This Show-must-go-on Story Blew Me Away

We’ve all heard the expression, “The show must go on.”
 

Here’s a “show must go on” story that blew me away.

It was a Thursday afternoon last month in St. Louis, MO, USA. 

Three days earlier, record-breaking rainfall – 9+ inches in less than 10 hours – flooded the town (I told that story here). 

Another storm rolled in around 3 p.m. Thursday. And that one dropped more than 4+ inches in one hour.

That… is… not… a… typo. 4+ inches in one hour. 

I live just around the corner from Forest Park, a 1,326-acre urban oasis that is the home of the St. Louis Zoo, Art Museum, History Museum, Science Center, and…

…The Muny – a century-old, 11,000-seat amphitheater. 

The curtain was scheduled to rise at 8:15 for The Muny’s performance of Legally Blonde.  

But by 4 p.m., after all that rain, the orchestra pit was a swimming pool. 

I heard this story last night from a Muny employee named Jenni as she led Melissa and me on a backstage tour. 

We stood at the front of the stage above the orchestra pit, and Jenni told us what happened. 

When the rain eased, it was an all-hands-on-deck moment at The Muny. Employees hopped into the pit, waded through the knee-deep water, and “fished instruments” out. 

At that point, everyone assumed the show would be canceled. 

But they kept at it.

Employees collected and dried all the instruments they could salvage. 

The stage crew set up an orchestra space in a backlot building behind the stage. 

And – somehow – the sound engineers mic’d up that room to pipe the music through the theater’s speakers. 

The curtain rose at 8:40 p.m. that night. A few minutes later than scheduled, but no one minded the delay.

The show went on. 

This is one of those stories that speaks for itself. 

You don’t need my help to find some meaning, to unpack the lessons, or to draw some inspiration. 

So I’ll leave it at that and get on with the show…