New York City is in the grip of a terrible snowstorm. The conductor of the pit orchestra at the hit Broadway show is stuck somewhere up in Westchester; no way is he gonna make it in time for the performance. The stage manager and the producer confer, shake their heads sorrowfully, and prepare to tell the cast, the crew, the musicians in the pit, that the show is cancelled for that night.
Suddenly, the second-chair violist appears at their elbow, tears in her eyes. “Please, please,” she says, “All my life I’ve wanted to be a conductor. I’ve studied hard, I’ve practiced in front of the mirror. I only became a violist to support my poor widowed mother. Please, please, let me have this one chance to be a conductor; the show will go on, and my lifetime dream will be realized.”
Moved by this plea, the producer allows the violist to take command of the orchestra, and happily announces that the show will go on. The violist stands nervously before the musicians, and leads them smoothly into the Overture.
The evening goes BEAUTIFULLY! It’s the best performance of the show aince the opening, and the little violist conducts her HEART out. At the curtain, the entire cast rises with the audience to give her a standing ovation!
Emotionally and physically drained, the violist drags herself home to her little garret, and sleep for a full sixteen hours.
The next night, the snows have ended, the roads are plowed, the city is back to normal. The violist arrives for her evening’s work, and resumes her chair in the orchestra pit.
The first-chair violist turns to her with a sneer on his face, saying “So where the fuck were YOU last night?”
Uke