The Minnesota Musical Show

By Dr. Robert E. Plucker

 

Classroom teachers have to be truly outstanding in either a positive or negative way to attract much public attention, but those teachers whose work is on prominent display may become well-known in a relatively short time.  Athletic coaches probably get the most attention, followed by the music, art, shop, and speech teachers.  I had taught junior high school music in Winona, Minnesota for several years and had been the choir director at one of the city's larger churches.  I had also sung in the Winona Civic Chorus, and people began to know who I was.  Nevertheless, I was surprised to receive a phone call from a local lady "organizer" one day.      

Minnesota was celebrating its one hundredth year of statehood that year, and one of the local events was the presentation of a new musical show depicting the state's history.  So this "organizer" lady called and went into rhapsodies about what a wonderful show this would be, and how local citizens were practically clamoring to work on the show, on stage or off.  She emphasized over and over again the generosity of all these people who were volunteering their time to work on the show, all the donated help they were getting from various people and businesses.  This entire pitch was to get me softened up to recruit and rehearse a chorus, plus work with the soloists for the show.

I had seen a bit of the music score, and a bit of the spoken dialogue and I was not particularly impressed.  It was obvious that it was nowhere near the show that "Oklahoma" was.  But the enthusiasm of this lady, and her continued repetitions that all of this was to be done by unpaid volunteer workers began to pay off for her.  I knew she was unaware of the difficulties and time it would take to recruit, train, and rehearse a balanced and disciplined group of men and women so that they would not sound as if they were just a collection of passers-by on the street.  Still, if all these others were willing to do all this work, I supposed that I should too, and was on the point of agreeing to at least try to get the job done.  It was only much later that I began to wonder why me?  There were seven music teachers in the public school system alone, and I was the newest guy on the block.  How many of them had already refused the job?

She went on to explain that the head of the Winona State Teachers College music department was going to lead the orchestra, and presumably conduct the musical parts of the show.  "Of course," said she brightly, "we will pay the musicians."   I was shocked.  "Wait," said I, "am I not a musician?"  But she must not have heard me, I guess, and went on happily chattering about all the wonderful unpaid work people were doing.

Here I was, a choral director with several years of experience in church choir work, director of the choir of one of be biggest churches in town, at least four years of experience in public school music, and with a newly awarded Master of Arts in music literature from the University of Minnesota.  This woman did not consider me to be a musician.  I felt insulted and refused to have anything further to do with the project, even though the current Miss Minnesota was to be the leading lady in the show.