March 3, 2008 — There's a lot of truth in that old saw "the show must go on." When the power went out across St. Croix Saturday night and the theater went dark, the cast of Caribbean Community Theater was just 10 minutes into the musical "Chicago."
"We were in the first scene when Amos Hart is there with the police officer getting ready to take the blame for murdering Roxie's suitor," Lionel Downer said Monday.
Downer played Amos Hart, with Natalie Hollins In the role of Roxie Hart.
Hollins kept singing "My Hubby of Mine" as she moved into the light of the emergency-exit sign. Downer and another cast member followed as the pianist, Charlie Lindbergh, kept playing in the dark.
"We finished the song and the scene," Downer said.
The stage manager came out to announce that Lindbergh would keep playing. He started with a Gershwin medley before segueing into songs from "West Side Story," Bob Marley tunes and others.
Mary Ann Mahoney had dropped her daughter off, but came back when she heard the power went off.
"The whole cast came back on stage and started singing songs," she said, including Marley's "Three Little Birds."
"They were singing, 'Don't worry about a thing,'" Mahoney said. The cast and the audience handled the outage well, she said.
"They were able to keep it together," she said.
The power came back on about an hour later, Downer said. The cast started "Chicago" over from the beginning.
The outage points up the need for a generator at Caribbean Community Theater's Orange Grove facility, Downer said. He expressed hope that someone will donate a generator or funds toward one.
The outage occurred when two surges coincidentally occurred at the same time, said Cassandra Dunn, V.I. Water and Power Authority spokeswoman. This caused the power plant to shut down to protect the system.
"In most areas, power was out 30 to 35 minutes," she said.
Back Talk Share your reaction to this news with other Source readers. Please include headline, your name and city and state/country or island where you reside.