So Tuesday morning at 10:15, my drummer arrives, and begins setting up his kit. I asked him how long he needed to set up. He said about fifteen minutes. I asked if we weren't supposed to start working at ten, and he said he thought about that, but didn't think he could get up that early.

So at 10:40, he's finally ready. I look at his kit. It has a bass drum, a snare, three tom-toms, four cymbals. I notice an absence of four basic auxiliary instruments every show drummer I've known has or has access to: a wood block, a tambourine, a triangle and a cowbell.

"This book is hard to read."

I think about the book, and recall that it's pretty well-written, as handwritten music goes.

"So Derek, do you know any of this music?

"Well, I've heard a couple of the titles before."

"The titles, but not the tunes?"

"Right."

"Oy."

So I talk him through the overture, where the cuts are, how the tempos change. I ask him if he's ready to play, and he says he is. I give the cue, and I begin playing. He doesn't. I stop, and ask what is wrong.

"I didn't know you were starting."

"Usually, when I ask, 'are you ready to play?' and then I raise my head up the air, and then I bring it down and begin playing myself, that means I'm starting."

"Oh. Okay."

"Let's try it again."

We go through the same motions, and this time he plays something when I play something, and they sort of match. About five bars into the song, he stops playing for a reason I can't discern.

"What happened?"

"It says W.B. I don't know what that is."

"It's a wood block, Derek. Do you have a wood block?"

"No. I didn't think I'd need one."

"Well, you do. Can you get one?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, I can't. I have to pick up my dog at the kennel."

"Whoa. What?"

"Yeah. I have to leave early today, and pick up my dog at the kennel."

"Okay, first of all, I need you at rehearsal. Can you get your dog on your dinner break?"

"Dinner break? You mean I have to come back tonight? I thought this didn't start until Thursday."

"Well, tonight is a rehearsal. Then tomorrow during the day. And night. Then Thursday night is the first performance. But we have rehearsals before that."

"I usually get the music about a month before we start, not two days."

(I cannot understand his logic. He thinks that two days is too much time for rehearsal such that he doesn't want to come back again until Thursday, but then he says he usually gets a month, which is more than two days.)

"Well, the learning curve for this project is a little steeper. Two days. Can you be here tonight?"

"I guess so."

"How about tomorrow?"

"I guess so."

"Good, we're getting somewhere. Now about this wood block --"

"When can I get my dog? And I also have to pick up my mother from work."

So we discuss his dog, his mother and his lack of a wood block. It's now 11:40, and rehearsal begins at noon. I was hoping for two hours with Derek, but instead I get about 28 minutes all told.

Over that not-quite-a-half-an-hour rehearsal with Derek, we worked on a piece in the show called "Havana." This is a piece of music to underscore the scene in which Sarah and Sky go to Cuba. It's supposed to sound, well, Cuban. And while a piano doesn't sound particularly Cuban, the synth sort of did, and I hoped that the drums would. One can always hope.

When we started, he began playing the same rhythm he played on every other song, which is to hit his bass drum (inaudibly) on 1 and 3, and hit his snare on 2 and 4. This is what we would call a standard time pattern. This is not what we would call playing the book for any decent musical. I'm sure that every song isn't like that. Nonetheless, Derek's version of the show was.

So we got to work on "Havana." And when the basic time pattern became the only thing he played, I stopped him.

"Derek, isn't there anything more Cuban you can play?"

"Well, this is supposed to be for bongos."

"I don't suppose you have bongos?"

"No."

"I don't suppose you could play the bongo pattern on a different drum?"

"How would I do that?"

Now here's a basic point about condensing an orchestration. When using fewer instruments than called for, you must learn how to substitute. The most common is with a synth. I had the synth playing brass, woodwinds, strings, etc. And I played a lot more on the piano than would normally be called for. Similar logic applies to drums. If you have a kit that doesn't contain all the necessary pieces, you substitute. Play the cymbal instead of a gong. Play the snare rim instead of the wood block. Play the tom-toms instead of the bongos.

"Play the tom-toms instead of the bongos."

"Okay, if you think that will work."

I do. So we begin again. And now he's playing the bass drum on 1 and 3, and the tom-toms on 2 and 4. (And I'm not going to even delve into the fact that his drums are lousy to begin with -- the toms reverberate so much you can't hear the rhythms, his snare is so loose it sounds like someone playing a stack of window screens, and his bass drum doesn't make much noise beyond the slap of the pedal-mallet hitting the head of the drum.)

I stop.

"Derek, you need to play the bongo part on the toms. Not just time."

"What do you mean?"

"Derek, you have a part there for bongos. Play that rhythm on the toms."

"Oh."

So we start again. For about 12 bars, he's doing vaguely okay. He's playing something in the same family tree as the bongo rhythm. But after 12 bars, he stops playing. I stop playing, and turn to look at him. He's looking at the wall.

"What happened?"

"There was a part for a cowbell."

"And you don't have a cowbell."

"No."

"So you need to substitute again."

"Well, I didn't know what to substitute."

"How about the bell of the ride cymbal?"

"You mean like this?"

He plays it.

"Yes, like that."

"I don't think that will sound very good."

At this point, his opinion isn't figuring too much into my logic. So we start again. Now after 12 bars, he starts playing the ride cymbal on the cowbell rhythm. And he's right. It doesn't sound good. But the reason it doesn't sound good is because he has no idea how to play it. So we stop.

"Derek, how about you go back to the tom-toms again. Just play the whole thing on the tom-toms."

"Even the cowbell part?"

"Yes. Just play the same thing until you see it's time to stop. Then stop. You have to keep counting the measures, but just play that one rhythm."

I didn't think he could do much more.

I apparently overestimated him.

So we get going again, and this time, we get to a stop in the music (where there are four beats of rest), and he plays right through it.

So I stop. I turn to look at him, and he's looking at the wall.

"What happened, Derek?"

"You said to keep playing. Then you stopped. So I stopped."

"I stopped because we were up to measure 189, where there's a stop."

"You mean I have to play this pretend bongo thing, but still count the measures so I know when to stop?"

"Yes."

So we start again. And this time, we get to the stop, and he stops. Then we get going again, and he starts. And all is somewhere in the vicinity of okay, when suddenly, there's a cymbal crash. And then he stops playing. I turn and look at him, and he's looking at the wall.

"What happened, Derek?"

"There's a cymbal part here. A crash."

"I heard it. So what was the problem?"

"Well, you said to just play the tom-toms. But then I played the cymbal by accident, and got confused."

By now the actors have arrived, and it was time to work with them.

"Derek, we don't have any more time on this now. I have to be a part of this rehearsal with the actors."

Immediately, he gets up from his drum kit, and reaches for his bag.

"Wait. You need to stay and play along with rehearsal. You need to learn this stuff."

"How can I learn it in rehearsal?"

What?! I quickly came up with a plan that might help him think that his logic made sense, and would get him away from me for a while. So I gave him the CD recording of Guys and Dolls.

"Derek, go home and listen to this. Come back here tonight, and be more familiar with this show."

He took the CD, and started to leave.

"Derek, it would probably help if you took your book with you to follow along while you listen."

He reaches for his book, and leaves.

By Wednesday night, I had had far too many moments of stress to detail in this story. The upside was that over those 36 hours, Eleanor and Derek managed to improve, however slightly. Granted, for them to get worse would defy simple laws of practice, not to mention the fact that when somoene is that bad, it's hard to get worse.

So we have a brief rehearsal from 6:30-7:30 that night before the 8:00 start. It sounds like a bad first rehearsal, not anything like a fourth rehearsal, and it pains me to think that we'll get one more chance before there's an audience. When I tell them that we're on a break until 8:00, Derek quickly tries to walk away. I catch him though.

"Derek, your part is very important to the show. You need to keep up better than this. I'm giving you changes and cuts to mark, and only when I say, 'how about you write that down' do you even pick up a pencil. And even then, you're forgetting things that we've talked about AND you've written down. I know that we don't have as much time as you'd like, but this is how it works, and you have to keep up."

He starts to leave again. I stop him.

"Derek, now would be a great time to go over the parts that you're struggling with."

He nods, and starts to leave.

"Derek, if you take your book with you, you can sit backstage and read through the parts that you're struggling with."

Ten minutes later, I see him wandering around aimlessly backstage, holding the book under his arm. Someone must have told him that osmosis actually does work for music. Hint: It doesn't.

So we're about to begin the show, and I explain to the musicians about the rehearsal.

"This is the final dress rehearsal. We can't stop just because you get lost in a piece, like we've done until now. You have to be able to find where you are, and get back into it. I'll help all I can. If you get really lost, just sit out until you know where we are."

I shouldn't have said that last part. When we began the piece, Derek played the first three beats, and then dropped out. When I asked him later what had happened, he said he got lost, and couldn't get back in, because it was going too fast. "Sometimes I don't know where you are, because sometimes you bounce your head every three beats, and sometimes you bounce every four beats."

"That's because some of the songs are in three, and some are in four."

"Yes, but you don't tell me which ones are which."

"That information is in the book. Beginning of the first line of every song."

"I know that. But if I'm looking for that in the book, I can't watch you, can I."

"With practice, maybe you can look before we begin, remember for the few minutes while the dialogue is happening, then watch me for the cue."

"This book is hard to read."

Eleanor, in the meantime, can't keep straight what octave anything happens in. She keeps turning pages right-handed. She keeps stopping when there's no bass sound, and telling me, mid-song, that she'd rather have bass sounds. She doesn't watch my cues, so she can't keep up with the music. She doesn't seem to understand that she's simulating other instruments on the keyboard, so she needs to play them as if they were the other instruments. For example, a clarinet can only play one note at a time, not a whole chord. I tell her this, and she says, "it's a lot of clarinets." I tell her I only want one clarinet. She tells me, "Well, I'm not really a pianist anyway."

What?

"What do you usually play?"

"Well, I'm really a flute player, but I know how to play keyboard, but this isn't like my keyboard, and it isn't a piano, so I don't really know how to do it, but some of the sounds I play are flute, so I can do those sounds, but I don't know how to play trumpet or strings, and these strings aren't really very good, and there just isn't enough bass in most of these patches."

"I usually play marching band."

"Have you done many shows before, Derek? Because I do a lot of shows, except I usually need to use my own synth so I know what it sounds like, because it's hard to work with other instruments. See, I'm usually a flute player..."

I walked away, went outside, got lost in a cornfield, and felt very happy about it.

Somehow we open. Derek's Cuban drums sound like George of the Jungle. No one can hear Eleanor's bass, because I'm doubling it on the piano, but we catch her melodies, when they're not interrupted by page turns. Derek pays more attention to the wall and to dropping his sticks than he does to me. The differences between 3/4 and 4/4 continue to elude him. Eleanor has more hair on one of her arms than I do on my whole body, and while this has no effect, negative or positive, on her playing, it's just a little creepy.

At the time of this writing, we have but one performance left. Things have only improved in the sense that they're consistent. I know what to expect. I know what I want to hear, and how it differs from what I will hear, and it doesn't really irk me as much as it did at first. I just tune it out. I pretend I have brilliant musicians who are better than I am. I pretend that the hideous show on stage is full of energy, good scenery, intelligent acting choices, lovely voices, and stellar choreography. I close my eyes, and imagine the way the show should be. Sometimes I play wrong notes when I close my eyes, but the tradeoff is worth it. When I pay too much attention, I get a splitting headache, that even a box of wintergreen Altoids along with half a dozen Advil can't cure.

Sometimes you need a dreadful experience like this in order to fully appreciate the good times before or since.

Sometimes you appreciate the good times quite enough without the dreadful experience, thank you very much.

I'd appreciate it if whoever set me up for this character-building charade would go work for a few weeks with Derek and Eleanor themselves. Really learn what it was like. Live in that jungle with those gorillas. Become The Big Jew, just for a few days. I'll tell you, it ain't pretty. And Eleanor's arm hair is only the beginning.

As I finish the show for the penultimate time, I feel a sense of warmth and serenity approaching. I realize that the end is near. Soon, all of this will have been just a dream. Then I realize that the rest of the night is going to be very long indeed. I feel the warmth disappear, and sense its replacement: a nearly insatiable desire to go home.

But then I smile. Because in about five hours, I will.