Back in June I was in a production of Shrek the Musical. YES SERIOUSLY. It's an actual musical that was on Broadway in 2009. Look it up if you don't believe me. It was even filmed and put on Netflix, so you can watch it if you have any interest whatsoever. It's actually not as terrible as you may think. Anyway, we had rehearsed for several months, survived tech week (or hell week as many theatre kids call it) and had sang and danced and harmonized our butts off. But nothing in the world could have ever prepared me for THE DULOC INCIDENT. (It actually wasn't that bad. I just like being dramatic and ominous.)

So in Shrek I played multiple roles, and one of them was a Duloc Dancer. The song was called "What's Up, Duloc?" Basically we were all in the exact same outfit (similar to the one in the picture) and the entire song is us bowing down to Lord Farquaad and singing about how great he is. I AM MAKING NONE OF THIS UP. Anyway, I was in the second scene, and Duloc was the 4th or 5th. We had about 10 minutes to change, but our costumes had so many different pieces that it usually took us the entire ten minutes. So as soon as that scene was over I had to run offstage, strip off my entire outfit (I know that sound weird but I'm in theatre so it's less weird) and put on a brand new shirt and skirt, tights, an apron, shoe coverings, kneepads (because if we didn't have them we would die and our knees would break) and a wig. Then as soon as we were dressed we had to sprint to places as the music was starting. For some reason my director put me in the hardest dance in the show, which was probably not the best decision because I have the dance talent equivalent to that of a bent paperclip. But I didn't complain and I learned the dance (even though it took me up until the show opened) and did it every night without complaints.

Apparently one of the nights I was in a rush to get dressed so my wig was not pinned on well enough. I went out onstage and was almost through the entire dance when we got to the point where we had to flick all our heads back. That was when my wig and my wig cap went flying backwards. Let me tell you, there are a million places in the show where something could have gone wrong and no one would have noticed. That was not one of them. So I'm standing there with no wig, no wig cap, everyone in the audience is cracking up, and everyone onstage can barely make it through the rest of the dance because we are dying of laughter. Suddenly our Lord Farquaad (his name is Chris and I am convinced he is the funniest human on the planet) stares me down and grabs my wig, crushing it in his giant male hand, and finishes the song with a REALLY angry look on his face. For the record, he was not really angry at me, he was just acting, and he played it off perfectly. Everyone else onstage just looks at me, and my face has probably turned the color of a firetruck. We finish the song, Chris throws the wig at me, and I do the rest of the scene with the wig awkwardly placed atop my head. It was definitely a performance I will never live down.

So that was the story of The Duloc Incident. Thankfully, it never happened to me or anyone else during the run of the show. Let this be a lesson to all of you to always make sure your wig is pinned on well enough before you go onstage.

-Sophie