Haleakala and the Vienna Choir Boys-Part 2

With the Haleakala volcano pronunciation under our collective belts (Click here for Part 1), we abandoned the second show we'd had planned for the morning and immediately began dressing the set for Christmas. It was mid-July and 90 degrees outside. But thanks to tons of air conditioning (I still don't understand why industrial AC is measured in "tons") and great work by the set dresser and her crew, it was Christmas and 60 degrees in the studio.

By contract we only had five hours from the time the choir walked into the studio until they would have to walk out of the studio to get on their bus. The laws in California regarding children on a studio set were very strict. And, we'd been warned that even if they were in the middle of a song, the performance would stop and they would walk out!

We rehearsed and rehearsed...and rehearsed. As the assistant director, it was my job to keep track of the time boys had been on set. At two hours, I began to worry and share my worries with Dave, the director. To this day, I don't know why but he kept rehearsing and at nearly four hours he said, "Alright, let's go!" We had an hour to record George's introduction and three songs for our Christmas show. I was sweating bullets!

The show opened with George having a brief unscripted conversation with the director of the choir. "Unscripted" was never George's forte and after our morning volcano experience, the whole crew was on pins and needles. Suddenly there was a loud bang and glass came cascading down! One of the 1000 watt lights hanging in the studio had exploded. After a instant of stunned silence, the crew jumped into action. 

First, they determined none of the choir members and crew, including George, had been injured. While that was happening, the lighting crew moved their ladder into position and in a matter of seconds had the lamp replaced and the light focused correctly. The grip staff had the glass cleaned up and the stage cleared. It took less than 5 minutes…an astonishing bit of work on a very tight schedule.

With everyone again in their places and no more time for rehearsal, George introduced the choir director and welcomed the choir to It Is Written. The director graciously thanked him and then said, "Pastor Vandeman, in German, our choir is called Die Wiener Sängerknaben. Can you say that?" There were audible gasps and a couple of passionate groans in the production truck. "Haleakala" had cost us the morning and we were four hours and fifteen minutes into our allotted time with the choir and everyone stopped breathing.

George paused for a split second and then said, "Sure! Die Wiener Sängerknaben!" He nailed it with a grin on his face!

The production truck erupted in cheers, the boys sang like angels and they all walked out of the studio with five minutes to spare. 

Note: Thanks to the kind work of the current It Is Written staff, I was recently able to see the show, as they have it archived on their website. It turns out that for reasons I can't begin to remember, we decided not to use the Die Wiener Sängerknaben segment in the show. That's TV!