Joy Comes in the Morning

 In March, 1982, First Baptist Church was going to put on a musical with drama called "Joy Comes in the Morning".  It was timed around Easter.  I worked with the drama portion, and our choirs did the music.  I also played the part of the disciple James.
 We wanted to do it in a venue that was bigger than our church's sanctuary, so we settled on  Township Auditorium, which had a seating capacity of around 3000.  It was the largest venue that I had ever worked in, so the drama had to be bigger than a normal theatre.  It was also the first time I had used a wireless microphone.  We were told that they would use the same frequency that truckers would use, and that there was a chance that a trucker's voice might bleed over our voices.  The chance of that happening was remote, since there was a distance factor.
 The auditorium's dressing rooms were pretty small.  The green room wasn't much bigger.  We had to improvise some with changing costumes.  Our entrance was in the back of the auditorium, and we entered through the audience.  I particularly liked that, because most of the Biblical monologues of mine involved the audience.
 We did it for two nights, and we had a great response both nights.  Sure enough though, we did have a trucker's voice come through on one of our wireless mics.  Thankfully, no profanity was involved.  The highlight of our show was that the author of the musical, David Danner, came to see it.  He said it was good.  So, we passed the harshest critic of all--the author.  As a writer, I know how important that is to please the author.  As an actor, I did okay.