One Crazy Weekend

Last year, I wrote Heartbreak and a Little Grace, a blog post about my experience with an extreme case of viral laryngitis. I was so ill I did not get to perform a role that I had been studying for over a year.

Last weekend, I repaid the universe by stepping into a role at the last minute. At least, I hope my debts are paid.

First, let me explain the forty-five minutes in which my life went from normal to insane.

On Thursday, my school was asked with less than four weeks' notice to sing at an event at the State Capitol. My student teacher took over the classes while I tried to assemble a group of singers, choose the appropriate music, contact the people involved, create a rehearsal schedule—you get the picture.

About halfway through that morning, I received an e-mail marked "URGENT!" I called the number in the message and found out that a local theater company was in need of a conductor to fill in that weekend after an emergency had taken the regular music director out of town.

I am also in the middle of rehearsals for my own production, scheduled at the end of October, and I just happened to be off that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

In the midst of rearranging my schedule and, at the same time, coordinating the Capitol performance, my boss said, "Do whatever is easiest for you. I don't want to stress you out with this last minute event."

"Well, let me tell you what has transpired in the last forty-five minutes!"

So I headed down to the theater that Thursday, right after a collaboration meeting, butterflies playing field hockey in my stomach. My husband, Dan, brought me food because I tend to turn into the Incredible Hulk when I don't eat.

The theater group had canceled the performance that night and had scheduled a rehearsal so that I could practice with the actors. I set to learning the score and about sixty sound cues in the course of three hours. One positive: The music director had the amazing presence of mind to leave me specific cue-by-cue notes for the entire show.

On Friday, I sat in the back of my room, conducting and running each sound cue while my student teacher taught my classes. (Thank goodness for student teachers.) By that evening, I was a bundle of nerves.

I was directing a score and working with a technology that the original conductor had rehearsed for several months. I had it in my hands for less than twenty-four hours.

"I'm going to ruin the show!" I cried to Dan.

He shrugged, "You probably won't."

Comforting.

You probably guessed the end of the story. I survived, and the show went on.

The sound cues were run off of an iPad, and no matter how many Mac enthusiasts stand by those "cutting edge" Apple products, technology is always fallible.

For instance, I must have been sweating during the matinee because the iPad wouldn't read my finger taps. By the second act, I figured out that it helped if I wiped my finger off on my dress before I touched the screen.

During one scene, I had an itchy trigger finger and hit a track accidentally while I was scrolling, causing random music to play mid-dialogue. I'm sure the people sitting behind me in the audience overheard a few curse words.

On closing night, the app froze right before one of the musical numbers, and the cast had to sing it a cappella. I turned off the mixer (so the audience wouldn't hear Siri say anything weird) and rebooted.

"This is why we do live theater," the stage manager said over the headset.

The app looked like it was working again, and I reported it back to stage manager and crew.

"We have our fingers crossed," was the response in my ear.

I caught the leading man's eye and gave him the "fingers-crossed" sign right before the next musical number.

"That’s just what an actor wants to see from the conductor before he starts singing!" he told me later, when we were removed enough from the situation to joke about it.

But the real story in all of this is the way the theater community bands together in the face of emergencies.

The director sat right beside me for moral support that first night. The stage manager constantly encouraged me over the headset. The cast and crew kept reminding me of how appreciative they were and never once dwelled on my "operator errors."

After closing night, when I told Software Engineer Dan about the iPad crash, he said, "Maybe I should have told you to reboot before every performance. That might have helped clean everything up."

"Well, that’s nice to know now," I said.

"You didn’t tell me that it had a history of crashing mid-performance. I would have told you to try that."

"Yes, I did," I said. "I told you they told me it crashed the weekend before, and then I said, 'What if it crashes again? My iPad crashes all the time.' And you said, 'Yup.'"

"Oh yeah. I remember that now."

Again, comforting.

In the end, I was happy to help out in such a difficult situation. Even though it was stressful, I was glad to be able to pay it forward.

Like I said, I hope my debts are paid now—knock on wood (we theater people are slightly superstitious)—and the laryngitis gods decide to pass me over the next time I perform.

Flowers from a very special cast

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(RE-POST from 9/8/12) I Don't Speak Teenager Anymore

Life got busy again! Go figure. Enjoy this re-post from 2012.

So there I was, sitting at a coffee shop, perusing the Internet and Facebook for humor blog material. I found that after two weeks back to school, I needed a little help in the funny department.

I quickly discovered current event humor was few and far between, mostly crazy political conventions and crazy education superintendents (Idahoans, you know what I'm talking about). And Kristen Stewart hasn't cheated on anyone since July. Of course, Clint Eastwood did a bit with an empty chair this week - funny in a senile way, but old news by now. And I've been meaning to blog on Chick-Fil-A for - like - two months, but that's kind of old news too. (Just a hint - not a fan of the franchise. Shakin' my fist, shakin' my fist.)

All of a sudden, I heard it reverberate from the table next to mine. I'm still not sure what it was, but it sounded a lot like, "Acck yack pedakt reafent ubbege?"

And the response was, "Acck yack fegakt pearickle cudgegge."

I surreptitiously turned my head to check out the source of this bizarre but seemingly human chatter, half expecting to see a Klingon seated behind me. I started to Google "Klingon Translator," but I soon ascertained that this strange talk was actually a language as foreign to me as any of the alien dialects on sci-fi movies - Teenager.

I don't know when I lost my ability to understand Teenager. It must be a gradual process. One day you wake up, and all of a sudden, Teenager sounds like, "Acck yack fegakt pearickle cudgegge."

I spent all summer working with teenagers, and many of my former students are now teenagers (and Facebook friends). When these teens speak directly to me, I can still understand them. In other words, our youth must be the more evolved segment of the human population - able to communicate fluently in both Adult and Teenager.

I completely missed the MTV Video Awards this year, although I am confused as to where people see music videos anymore. Must be that newfangled "YouTube" thingy or something. Just another clue I am no longer part of the youth demographic.

At some point, these teens at the table next to mine took a break from their native tongue and said something I could understand.

"I just don't know what he wants on that assignment!" one of them said. She had sparkly eyelids.

"I know, and I asked him when I needed it memorized, and he said, 'Yesterday,'" her friend said. She wore a ponytail on top of her head. They were wearing matching red shirts. "That doesn't tell me anything."

I smiled at the adult humor that was causing these teenagers such affliction.

I almost leaned over and said, "That's pure awesomeness."

But I didn't. Here is a little advice to my adult friends. Don't try to talk Teenager. You might think you still know the language. Trust me - you don't.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan

The Ghost in the Music Room

I have a ghost in my music room. I'm not kidding. I don't even believe in ghosts, and my school is only six years old. But there is seriously a ghost in my music room.

A couple of years ago, I was teaching preschoolers. Two other teachers were also in the room. My guitar sat on its stand near my far wall. No one was near it. We weren't bouncing around or doing anything that would have caused sympathetic vibrations. All of a sudden, the guitar played. It was as though someone strummed his/her fingers right over each string.

No joke.

I have credible adult witnesses.

Something played a glissando on one of my glockenspiels while I was alone after school one day. Again, all of the instruments were tucked away safely on the shelves. No one was even near them.

One spring afternoon, my third grade students were dancing "La Raspa," and the CD player started slowing down like a warped record on a turntable. (I'm sure some of you remember those old things.) The kids froze and stared at me. Normally, they would have giggled at the silly sounds coming from my stereo.

But my students take the ghost very seriously. In fact, after telling them the hilarious story about my guitar playing on its own, I realized, from their anxious expressions, I might be freaking my kids out. So I named the ghost "Fred."

That was until the opera singing incident.

"I swear I heard a woman's voice coming from your room at around ten o'clock," one of the night custodian's told me last year. "She was singing opera. She sounded just like you, but no one else was even here."

So it's unlikely that the ghost would be a "Fred," unless he's a countertenor.

Our current custodian told me she was cleaning near my room when she heard someone whisper her name and then break into laughter. Again, it was late evening, and no one else was in the building.

"I've been cleaning your room for a week, and I haven't heard anything," scoffed the other night custodian who was listening in on our conversation.

"Just wait," we said in unison.

This week, I've heard a knock on my exterior door twice while teaching class. Both times, the kids and I looked out the window, and no one was there. No wayward children were wandering around the courtyard either or running away guiltily after playing a little ding-dong ditch.

My husband, Dan, thinks that the music room might have an opening to a parallel world.

"Think about it," he said. "The woman is an opera singer who sounds just like you. She laughs, which you do a lot. She likes music and hangs out mostly in your room. The ghost could just be another you."

"Because that's so much more believable than a ghost," I said.

"It's quantum physics," he said. "You know, string theory?"

"You mean like Fringe?" I said. "Are you the Peter Bishop to my Olivia?"

"Do you want me to build you a window to the other universe?"

 

For more school ghost stories, check out "The Ghost in the Music Room: Part 2." 

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

End of the Summer Mountain Biking Fun

My husband, Dan, and I spent the last two weekends on our mountain bikes, saying our official goodbye to summer.

Two weekends ago, we biked in Sun Valley.

When we returned from our ride, a trio of frat-boy-types called to me from the hotel balcony, "We have bean dip and beer if you want a post-ride snack!"

"We just ate granola bars," I yelled back, pleased that they saw me as a real mountain biker.

"That sounds boring!"

Then Dan got out of the car, and the guys hurried inside.

"They were flirting with you," Dan said.

"No, boys don't flirt with me. I'm too awkward and sweaty."

"I just think it's funny that they ran off as soon as they saw me."

Last weekend, we biked in McCall.

At one point, Dan and I passed a woman with two young girls parked on the side of one of the trails. We were headed downhill, and we slowed down out of courtesy to the young bikers (who looked less enthused about going up the hill than their adult companion).

"Oh, come on! Go faster!" the woman said. "We want to see some skiddy-skids."

"No thanks," I said, not sure what "skiddy-skids" were in the first place. Then I added, "Weirdo," once I was out of earshot.

A split-second later, I was glad I was out of earshot because that was mean. She was probably just trying to entertain the exhausted girls who didn't look like they cared one way or the other if Dan and I "skiddy-skidded."

On another trail, I zipped past two walkers who warned me about a big rock ahead of me, and I was like, "I got this." I was really enjoying this people-think-I'm-a-real-mountain-biker status.

By the end of my ride, I was so sweaty from wearing my rain jacket, I looked like I had been in a wet t-shirt contest. I changed into a clean sweatshirt, only to then look like I was lactating from my sports bra.

"It's like Pat's garbage bag in Silver Linings Playbook," Dan said. "You just sweated off a thousand calories."

By the end of our trip, I was on endorphin overload. Two lattes, a couple of puffs of albuterol, and seventeen miles of mountain biking will do that to you.

More mountain biking fun:
The Mountain Biking (Almost) Disaster
Adventures in Mountain Biking

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.