We went to see Andy Gullahorn at LMFA a few Saturday nights ago with some friends, and had a wonderful time. He was a very funny performer, particularly singing Teenagers and when he led us in the anti-sing-a-long sing-a-long song 'Shutup'.

Mr. Gullahorn liked to tell stories, and it felt like the story for each song tended to be longer, sometimes by a factor of 2, than the songs themselves which led him into a bit of an issue when he decided to sing Not Bad Enough. The story he led into the song with was particularly longish, with tangents and asides, so when he got to the performance itself he'd already made quite an investment of his time and ours. However as this is one of his older songs which he apparently doesn't sing as often anymore, in the process of telling his story he'd forgotten how it started.

He tried several tricks to remember, starting and stopping a number of times, stepping back from the mic, turning away from the audience, but he just could not remember the opening words and chords of the first verse. Finally, in desperation, he picked up his iPhone, opened up the Apple Music store, looked up the song, and played the first 20 seconds or so until it sparked his memory enough to set the phone down and begin playing the song for us live.

I can only commend him on his determination, and can't help but think how mortified I would've been in the same circumstances.

It reminded me of the previous Saturday when we went to see the Shreveport Opera performance of Man of La Mancha (which took me completely by surprise, but I'll talk about that in another post). Within the first few minutes of the beginning of the musical a performer's mic started going bonkers, as though it had come loose or were positioned wrong and was rubbing against costume or hair. It was deeply distracting and would've easily ruined the show.

As my discouragement grew, out of the corner of my eye I saw Steve Aiken, the SO General & Artistic Director, hobbling forward down the stage-right aisle. He'd had bunion surgery earlier in the week and had a post surgical boot on his right foot, so while he was trying to move both quickly and quietly, he was accomplishing neither.

As the actors tried valiantly to work through the misbehaving mic, Mr. Aiken made his way slowly up the stage stairs then out onto the middle of the stage itself, waving his hands, shouting "Stop! Stop!"

It was exactly like something out of a movie or sitcom, and I couldn't help but chuckle to see it happening in real life.

He apologized and explained as it was so early in the performance he believed it would be better for everyone involved if they located and fixed the errant mic and just started all over. He was right, and I'm so very glad he did it, but that is probably going to be the moment I most remember about the performance.

That memory led me even further back to a performance of "Spreading it Around" in Jefferson by The Opera House Theatre Players a couple years ago. The play itself was funny enough, and while the scenery and props were a bit of a mess, it was the actors who took the cake.

The lead actress was first on stage and she carried a handful of index cards with her. It took a few minutes for us to figure out it was the script and she was reading her lines from the cards. Next came the lead actor, who was not carrying a copy of the script with him. We knew this for sure as about four or five lines in he suddenly stopped cold, got a troubled look on his face, then called out "Line!", at which point the director, with a loud whisper from the balcony above us, fed him his next line. This went on regularly for the whole of the play, and was an aide the other male actor also took advantage of.

One might think I'm wallowing in schadenfreude and snark, but that's actually quite far from my point. In all of these cases the thing I remember most is actually the courage.

Performing in public is itself an act of bravery, but to be willing to acknowledge and work through mistakes and shortcomings up there on stage in full view of the audience takes a true measure of trust and courage.

As someone who struggles with social anxiety and can be paralyzed by the thought of being seen failing in front of other people, the way these individuals pursued their performances in the face of adversity, regardless of embarrassment, while, yes, entertaining on some level at a cost to their egos, is mostly remembered as encouragement to act in the face of difficulty, risk, or possibility of being mocked.