It was a tight performance

I got a fill of musical theater this weekend. First, the kids over at Ruder Elementary put on Missoula Children's Theater production of The Frog Prince, a musical adaptation of the fairy tale, and then later that same night, the high school drama students and the wind ensemble put on Oklahoma!

Both were fine productions, which brought back memories of my own thespian exploits at Warren Harding Elementary School, which, of course, were short-lived and thoroughly forgettable.

(I always called it Warring Harding. I had no idea who Warren Harding was, and I'll bet most of you don't either. He was the 29th president. Elected in 1920, he won by a landslide with 60 percent of the popular vote. After that, however, his presidency was less than impressive, and he died of a heart attack in August 1923, before his term was up. I only learned this this week because I forced myself to look it up. But, as usual, I digress…)

No, my acting career, or what I remember of it, centered around a pair of tights. A green pair of tights. A pair of tights that my mother bought at J.M Fields.

J.M. Fields was the 1970s version of Wal-Mart. It was down the road from Warren Harding Elementary and not far from the adult theater. Zoning, as you may have guessed by now, wasn't a real strong suit in my neighborhood. My mother took me there to buy the green tights, and I told her I didn't want to go, but she insisted.

"How are we going to know if they fit if you don't go with me?"

So I went, and at the tender age of 7, I spent an afternoon with my mother trying on green tights. For some young actors, this sort of experience could be the springboard into a budding career. For me, it was something akin to torture.

"But mom," I pleaded, "boys don't wear tights."

"Boys in musicals, do," she admonished me.

When we went through the checkout line, I tried to hang back, like my mother was some other woman, and I was just a young man casually shopping on my own. No dice.

"C'mon Chris," she said. "Keep up."

The package of tights had a picture of a little girl on them, smiling. The clerk looked at them and looked at me and smiled.

My mother explained, "He's going to be an elf in the musical."

Then they both laughed.

If a train had been nearby, I would have calmly placed my head upon the track and let it ruin me. Instead, I sung in the musical. I danced in the musical. I was a green elf in a green suit with green tights in the lousy little musical. I remember none of it, except for the tights.

You know your young acting career is on the ropes when all you remember of your first performance is the green tights riding up your butt.

The entire family was there - uncles, aunts, grandparents and, of course, my mother, beaming. Afterward, we went back to the house and had cake and ice cream, and they all remarked how cute I looked in my green little tights.

I got them off as fast as I could. They hung around in the bottom of a drawer for a few years, probably because my mother hoped I might take on another part in another play. You know, make her proud.

It takes courage for a young man to wear green tights on a stage.

A courage my butt never wants to feel ever again.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.