Cheap Tix, Popery, Circumcision

Wow, this is interesting: our Thursday show isn't selling well, so the Artistic Director, Brian Katz, is offering $10.00 tickets on Brown Paper Tickets. And, strange coincidence, Bluegrass legend Peter Rowan will be coming to the show on Thursday night. So we really really need to sell tickets. The audience feedback with a full house is amazing; it is equally dismal when there are very few people in attendance, as it's quite a small theatre and people are uncomfortable laughing or enjoying when they feel so exposed.

I'll be posting on Facebook that he is coming to the show; I wonder if this will in any way influence ticket sales? I know of at least one person who is already coming to the show because of the cheap tickets.

Here's what I tried to post as a Status Update on Facebook; I had to shorten it, perhaps that's best:

"$10.00 tickets to Cotton Patch Gospel this Thursday, and Bluegrass legend Peter Rowan will be coming to the show! This is astounding; for Musical Theatre people, this is akin to having Sondheim show up to watch your rinky-dink community theatre production. For those of you who cannot sing, it's like having the Pope at your kid's Bris. Er -- wait, no, what would the Pope be doing at a Bris? Other than watching with an alarming level of interest, perhaps offering to help ..."

Which makes me wonder about the Pontifical Foreskin: is it intact? Is it required that the Pontiff be uncut? Or is he required to be shorn in case God requires that all who honor the Covenant be so marked? Perhaps there's a special secret ceremony where uncut Popes are snipped. Do they tell them ahead of time? Or is it sprung on them when they least expect to be circumcised? Perhaps the Pope is offered a delicious caramel sundae, and then BOING here's the Moyle, time to snip! I wonder who the Rabbi is that they ferret into the Vatican ... or do they use a new one every time, knowing that if the last guy ever tells anyone, nobody will believe him.

Seems like maybe this was the subplot missing from the Cohen Brothers' latest: A Serious Man. Which, by the way, was sneak-up-on-you funny. Stupid people probably won't enjoy it, so if you're stupid, you should probably stay home and count your Bush/Cheney memorabilia. Those nasty Dems might be sneaking in to public healthcare you in your sleep, then steal your valuable keepsakes of what was, perhaps, the single greatest presidential administration in the history of the world.

I would be delighted if the Pope came to see the show. I am not a Catholic, I'm interested in ticket sales. But it would also be amusing because the theatre is in an Episcopal church. So that would be very interesting, as theatrical situations go. But I'm more excited about Peter Rowan being there.

© 2009, Edward Hightower. All Rights Reserved.