Any port in a storm

She had been drinking. She came to the phone.
'We should put forward another Pratchett', she said. 'Men At Arms? No, too many boys parts. Guards Guards? Same.'
'How about The Truth?' I said.
'No, I don't really like that one', she said
There was a pause
'Mort,' she said. 'We'll do Mort. I'll direct it and you'll help me.'
Thus, at 1am the night before our AGM, decisions are made.
If you have visited www.cast-online.org.uk then you will know that we do a summer musical, a Christmas pantomime and a spring play each year. At our AGM each summer the decisions are made as to which show we are going to do for each of the three slots. Last summer, the night before the AGM, I spent the best part of three hours on the phone to previous director, who as you may remember is also chairman. No-one else was going to put forward a musical, so we decided we should put forward six ourselves, to give people something to choose from.
Now you can't just do any old show. First of all it has to be available - not in the West End or on a national tour. You have to be able to stage it. It has to have a decent balance of parts. So there we were, on the opposite ends of a phone line trying to come up with a list. We picked 12 and whittled it down by a process of eliminating one out of every similar pair. We chose Jack The Ripper - The Musical (yes, really) over Jekyll & Hyde. We picked The Boyfriend rather than The Pyjama Game. We selected Return To The Forbidden Planet not Saucy Jack & The Space Vixens. We decided on Oklahoma instead of Carousel.
Anyway, in amongst all our chat and decision making, director her was passing raucous comments in the background while drinking her way through a large quantity of port. And then chairman put the phone down to go to look for something and she picked it up... and the rest is history.
In actual fact, director him and I had been talking about him doing a Pratchett, but not until the following year - he wanted to pick up more experience on the way. Over the eight years since we did Wyrd Sisters under director her's guidance, I have been trying to get her to do another one. Those magic words: 'We'll do Mort. I'll direct it and you'll help me,' were followed on my part, very quickly, by an indication that director him should work with director her, while I became producer.
All this depended on the members voting it in. Our opposition was an Agatha Christie being put forward by box office. Until that night I had been right up for the idea. Then came director her's bottle of port. Mort was voted in and director her suddenly realised what she had done. Fantastic.
For the record, Return To The Forbidden Planet narrowly beat Jack The Ripper - The Musical as choice for the summer musical, which chairman and I will do together. Sleeping Beauty will be this year's panto, directed by box office and produced by secretary.

Thought for the day: ' The rougher the passage, the more welcome the port.' Proverb. By some person who writes proverbs. Probably