Movin’ On Up!
The Source
Movin’ On Up! It’s hard to watch a happy musical like Hello Dolly or Shrek while the person next to you is wondering when you’re going to die. I’ve seen the same thing happen at Cardinal and St. Louis Rams games. It’s the whole idea of season tickets that makes many of us nervous. It’s simple: I hold season tickets to the Sangamon Auditorium series in Springfield. I buy the same tickets for every show that comes through town and I get the same seats. Through the process of waiting and finagling over the years I’ve managed to work my way up to the front row. These are the sorts of seats that people put in their wills for the next generation at Busch Stadium. I don’t buy Cardinal tickets. I use other people’s Cardinal tickets. It’s cheaper. But at Sangamon Auditorium I pay my own way and try to take a couple of my theatre students to each musical, play, or concert that lands in town. I began in row four perhaps a dozen years ago, eventually moved to row three, and somehow jumped two rows six season ago, and now we sit right down front where in shows with really good diction we can see the spittle fly from the leading lady. Okay, there’s not a great benefit in watching saliva stream through the air but it gives me a chance to whisper to my kids about having great diction. You can’t have great diction without spitting. Those of us down in the favored section have grown to know each other well enough to avoid wearing the same thing to every performance. I don’t know how many seats are in the front row, the chart on Sangamon’s website being too small to read, but I guess perhaps 25-30. I own seats 5, 6, and 7, which puts us four seats from the end of the row with maybe seven more seats between us and center stage. I’ll be honest: I want those seats. The very center of the front row is always occupied by “The Woo-Hoo Man.” I know that his first name is Rawlie, and that he carries a mysterious paper sack into each performance. Rawlie is an aging hippy, complete with beads, long hair, and granny glasses. I don’t know what he has in his paper sack, but I once saw him take out a newspaper so I guess he just needs something to read. Rawlie is a fixture at most plays in the Springfield area and they call him the “Woo-Hoo Man,” because in addition to clapping loudly for each number, he shouts, “Woo-Hoo!” Two years ago his house trailer burned to the ground and the local actors took up a collection to find Rawlie some new housing. Actors like woo-hoo’s. Rawlie will sit there and mouth the words of every song for every show. I like Rawlie. Everytime he sees me, he says, “I sure like your shows, Ray.” Ray? Oh well. Rawlie looks healthy enough (depending upon what else he has in his paper bag) so there’s not much chance of any of us getting his seat, but here’s where the guessing game begins. I sit on the right side of the row and everyone to my right seems older than me, and those to my left tend to be younger. This is not the ideal situation. If someone is to pass on to that great curtain call in the sky I’d dearly like their seats, but those nearest the eternal stage exit are in the wrong direction. This is what causes those on down the line to eye me carefully when I walk past them to take my seat. If I limp they seem to get excited. “Look at that, Martha. He’s slowing down. Next year we’ll get seats 5, 6, and 7.” Maybe I’m imagining this, but whenever I happen to cough during a song I can feel their collective eyebrows rise in hope of my collapsing soon. Maybe I’m paranoid, but maybe I’m right. I used to travel to St. Louis back when the Cardinals were also a football team. My buddy Shad would have season tickets to all the home games and whenever the weather got too cold his wife Maxine would choose to stay home. That’s when Shad would give me a call and we’d plop ourselves down into some great end zone seats. Lots of folks prefer the end zone in football games because you’re right there within touching distance when the players come onto the field and you can watch the plays open up from that angle. It seems like the Football Cardinals were forever playing Dallas on the days I attended. Maybe the Cowboys bring on bad weather. But Shad told me that the same thing happened among spectators at professional sporting events. You had a season ticket and you only moved up a row if someone died. He said, “You show up for the first game of the season and someone mentions that so-and-so passed away.” Then Shad added, “We acted sad and I guess we were, but we also knew we’d be moving one seat closer to the field.” If you attend a show at Sangamon this season I’ll be in the on the front row, desperately sucking on a cough drop.