The Western Medley

Above are the victims--er, the actors--involved with the Western Medley. This group put together and performed a series of eight old favorite western/cowboy songs: The Old Chisholm Trail, The Colorado Trail, Hooray for the Cowboys, Tumblin' Tumbleweeds, Cool Water, Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo, The Railroad Corral, and Ghost Riders in the Sky. The audience, as one, got a dreamy, faraway look on their faces as the melodic strains soothed the savage beasts within.

There was quite a collection cowpokes in this group. Here's Brad Holcomb. . .

. . .Dave Arns, David Grace, Jason Pacini, Steve Gottschalk. . .

. . .Dave Caikowsky (yes, the place was crawling with Daves). . .

. . .Kristen Rodgers, Lisa Wermuth. . .

. . .Maureen Pacini, Molly Oltrogge, Kelley Burke. . .

. . .Mena Bernhardt. . .

. . .Nancy Burke, and Peggy Hunter. Karen Sutula was also in the group, but was often found huddled behind the keyboard whose ivories she was tickling.

Shortly after starting the final song in the Medley, Ghost Riders in the Sky, Molly rudely interrupted the entire performance and demanded of the director (Nancy Burke) why we had sung only cowboy songs, and hadn't yet sung a country song.

Nancy cleared her throat in a slightly self-conscious manner, and sheepishly admitted that, well, we do have a country song we could do. Suddenly, with a sharpness that created small shock waves, her right hand snapped out to point to Steve Gottschalk (who had conveniently sauntered over to the drums), and she barked, "Hit it, Steve!" Immediately, the group was transformed from a soothing, Tumblin' Tumbleweeds collection of performers to a twangy, Achy Breaky Heart collection of performers. Dave Arns strolled to center stage with his guitar as the intro continued, and the audience's eyebrows pert-near crawled off the tops of their foreheads.

Because, you see, this motley group of Billy Ray wannabes were not content to do the song exactly the way Billy Ray used to do it--oh, no. Dave starts singing a "Weird Al" Yankovic version, flanked by his bevy-ette of lovelies (Nancy and Kelley Burke), singing backup. (We couldn't afford a full-sized bevy.) Meanwhile, the rest of the group fades back into country-line-dancin' machines, providing a backdrop in which the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective, and in which there were interesting rhythmic devices which seemed to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the humanity of the singer's compassionate soul, which contrived through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other, and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into. . . whatever it was the song was about.

Then, to add insult to injury, the joke team (Sheri Demaree, Kristen Babcock, Jared Higgins, Tamara Faour, Michael Macbeth, Daniel Rodgers, David Haise, Andrea Wermuth, Bill Rodgers, Lisa Evans, and Michelle Jones) appeared with a thunderous stomp-stomp-clap, stomp-stomp-clap, and started singing:

Cowboys, they are cool dudes, Always in a good mood, Ridin' wild horses out on the range. They got sweat on their face, A manly race, Herdin' them cows all over the place, Singin' "We will, we will rope you! We will, we will rope you!"

No sooner had the joke team been herded off the stage and out of the Larimer Corral by the Joke Police, than the chicken coop lights up with the cackling wisecracks of Nana Tonkin, Cindy Peak, Nancy Patton (not shown), and Darci Shaw (not shown).