The one you've all been waiting for...

Sam the Ham. Sam is one of the sweetest, most distracted and narcoleptic little boys I've ever met in my life. Exhibit A- Intermission during our opening night show:To attempt to describe what it was like to work with him or to watch him on stage is impossible. He's HILARIOUS. He wanted to be the lion so bad and nailed his audition for it. But it was very clear that to have him do that big of a part was going to be entertaining at the very least. Half the time he has a very lethargic, dry personality and doesn't say too much. He would walk off stage during rehearsals, never considering that in 3 minutes he was going to have to enter again, and curl up on a table under the piano cover and fall dead asleep in that 3 minutes. It was impressive. I remember during one rehearsal, early on before we had Toto, we're going and going and they're doing so well and I'm thinking, "Wow...they're really in character. They're really feeling it." And Sam stops and raises his hand. "Um...Miss Jen...after the show is over, can I pet the puppy?" What? I said, "Sam, you're going to be on stage with the dog during the entire show." He responded, "Yeah. I know, but when the show is over can I pet it?" And that was just Sam. The other half of the time he was wildly energetic and completely animated and on point.

Oh, and his lion butt was huge. I mean huge on his little self. I will never forget the first rehearsal he had his costume on and for his first entrance he's was supposed to hide behind a bush and jump off one of the upstage platforms. One of the girls said his cue line and he didn't jump out. So she said his cue line again. I knew he was behind the platform somewhere, but he still didn't jump out. I said, "Sam? Are you going to come onstage?" And I heard his cute little voice say, "I can't get my leg up onto the platform. My butt's too big."
The audience loved Sam and Sam loved the audience. I never had any idea what he was going to do when he was on stage but I knew whatever it was, the audience was going to get a kick out of it. No matter how many times I said, "Sam, do not stop in the middle of the show and wave to the audience," he'd do it. And that was eventually okay with me. He started this thing where the first time he goes to see the Wizard and the Wizard tells him to step forward he'd step up and scream like a girl. I have no idea where it came from or what gave him the thought to do it, but I think it got more laughs than anything else in the show.

And quite possibly my favorite story, which I didn't even know about until days after the show is this...

Our yellow brick road was a ramp that came out from the stage and went into the audience. One night during the performance, I remember hearing the four main characters head out on it singing, "We're Off to See the Wizard," then I heard some kind of noise, Sam yelled something, and the audience cracked up. We had already blacked out and I had no idea what had happened or what Sam said, and no one else back stage seemed to have heard him either. So, I just went on about what we were doing and didn't think anything else of it. A few days later, I found out that the Tinman had tripped on the yellow brick road, fallen forward and landed on the Scarecrow and Dorothy, creating a nice little pile that Sam then tripped and fell into. So, we had a little Wizard of Oz wipeout right there on the yellow brick road. What I didn't know is that Sam's parents had apparently gotten on him a little bit about being too silly during the show and told him to reel it in a bit. I guess because of that he was a little nervous when all four of them piled on top of each other on the yellow brick road because he yelled, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" at the other three and stomped off.

i love that kid.