30 Ukrainian Midgets

Everyone has a few very good party stories.

They are usually the stories that make everyone laugh and giggle and become sort of legend amongst your friends; "Oh you have to hear Alex's story." or "Brent get over here and tell that repo story."

I have a few decent ones but I do have two show stoppers. These are stories that not only are you made to tell over and over again but after being told, no other story at the party seems as funny.

Now that I'm getting older, I'm seeing that sometimes great stories get lost. I could get hit by a car and this entire story could be wiped out. Or old age could eventually set in and the story might be gone forever or fragmented.

It is for those reasons that I am committing the following story to the internet.

It is 100% true.

I have at least 20 living witnesses that can back this up.

It's a story about little people.

Back in high school, I was a big drama nerd. I was in school productions, the drama club, announcements, etc.

One particular year I wrote a play called Searching For God. In retrospect and without too much ego, it was a solid play for a teenager to have written and had some really solid jokes in it. The problem came when I decided to direct it as well.

I was not a particularly good director especially since I had made the decision to cast it with a lot of the regular drama club members who I was friends with.

Now this isn't to say they didn't have talent. I stand by all of those casting decisions because

1) All of them were decent actors.

and

2) I knew I could count on them to get the job done.

But between the skills and getting the job done, most of them would torment the crap out of me by forgetting lines on purpose or randomly placing a stuffed Cookie Monster doll around various places on the set where it could be easily be seen.

So needless to say with just over a week left of rehearsals, I was not pleased when my Drama teacher/staff supervisor on the production came to me in the morning and said the following:

"So Brent, just to let you know, your time for rehearsal tonight has been cut by..."

Now I'm sure he said something else but all I heard was I was losing more time and what I assume panic sounds like in audio form. We weren't ready, this was completely unfair and I needed that time.

But the good student I was, those words did not come out of my mouth.

In fact by the time lunch rolled around three periods later, I had kind of forgotten about the conversation.

And by the rehearsal I had completely forgotten about it.

So the run through is finally going okay and we are about an hour into it. We are on a roll.

Then behind me I just glance over and see Big Ken walk into the auditorium.

I'm not sure if Big Ken was the head custodian of our high school but he should have been. He was the only custodian to have the total respect of the students and one of the few custodians I've met that respected the students back.

Of course this might of have something to do with the fact that Big Ken was about six foot five tall and probably as wide. He looked like a taller John Tenta (WWF's Earthquake).

Anyways, Big Ken was head past me to the fire exit door. Our main auditorium was also the cafeteria and also had a fire exit that went straight to the parking lot outside.

I didn't think much of it as Big Ken was the custodian and there was no way on Earth I was going to tell him to do whatever job he was about to do elsewhere.

And then he opened the door.

In streamed what seemed like an endless supply of dwarves!

Little person after little person ran in. They were carrying cages with doves and other animals. Stage sets and props were being brought in and dropped on our stage with little to no heed of the fact there were people currently occupying that space.

The main actress' face screwed into a look that seemed to be 50% laughter and 50% horror.

It is at this point I start getting a little flashback of the previous conversation with my drama teacher.

"So Brent, just to let you know, your time for rehearsal tonight has been cut by an hour or so. There's a (word missing...what was that?) little people's circus coming in to perform for a couple of local children's clubs."

Reluctantly I get to our stage crew and the actors and ask them to strike the set, the main actress on the verge of giggles.

Now being the nice guy, I thought I'd give these little folks a hand. I walk over to the main little person who seems to be directing the traffic of the others.

"Hey there, do you guys need a hand?"

He looks at me blankly.

"Do you guys need any help?"

Looks at me blankly again but this time he adds a shrug.

Wait! That missing word reappeared in my memory.

"...Ukrainian little people's circus..."

So I then knew what the problem was.

This man did not speak English. And being the typical westerner that I was at the time...

"DO YOU NEED ANY HELP?"

At which point their evil full sized overlord walked over and in a thick Soviet Bloc accent replied.

"No. We are fine."

I then went to confront my cast in the hallway.

They are lined up along two sides of lockers looking to me, their eyes filled with suppressed laughter. Not even thinking, not even trying to make a joke, the first words to leave my mouth were:

"Okay guys, well it looks like rehearsal has been cut a little short..."

Darryl, one of the crew and a background actor for the play, instantly fell to the ground laughing. Gavin, the lead actor had tears rolling down his face. Everyone else was laughing or burying their faces into arms and shoulders of others to try and stifle the uncontrollable outburst.

Now there is kind of a sad but slightly funny anecdote to the story.

About two weeks later, my stage manager, Greg, brought in a copy of the Toronto Star.

"We were right."

It contained an article about a troop of Ukrainian circus performers (it had to be them, how many troops of little people circuses would operate in Ontario within a three week span, let alone a Ukrainian one?) who were stranded by their manager who had taken off with their money and left them to their own devices.

Eventually the poor guys were happened upon by two guys who spoke Ukrainian and helped get them in touch with their government and get them back home.

But see, he was evil.