Four months of practicing four hours every day finally paid off. I looked into themirror with all that creepy make-up on, and there was the evil farmhand Jud Fryof Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" We had worked hard to get tothat point, memorizing lines, analyzing scripts and practicing forhours.

It was opening night and we were all fired up and worn out at thesame time. Laura was touching up my make-up and my eyes started feeling heavy. Iheard people outside my dressing room start to buzz. It was time to take ourplaces. I opened the door and walked to the right wing of the stage and peekedthrough the curtain to see how the crowd looked ... it was a full house! Myfatigue changed to excitement. Only one thought ran through my mind: I have to goout there and make 2,000 people afraid of me.

I had some time before myfirst scene, so I went back to my dressing room and watched the musical withLaura. We talked about the amazing show on stage at that very moment. Theaudience was great, cheering and laughing after every punch line.

My scenewas next; all I had to do was walk on, say two sentences in a sinister way andexit. I grabbed my firewood from the prop table and walked across the stage. Thelead character, Curly, greeted me with a smile but I just smirked at him andslammed the farmhouse door as I entered. After a few lines tossed out by AuntEller and Curly, I came out of the farmhouse with Laurey (the lead femalecharacer) and announced that I was driving her to the box social later thatnight, then walked off stage with an evil grin. This didn't sit well with Curly.

As soon as I was off stage, I walked back to my dressing room to prep formy next scene. I got undressed in a hurry, and put on my next costume: bright redlong underwear. I turned around to attach my microphone pack to my costume andsaw a pair of shoes out of the corner of my eye. It was Laura! I didn't evenrealize she was still in the dressing room! Which meant she saw everything ...her face was pretty red, as was mine. I guess that's why girls weren't actuallyallowed in the guys' dressing room. She just smiled, grabbed the water bottle andsprayed my armpits to add to the effect of Jud being a dirty, smelly type ofguy.

I ran out of my dressing room to the right wing. At that momentLaurey and Curly were singing "People Will Say We're in Love," in whichthey joke about how they feel about each other.

I grabbed my props - agun full of blanks and a rag to polish it with - while the curtain closed behindthe actors. I rushed onstage behind the curtain and my set was brought onstage -a two-piece set of a smokehouse, complete with drawings of women covering thewalls. Everything about the set was dirty, from the tin buckets on the rafters tothe squeaky cot. I placed my left leg up on a chair by the old brown table andbegan to polish my gun with yet another evil smirk on my face.

The curtainopened and the crowd laughed at my red long underwear. The scene continued withCurly's entrance and his idea to make me hang myself just to make sure I wouldn'tbe able to get Laurey from him since I'm - I mean Jud is - obsessed with her.Curly almost has Jud convinced during a comical song called "Poor Jud isDaid," but Jud realizes what Curly is up to, and the intensityincreases.

If you want to know what happens, you'll have to see aproduction, or the movie, because it's an amazing show. Unfortunately, it's overnow. We sold out all three nights and each was better than the onebefore.

Now I stand in the center of an empty stage in a dark, emptytheater. I'm no longer Jud Fry; I'm no longer a cast member of"Oklahoma!" I'm just another teenager with a dream. There's no one elsein the theater, but I can still hear the audience applauding. I can still hear"Oh What A Beautiful Morning" echoing off the walls. I can still hearthe audience clapping along with the title song when we did our curtain calls.I'm glad I had this chance. I met so many amazing and talented people and made somany friends. It was truly the most memorable thing in my life. And, "I'vegot a beautiful feeling everything's going my way."