sad. I couldn't even look there, since the audience would see my profile and the jig would be up; I had to turn my head completely upstage while I made tiny and not so tiny snorting noises and tried to quell the involuntary shaking of my shoulders.   

            Colt and I couldn't even touch or meet eyes for the next five minutes of the scene. If we did, we'd lose it all over again. The poor guy had lines coming up--sooner than my one line towards the end--and he, at least, needed to get control of himself.  

             I started thinking very hard about the saddest events I could conjure up--my parents' dying, my family's new puppy dying--As soon as I got sufficiently sad and thought I was okay, the image of Pat, wrist deep in her you-know-where, came back to mind and I started the horrible snorting sounds all over again. 

              At one point Colt even whispered, You. Have. To. Stop. 

              As if I didn't know that; as if all of my energy and might wasn't going towards that exact thing.  

              It was bad, very bad. Not my most professional moment, I should say. However, I will maintain that digging into one's crack on stage while showing this sympathetic look might not be the epitome of professionalism either. So for the record, it wasn't all me, is all I'm saying.