Rushing to Judgement

Everyone thinks the life of a theater critic is mostly a bowl of cherries. Generally, it is; but here are two examples (excerpts from my personal journal) where I had to go above and beyond to make sure to get to the theater on time. At the time of these incidents, I was working for "The Phoenix Gazette" afternoon newspaper, which has since been closed. 

25 November 1991 – Monday

Just talked with press woman at Phoenix Little Theatre. We talked about how I arrived nearly late [for “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill”]. She told me that the stage manager contacted her at about 7:58 p.m. telling her "We're ready to go," and that she replied "Christopher McPherson's not here yet! We can't start until he gets here! Something's happened to him! He's not here yet!" In telling me this, she then laughed and said, "What other critic has had the curtain held for him?" Also, she told me that on Friday, when my review of the show came out, "the phones rang off the hook like ape-shit. People say no one reads the Gazette, and then something like this happens. I don't know."

And again, eight months later.

29 July 1992 – Wednesday

Yesterday, I got a flat tire en route to the theater (it was a nail) which is normally not a bad thing; however, as I was attempting to change the tire, and the winds and rain of our usual freak summer storms began, I got to the part when you take the lug nuts off the tire and, guess what?!, NO LUG NUT WRENCH! So, I called the auto service which sent this very nice man who changed the tire for me (the rain was coming down in buckets, by the way) and I zoomed downtown, parked just down the street from the theater, grabbed my folder, vaulted the oleander hedge on the side of the lot, raced to the theater, zipped up to the box office, grabbed my ticket -- and got there JUST before the show, Donna McKechnie in “I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road,” started. (I had called the theater to tell them I might be late. I suspect they held the curtain for me. I don't know, but it has happened before.…)

In the nearly ten years I reviewed theater in Phoenix, these are the only two examples where I was almost late.