RATS: The Musical

No, it's not a Tony Winner.

But you bet your ass, we're proud of it.


SATURDAY UPDATE:

Okay, so I woke up on Saturday morning only to find that my already screwed up voice was completely gone.

Yeah, that's right. I'm in a musical, and I've lost my voice.

So, no problem. I'll spend all day finding the thing. It's probably right where I left my keys, which I can't find either. I decided to start by breathing steam. This works pretty well. I grab a big towel, and turn on the hot water in my bathroom sink. After it gets piping hot, I cover my head and the sink with the towel, and begin breathing deeply.

I got a great facial, but no voice.

I gargle. I've been a believer in gargling salt water for years, and I've used it before...but this time it didn't do much at all. I switch to a nebulizer. My kids developed a little congestion thing a few months back and we still have the unit. So I add some saline solution, a little lemon zest, and some mint oil. Two hours, and like 4 treatments later, I've developed the ability to make a sound that scares my wife enough to make her want to run. Seriously, she was getting a "fight or flight" reflex from the sound. I'm not kidding.

Okay, so now I'm already dosed up on my Flonase, some Sudafed from my doctor, and I have already been on a weeklong antibiotic treatment -- with no results. My good buddy Ken Murkot, who would know more about this than most since he's a registered nurse, who everyone knows has a drug and treatment database in his head, tells me I should consider gargling with an acid solution. He suggests vinegar, diluted to equal parts water, and it makes sense. I mean, the acid is only like 5% but it can help to remove the nasty stuff on my tonsils.

The only problem? There are two things guaranteed to make me vomit on contact. One is Tim McGraw, the other vinegar. I have no idea why, but the smell of the stuff just kills me. Most salad dressings make me wanna hurl!

But I know this is a good idea, and I love my friends in the show. I can't let them down. My adoring wife, now relaxed enough from the sonic assault to assist me, informs me of the location of this god-awful liquid, and suggests I take it into the bathroom with me.

This was a good idea because I ended up reacting to the vinegar exactly like I expected. Hell, the volcanic eruption of my lunch was only made worse by making me spill the entire glass of vinegar on my chest. To add insult to severe injury, this unholy cycle of terror unleashed within the small confines of my downstairs bathroom didn't even make things remotely better.

So I arrive at the theater and scare everyone. In hindsight, it probably would have been a good idea to get an understudy. I mean, my character is one of the reasons we decided to do a musical in the first place -- he does a significant amount of the real singing. I could tell I sucked the energy out of everyone in the cast when I told them I couldn't sing. Since they knew I was the only person who could play the part, they also knew it was a guaranteed disaster if I went on. But, it's not like we could cancel the show. We're not Broadway ya know, or even off Broadway. Hell, we're barely even "wrong side of the tracks" material. This really sucked after the great opening night we'd had too. I felt terrible.

Then it hit me.


I sounded a lot like a weird combination of Oscar the Grouch, and Harvey Fierstein. When I really amplified the "Jersey Drag Queen" sound, I could even sing! Oddly enough, I had most of my vocal range when I spoke like this and I tried singing backstage before the show. It worked pretty well. So I decided to try it for the night, and halfway through the show everyone thought it made "Dirty Dan" an even funnier character.

I went home feeling like a million bucks. I was so worried that I was gonna screw everything up. So, I'm gonna spend this week nursing this throat of mine into shape. I hope to have my singing voice back by Friday, but I'm still probably gonna combine it with the cartoony Harvey/Oscar combo anyway. It really worked.

Of course, Monday morning I'm gonna demand an antibiotic strong enough to kill an elephant! I hate the things, but I have to get better. We're gonna record the show next weekend, and I don't wanna sound like I'd been chewing glass the night before.

PS: I still can't use my bathroom. It's like post traumatic stress or something.