Curtain Call: 2007-2008 – Live the Adventure
By urbanhoustonian at January 27, 2010 | 12:24 PM | Print
The theme for Society for the Performing Arts 2007-2008 season was Live the Adventure. I want to say I was part of the discussion that came up with that tag line. My memories of this season are more anecdotal. The 2007-2008 Season started much like the previous season, with a legendary comedienne, Lily Tomlin. Please pause for a gratuitous celebrity photograph.
Yeah, that’s a shameful photograph, not going to deny it. This is also the only picture I have with an SPA artist. Like our evening with Carol Burnett, we had a post performance soiree on the Jones Hall stage. The highlight for me was having the opportunity to escort Ms. Tomlin across Texas Avenue to the Lancaster Hotel at the end of evening.
On of my personal highlights of this season was getting to watch Julio Bocca’s final dance performance in Houston with my mother. My parents became subscribers shortly after I started working at SPA. On the evening of Thursday, November 1, 2007, my father was out of town on business. My mother was going to exchange their tickets for another performance, but I urged her to attend this performance for the simple fact that it was one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that SPA presents from time to time.
The most enduring memory I’ll take from this season, if not my entire tenure at SPA, was the evening of Saturday, February 16, 2008 after the presentation of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. For this performance, I had the most enjoyable opportunity to work with the Kipp Shine Academy. They brought a group of 300 students to see the performance. In one of those great coincidences, a music teacher at Kipp had chosen to teach the children about the work of Joseph Shabalala, founder of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. She became incredibly excited when she discovered SPA would be presenting them that semester. After working out the details, she was able to raise enough money to bring the students to see this performance. Not only were the students learning about the music of Ladysmith, they started tracking the group as their tour brought them closer and closer to Houston.
On the evening of the performance, thunderstorms were rumbling around the Greater Houston area. This delayed the Kipp students’ departure from the school in Southwest Houston. As a group sales manager, there is nothing you fear more than a large group arriving at the hall late. Here we were 20 minutes before the start of the performance, and they still hadn’t shown up. However, when the bus finally arrived, with 15 minutes to spare, the students dutifully lined up, and marched their little selves into Jones Hall like a tiny army. Less than 10 minutes after entering the theater, all 300 of the little tykes were quietly seated, ready for the performance. I’ve never seen anything like it! But the biggest surprise of all came after the performance. We had arranged for Mr. Shabalala and the rest of the group to meet the students after the performance. When he came up to the second floor to meet them, they broke into a South African hymn. Parents, teachers and even members of the group broke into tears. I was right there with them, of course, and even get a little weepy as I type this. It was the most special moment of my time here at Society for the Performing Arts. It didn’t hurt that I was later invited back to the Kipp Academy to shine their Big Book of Shine, an honor bestowed upon adults who have helped the kids in some special way.
I’ll close with truly crazy backstage moment from this season. Murray Perahia, conductor of Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, was injured prior to his performance here in Houston. Fortunately for Houston audiences, we were able to bring in the founding conductor, Sir Neville Marriner. If the injury to Mr. Perahia wasn’t enough, Sir Neville impaled his left hand with his baton during rehearsals on the day of the performance. Yes, the baton went straight through his hand! With patent flair, Sir Neville refused to be taken to the hospital until after the rehearsal had ended. So you see, it is true what they say: The show must go on!
