OKLAHOMA IN ENGLAND

THEATER

Twelve hundred people were standing, yelling and waving American flags.  It was the fourth encore after the final performance of our tour of OKLAHOMA through Cornwall, England.  The Minack Theater was an amphitheater built on the cliff of the Atlantic Ocean, 20 miles from Penzance that hosted theater groups from across England.  The Lake Worth Playhouse in Lake Worth, Fl, was the first American theater group to be invited to perform at this internationally renowned theater.  It was an amazing feeling.  The cast of 34 walked off stage waving to all those wonderful Cornwallians. The applause kept on for minutes and we were brought up from the dressing room and told to get back onstage, they were not going to stop or leave until we came back out.  As we walked back on stage we could hear the screaming and the orchestra playing “Oklahoma,” as our foot hit the stage we started singing.  The theater was built to hold 900; there were 300 more sitting on rocks hanging in trees, what an amazing sight.  The audience was standing and singing with us and they were all waving our beautiful American flag.  We were all so emotional that we could not sing.  I looked at the guy next to me and he had tears in his eyes, that started me; all of us we crying, the emotion over came all of us.  All the guys all took off our hats and waved and the girls waved their hankies.  After the last word “OKLAHOMA,” the audience rushed to the stage.  The English loved OKLAHOMA and us; after all OKLAHOMA was the granddaddy of the modern American Musical.  It was about an hour after that last word before we could go back to the dressing room.  This was the end of  the 2 month run that started in Lake Worth, FL and passed through London, Leeds, Brighton, Lynton on the Rocks, Penzance and ended in a triumphant week at the Minack in Porthcurno,