Show must go on

By JON MARK BEILUE

The first reaction from Kelly McElwain and other parents
after seeing the extensive vandalism was …

“Heartsick,” she said. “Just shock and a sick feeling
inside.”

There was no way – to dust off a cliche – that this show would
go on. That was the initial feeling that she, Pampa High School
choir director Fred Mays and anyone else had who saw the
destruction of their musical sets in a few hours on Nov. 7.

“I didn’t think there was any way,” said Mays. “It had taken us
six weeks for those sets to get to this point.”

“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” was scheduled for three
performances beginning today at MK Brown Civic Auditorium in Pampa.
The only dates available.

But after heartsick and then anger, determination set in.
Somehow, they were going to see this through. Determination, with a
large dose of community togetherness, can be a pretty powerful
thing.

“They’re not going to take it away from us,” McElwain said.
“That was a quote that kept driving us. We’re not going to let them
win.”

Four middle-school-age youth had been arrested Nov. 7. An entire
two-story stage set, along with props and costumes, were virtually
ruined sometime that previous night after vandals had broken into
the gym inside the old Baker Elementary School, which was used for
storage for the choir program.

They destroyed sets by putting hammers through them. Canvas
flats were ripped apart, paint was thrown on costumes, obscenities
were spray-painted elsewhere. It was calculated that between 200 to
300 hours of work, which was mainly by parents of cast members on
those sets, were undone in the matter of an hour or so.

“If this was going to happen,” Mays said, “it was going to be
starting from scratch, if you will.”