In his review of the Fort Worth Opera’s Hydrogen Jukebox, Wayne Lee Gay mentioned that audience members were shuffled into the cellar of the theater during last night’s tornado scare. KERA’s Jerome Weeks was also in attendance, and he expands on the experience:
In the middle of the first act, conductor Steven Osgood stood up from his keyboard and announced that because of the tornado alert, we should, please, exit the theater. And immediately outside, we found opera company volunteers and staff already in place guiding us downstairs — to the basement (where, it just so happened, the FWO company has been rehearsing). After 10-15 minutes, we got the all-clear and tromped back up and Osgood picked up at the beginning of the song that had been cut off.
During intermission, some of us stood outside on the Center’s cafe porch and watched the black thunderheads bash and flash. All very appropriate — almost comically so — considering the very first words sung in Hydrogen Jukebox are from Ginsberg’s Iron Horse:
Lightning’s blue glare fills Oklahoma plains
Weeks has the full eerie excerpt here.
Image via wikicommons.
