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Writer's pictureBroadway Beat

Help! I Don’t Really Wanna Give This Show a Standing Ovation, But My Butt Hurts

by Zach Raffio. @zachraffio.

Somebody, please help me! The two hour and 45 minute musical I just endured has finally come to a close, and everyone around me is rising to their feet to shower it with a standing ovation. I didn’t like the show at all, but my god, my butt hurts so, so bad. What do I do?!


The show - which featured one really fun number early in the first act and then nine straight ballads - already started late as it was, with one actor unable to find the tails for their tuxedo costume (all the costumes were plain black tuxedos). But now this Lord of the Rings-length festival is over, and everyone around me loved it. Am I to play fraud and join them?


If I stand, I’m going against my own morals; but if I sit, I think my butt may actually snap off. This isn’t a joke: I feel a second crack forming.


Oh no, they’re long bows too. Every single ensemble member (again, in just normal-ass black tuxes) are getting individual bows. These people are slapping their hands together like they just watched “It's All Over”/“And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going” for the first time, rather than almost three hours of songs like “Cutie Missus” and “A Dove is Just a Wish with Wings”.


I feel every tendon in my leg stretching like cords of earth’s oldest elevator. If I don’t stand, I may never again, but if I do, I’m just endorsing 20-minute dream ballets. I will not stand for something like that… or will I?!


Finally, bows are winding down. I may just be able to- wait, what’s this? Everyone’s laughing? Did somebody do something funny during the bows? I couldn’t see because everyone in front of me was standing. This isn’t fair. I just sat through four reprises of a song titled “Walk With Me Slower Than Grass Grows” - I deserve to laugh at a cute bow gag!


The time has come: the theater is emptying, and I can finally rise. Everything cracks, even parts of the body that aren’t supposed to, and some that physically can’t. I sound like the fall’s crunchiest leaf, and I am free.


I move outside to fulfill my tradition of stagedooring the show. Surely, after a two-show day, these actors want to take off their absolutely identical, no-detail black tuxedos and leave as soon as possible, and- WAIT, ARE YOU KIDDING? Security says it’s gonna be 40 minutes til they’re out. Oh my god.


I can’t believe I’m saying this but… does anyone have a chair I can borrow?

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