clink clink, mister ambassador

As I clinked glasses with Clark Randt, the U.S. ambassador to China, on the second floor bar at the Shanghai Ritz, in a room overflowing with drunk actors, cigar-puffing producers, circulating journalists, plates of peculiar hors d’oeuvres, unlimited wine refills, and a sufficient amount of couture, and still sweating from the opening night performance I had just finished giving no less than thirty minutes prior, I thought to myself three things:

1. “Yes! Free wine!!”
2. “I really hope I’m not getting pit stains in my new Paul Smith shirt…”
3. “What am I doing clinking glasses with a U.S. ambassador at the Ritz?!”

I suppose I could have been tipped off as to the nature of our opening night after-party and who all would be there when, on page three of our beautiful 42nd Street souvenir program, one page before the cast list that mistakenly (though quite fittingly) misnames one of the characters as “Lomaine” (I can’t make this shit up!), one can find reproductions of four endorsing and welcoming letters written for our Chinese audiences: the first is from Clark D. Randt, the aforementioned ambassador, followed by one from Mayor Bloomberg, Congressman Dingell, and Senator Hillary Clinton. Yup. H.R.C. Furthermore, I had to wonder who would be sitting in our VIP seats, located about ten rows back and flaunting white seat covers (I call them the “white seats;” bizarrely placed in a sea of hundreds of “red seats.” Think about it).

Whatever the signs, they all pointed to a successful opening and, as far as we could tell, we are set for a good run here in China. Our 1,300-seat Majestic Theatre had been packed with a buzzing, international audience who laughed at all the right spots, were with us the entire way, from curtain to curtain, bestowing upon us that welcoming sound of honest ovation. As the final curtain came down and the cast backed up, waving goodnight to our first official, paying audience, I took note of the lively yet somewhat atypical energy for an opening night.

We cheered and smiled and hugged, shook hands and slapped butts (akin to football players after a good play, though with a lot more sequins and probably a lot more gays), and all seemed to breath a sigh of…well, relief. We had been here in China for about seven months….sorry, weeks (feels like months)…and were just now, after a few too many rehearsals, a few too many pro-rated paychecks, and a few too many days off, FINALLY opening the show. And so it begins. Now we perform. Now we tour. Finally.

They like us. They really like us.

As I double-time-stepped my way downstage at the front tip of what I refer to as the “flying triangle formation" (pictured above: photo by Chris Clay) getting closer and closer to the final few bars of tapping in the encore number, I had ‘the moment.’ At first I thought I heard merely the echo of twenty-six tappers bouncing off of the acoustically assembled auditorium, but as our mass of sweaty, glistening and gleaming dancers pushed its way to the front of the stage, I realized it was not the sound of our own tapping but rather the sound of applause and cheering that drove us into our final clicks and clanks of the evening. It was ‘the moment’ when I thought to myself; “this is cool…they like us!”

I wish I could say that wanting an audience to “like us” is not of utmost importance when putting on a show, but that would be a lie. In most cases, however, when you are proud of and recognize the quality of your work and product, it generally comes as no surprise whether an audience will enjoy the show or not. In this case, however, we had no friggin; clue! Anyone can enjoy a good tap number, but can they really grasp and appreciate in one sitting an entirely new art form, musical comedy, never before introduced into the Chinese culture? It was a concern and an anxiety all of us shared. I didn’t know if I could spend a year doing a show, no matter how fabulous or exciting, to vapid and unappreciative audiences.

And so I caught myself staring offstage in the beginning of Act II, fixated on the supertitles scrolling on the side of the proscenium, wondering exactly how the script translated into Mandarin and whether or not the audience was actually ‘getting it.’ Every once in a while, however, a joke would land and we would hear laughter (sometimes when we least expected it, but laughter is laughter), or a number would get applause before the final bump, and we would share a moment, on or offstage; a smile or simple glance that said in perhaps no words at all: “they’re getting it.”

So after we had finished the show, taken our bows, and persisted to dance our little hearts out in the dazzling costumes and striking formations of the Encore dance, I felt a shiver that I later discovered was shared by everyone on that stage. It went sweeping through the cast as we stood, winded but utterly wound up, poised in our final pose of the evening, listening to the crowd go crazy and watching the audience rise to their feet, thinking to ourselves; “we’ve got ourselves a show!”