The Moth Radio Hour: All the World’s a Stage

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This is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Meg Bulls, and in this hour, we'll hear stories of imperfect auditions and musical successes, stage debuts and performances royally botched, and one rather distressing situation with a trumpet.

Laura Hitchcock told the story of that instrumental crisis at a moth grand slam we produced at the Bridge Theatre in London.

Here's Laura, live at the moth.

When I was eight years old, I decided that I wanted to learn to play the trumpet.

And I went to my first ever class with my new teacher and I loved it instantly.

And he said to me, like, look, if you really stick at this, then maybe one day your parents will buy you a trumpet of your very own.

But until then you can borrow mine.

And I've had this trumpet for 18 years, so I'm trusting you to look after it.

And when he said that to me, I just felt so important because being trusted to do anything when you're eight years old just still feels like a really big deal.

And I took it home and I immediately started practicing.

And I sounded horrible, but I didn't care.

And once I finished, I thought about what he said to me.

And I got out one of those yellow polishing cloths and I started buffing it really hard with all the strength that my twiggy little eight-year-old arms would allow.

And once I'd finished, it looked amazing, and I went to put it away, only to realize that the position I'd been polishing it in had gotten the mouthpiece completely stuck in the instrument, and that's not meant to happen.

I panicked, and I was desperate to be able to fix it by myself, and I was pulling, but I just couldn't do it.

So I went to my parents and asked for their help, and they couldn't do it either.

And my mum panicked because I told her all about how important this instrument was.

And she just looked at my dad and I and she was like,

You two need to fix this because, Laura, you can't go into school tomorrow unless that trumpet looks the way that it should be.

So, my dad and I got to work.

We went into the garage and we were kind of looking around for a tool that maybe we could use.

And eventually, my dad says, If we pull out this pipe here, then we could stick something in the other end and we could push the mouthpiece out from the inside.

That sounded like a really good idea.

So we had a look around the garage and we eventually found this bamboo garden cane.

It was about four feet tall and it was the perfect thickness.

We put it in the end of the trumpet and my dad's ready on one side because he's got a hammer and he's going to like tap on the end to knock it out.

And I'm ready on the other side because I'm like listening for that like, and I'm going to like catch it when it comes out.

So he has the hammer and he taps, but nothing happens.

The mouthpiece doesn't come out.

And that's when we realize that we've got the four-foot-long garden cane stuck in the other end of the trumpet.

My mum comes in to see how we're doing, and we're just both stood there and looking at this old trumpet.

The mouthpiece is still stuck.

The four-foot-long garden cane is stuck on the other end, and the situation is looking worse.

And she's just like, I'm ringing my brother, like, get in the car, go, go, go.

So we get in the car, it's like 30 miles to my uncle's house, and we're driving driving like fast down the motorway because we've got this like urgent patient in the back seat that like urgently needs our help and

because my family is like the living embodiment of a Mr.

Bean sketch, none of us had thought to cut down the length of the cane.

So

we just had the back window open and the cane sticking out.

And

we get to my uncle's house and he's like, he's like this science enthusiast and he immediately has a plan and it's a plan that each of us has a role.

So

my dad has the garden peas and he's given these two bags of frozen garden peas and he's to hold them to the body of the trumpet really really tightly.

And my uncle, he has the oven mitts and his job is to to hold the front of the trumpet into an oven that we have preheated just for this.

And my job is I'm standing at the back and I'm just kind of hanging on to the cane.

I don't think anyone needed me to be doing that, but I just like, I really wanted to be a part of it.

And

I'm there and I'm waiting and I'm feeling sick because I'm thinking I can never go to school again.

I can maybe go to prison.

I mean, I've destroyed this property and it's looking really bad and I'm hanging onto this garden cane and I'm looking at us and we look so ridiculous.

And then I didn't pay attention in science class, so I didn't understand, and I still don't understand why we were doing this, but it was something to do with thermodynamics.

And like those laws, they have these laws of thermodynamics, and those laws are real.

Because the next thing I know, I'm stood there and I'm holding just a garden cane.

And my uncle is holding just a mouthpiece, and my dad is holding just a trumpet.

And this relief like floods over to me.

I can go back to school.

I don't have to be a criminal for the rest of my life.

And when we get home, my mum makes me promise to never, ever tell anybody about what happened that night.

And

she doesn't need to ask because

I just want to pretend the whole thing never happened.

I want to go back to being that person who can be trusted to do things and doesn't make things go horribly, horribly wrong.

And so I'm like, I will never tell anyone, ever.

And the next day I get home from school and I've kept that secret secret for the whole day.

And my parents sit me down and they say that they've been discussing like what happened the night before.

And I think this is where I actually get told off because we were in such a panic that that never really happened.

And they say they've been discussing what happened, and they've come to the decision that what they really want to do is they want to buy me a trumpet of my very own.

Laura Hitchcock now lives in an apartment in London, which is not exactly conducive to playing the trumpet, but says maybe one day she'll pick it back up again, proximity to neighbors depending.

She says her biggest takeaway from the incident with the trumpet is to know when to ask for help.

She said in an email, nowadays I'm more than happy to pay for a plumber, electrician, etc., because I know from experience that neither me nor my immediate family should be doing anything hands-on.

Sadly, there are no photos of the trumpet.

She says perhaps the family was trying to erase all evidence.

But she did offer us a pretty humorous artist's rendition of events, along with some photos of her from the time.

You can find those on our website, themoth.org.

Next up, we have a story of a musical mentorship from Jason Meshes.

He shared it at a Story Slam we produced in Los Angeles, where we partner with public radio station KCRW.

Here's Jason, live at the moment.

So at my first piano lesson with Carl Lowell, he was my piano teacher.

He said to me, so what songs do you want to learn how to play?

What do you want to do?

And I gave him a book that I had purchased with money that I had saved up and I said, I want to learn how to play Billy Joel.

And he looked at me and he said, Well, Billy Joel, Eaton, he doesn't know too much about music now, do he?

And

I was six, but I was still like, Billy Joel.

And I learned something at that first lesson, and he said to me, he looked at me dead in the eyes, and he said, If you're going to learn to play piano with me, you're going to learn the standards.

You're going to learn the 1920s.

You're going to learn the 1930s.

You're going to learn the great American musical theater.

And that's what we're going to learn.

And I said, okay, that's what we're going to learn.

And I was fine with it because I wanted to play like Carl because I saw Carl play the piano and he was amazing.

He was the best piano player I've ever seen.

But Carl was a very unconventional piano teacher.

He couldn't see very well because he was very old.

So because he didn't read music, he didn't teach me how to read music.

And we did everything by ear training and by learning chord structure and how chord progressions worked.

And through that, I learned the standards, even though he would just write down lead sheets on

whatever he could find around, which was on like papers, the back of receipts.

I brought home pennies from heaven on the back of a paper towel my parents still laugh about it to this day and the whole time anytime I would bring him in something modern something my own he'd say yeah well they don't know too much about music now do they that was a big line of his he didn't like anything except for like himself and it was fine because throughout the years I learned the standards and I learned how to play jazz and I really learned music.

And fast forward, I'm with this guy for like 12 years now and it's my senior year of high school and he had to do a senior project and my senior project was on George and Ira Gershwin.

I was like, yes, this is what I'm going to do.

And there's a presentation part of the essay and you had to do like a PowerPoint or something.

So I was like, I'm going to put together a medley.

I'm going to do this big song of all the Gershwin hits I'm going to have.

Swonderful and Strike Up the Band and American in Paris.

And it was this amazing thing.

And my parents said to me, they were like, you know, for your last lesson with Carl, like, you should play him the song.

That's going to really make him feel good.

Like, he's going to send you off into sunset with that.

And you're going to make him feel great.

Like, you you really taught someone.

And so I brought the song to Carl in my last lesson in senior year of high school.

I was like, Carl, I put together this song.

It's this great medley, and I'd really like to play it for you.

And I played it.

And you know how, like,

I'm like a figure skater, they land all their jumps and their twisties, and they do it perfect.

And Scott Hamilton's like screaming his head off, and it's amazing.

And they hit that final pose, and they did it so well that they can only hold that final pose for a couple seconds, and then they break down in tears because they're so happy.

And that's what happened to me

because I played it and I nailed it.

It was awesome.

And I knew it was good because I had goosebumpies.

And I also knew it was good because Mrs.

Lowell came running in from down upstairs.

She came running in the room and she said, Oh my god, Jason, that was you.

I thought it was Carl for a couple minutes.

And I knew that I nailed it because she came in here and said that.

And I knew that I nailed it.

So I looked at Carlos and said, ah, Mrs.

Lowell said that.

And I knew it.

And he looked at me.

He said, Well, the wife don't know too much about music.

Now, deuce.

And then we were out of time.

And it was like 12 years of piano lessons, curtains down, and that was it.

And I was legit, I was bummed.

And Mrs.

Lowell walked me into my car, and she did that every lesson after I got my driver's license because it was dark out.

And she walked me into my car, and she said, She said, Jason, do you remember four or five years ago when Carl started cutting back on students as he was entering retirement?

And I was like, yeah.

And she said, I just thought that you should know that he only kept one.

And I was just like the happiest guy.

I had the figure skating goosebumps again.

But I had to play it cool because you had to act like you've been there before.

And I was just like,

And I was just like, oh, well, actually, Mrs.

Lowell, he had to keep me.

And she said, why?

And I was like,

well, he had a mission.

I didn't know much about music.

And she laughed as she said,

you get it.

It was a nice song.

Thanks, guys.

That was Jason Meshes.

Jason never saw Carl again after his final lesson, but he says he credits Carl with fostering his love of music.

These days, Jason is a national touring children's musician, and every week he sings with kids across the country, helping them to love music.

In an email, he said, Carl was an unusual teacher, and I was an unusual kid.

It's a miracle that we found each other, and I hope that my job helps honor his legacy in this world.

And if you're wondering, Jason says that the final medley he composed was the only school project he got 100% A-plus on.

So, not so bad, Carl.

Not so bad.

To see pictures of Jason and find out more about his music and his most recent album, I Wanna Go to Mars, you can visit our website, themoth.org.

Here's a little taste of his music.

This is a sound sound.

Check your song.

Gotta make sure you can hear.

You hear us in the back?

Mix out all those levels till they're juicy in your ears.

Check your song.

I hope we sound incredible.

Turning knobs and sliding things to the right, yes-upo.

This is

the song.

Gotta make sure you can hear.

Is it getting quieter in all those levels?

I feel like the music is getting

quieter.

Why are we doing a fade out?

Coming up, Mary Poppins meets a tiny primary school in Borneo when the moth radio hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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This is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Meg Bowles.

Our next story takes us onto a stage and into the spotlight.

The celebrated British comedian Phil Wang told this story of his formative adventures into the world of performing.

Here's Phil Wang live from the Union Chapel in London.

Okay, so I'm 11 years old.

We're in Malaysian North Borneo.

The year is 2001.

And high off the adrenaline of surviving Y2K,

my

tiny primary school, in essentially a bit of seaside jungle, decides to put on a production of Mary Poppins,

its most ambitious play to date.

And it had done one.

Auditions are announced, and instantly the school is awash with gossip and conjecture.

When will rehearsals begin?

Who will win the eponymous role of Poppins?

What is a play?

Now, I want to be burnt badly.

I love the film Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke's portrayal of the charming chimney sweep with his devil-may-care attitude towards social mores

and what constituted a Cogney accent

led me to believe that truly anything was possible.

The day of the audition arrived and in that sweaty tropical classroom I have to say I bloody nailed it.

I was big and boisterous, fun and fabulous, Bert was mine.

I strolled over to Pam, our Australian librarian and play director, to victoriously collect my chimney sweep brush and flat cap.

Pam asks me if there's a part in the play I'd want in particular.

Uh yeah, just a little bit Pam.

Bert, please.

At this point Pam looks me up and down and goes, hmm, okay.

I have one question, Phil.

Can you dance?

Now she says these words, can you dance, in a way that I now know would be described as pointedly.

The problem Pam has noticed, and that I have not is that the part of Bert requires quite a lot of athleticism and dancing.

You know, he twirls over rooftops and spins graciously into chalk drawings.

And I was quite possibly the fattest boy in Borneo.

Really huge, very, very big.

I was an 11-year-old boy in the body of a dance player on Boxing Day.

Pam suggests instead the part of Mr.

Banks, the father.

I protest, but Pam assures me the role is more suited to my abilities.

You know, Mr.

Banks is erudite and mature and most importantly, stationary.

I argue and argue, but then graciously accept.

Pretty soon, I

really get into it.

I'm a little bit disappointed at first, but I really get into the part of Mr.

Banks.

I really get into the process of rehearsing.

I start practicing on my own, at home, singing the songs and doing the lines.

And one day my mother overhears me practicing, and she comes over, and she goes, Phil,

congratulations on the part.

Now,

would you like to do something about your lisp?

Now, I'd never heard the word lisp before so I was quite incredulous and a little bit angry actually.

And I said, lisp?

What's a lith?

She goes, that is dear.

You can't say your S's properly.

I go, don't be ridiculous.

I'm fine.

And she says, are you sure?

I'm like, yes!

Now I was cynical about my mother's claims, you know,

because I know my mother, you know, I knew my mother, I still do.

And

she's a big worrier, my mother.

She worries too much.

And I was just convinced that this lisp thing was just another thing she'd made up to satisfy her own sick addiction to panic.

It's...

It's just the way she was.

My mother imbued in me two core values that have held on to this day.

feminism and anxiety.

You might find it strange for me to describe anxiety as a value, but I assure you, your belief in the redistribution of wealth or cultural relativism does not enjoy the enthusiasm with which I still believe I've left the shower on.

Feminism and morbid anxiety.

My mother has always wanted her children to know two things: that women are equal to men, and that death is always around the corner.

So I ignore it.

I let go of this list thing and I move on.

I continue going to rehearsals in blissful ignorance.

And things are going well, you know.

The preparations for what must have been history's most humid production of Mary Poppins are going pretty well.

We were not messing about.

We had a house.

17 Cherry Tree Lane was built.

One of the parents, Mr.

He, was an engineer and built the house in two stories with a living room and a bedroom and magical drawers that through a system of pulleys pulleys and strings, would close with one of Poppins' twists of her wrist.

The rehearsals were not going quite as well.

Teaching a bunch of Asian kids the full works of P.L.

Travers and expecting them to memorize it is about as challenging as it sounds.

Malaysia is quite a culturally mixed place as well, and if Pam was not concerned with my lisp, it was only because she had about 20 different accents to deal with.

Most notably, our Mary Poppins,

a 12-year-old Filipino girl, also by the name of Mary, with the voice of Whitney Houston, but the accent of a 12-year-old Filipino girl.

You've not seen the true beauty of multiculturalism until you've seen a little Southeast Asian child belt a world-class rendition of a spoonful of sugar before sternly telling Jane and Michael to brush their teeth.

But still, I'm enjoying the process, you know?

I'm getting a hold on the lines, I'm loving the songs, and all's going swimmingly in Camp Phil.

Until the day of the cast recording, we recorded a cast album.

We were not messing around.

We recorded a full cast album, and its recording studio had just opened up in town, and its first signings were the children of Datok Simon Feng Primary School.

We bowl into this recording studio, one by one, all the main cast, the singing rolls, and each of the soloists go in to record their songs first Jane and Michael if you want this choice position have a cheery disposition Mary goes in stay awake don't brush your teeth

And then it's my turn

I bowl in I swagger in with all the gust of a chubby 11-year-old boy, and I sing Mr.

Banks' song.

Come back into the listening booth and they play it back to me and that's when I hear it.

My lisp.

Clear as day.

No ambiguity about it.

And I found my lisp out in the cruelest of ways with the cruelest of songs.

Mr.

Banks' big introductory solo starts.

I feel a thurge of deep satisfaction.

Much hath a king astride his noble steed.

As I returned from daily strife to hearth and wife, how pleasant is the life I lead.

They gave the kid with a lisp a song that was essentially a tongue twister for kids with lisps.

Now, I'm appalled.

I'm so, so terribly upset.

First of all, because my mother had been proved right, and that's always dreadful.

But mostly because this was the first time I had been shown that how I saw myself was not always the same as how I was seen by others.

It was a bitter pill to take, and I was just confused.

Where did this lisp come from?

Did I always have it?

Had I just got so fat my cheeks have started growing inwards and gone the way of my tongue?

What I did know was I had to fix it.

Cue the rocky montage.

At each of our many rehearsals, I'm sitting there doing my lines, pulling my tongue painfully back behind my teeth where it doesn't feel right, hissing out this strange new sound with mixed results.

You know, I feel a thurge of deep satisfaction.

Satisfaction.

All the while trying to keep this a secret from my friends and the teachers.

I'm practicing at home.

You know, it takes diligence and practice and determination.

I battle this daily war against myself,

this war against my own speech impediment.

Strolling up and down the garden, practicing the lines out loud.

It's that Poppins woman!

It's Poppins who's done this!

But I feel I'm making progress.

Soon, though, time is up.

The first night is fast approaching, and eventually it does.

And it's looking good.

Preparations are coming together.

The costumes are made.

The cardboard hats are put on the heads of little pupurbescent Chinese boys.

Mr.

He has really outdone himself with a working carousel and flying chairs that are as incredible as they are terribly dangerous.

It really feels like the whole town's come together to make this thing happen.

My mother also had her part to play.

She was charged with the job of making, well designing the front of a newspaper that I had to hold in one scene.

And the headlines she went for, the Edwardian headlines she went for, were Mrs.

Pankhurst, clapped in irons again

and Titanic, greatest ship ever set sail from Belfast.

Because my mother wants children to know two things, that women are equal to men and that death is always around the corner.

Pretty soon, the curtains rise, and the play begins, the overture starts, and I stand there.

Time is up, it's now or never.

Pretty soon, my entrance comes on, and I

bowl in.

I strut onto the stage, bold, determined, round.

I get my first few lines out before the first volley of S's hit.

But hell, I go for them.

Money's sound.

Credit rates are moving up, up, up.

And the British pound is the admiration of the world.

I've done it.

I've cured my lisp.

I'm king of the S's.

I'm on top of the world.

And then my song starts.

My big introductory solo.

And this is when I remember that we aren't singing the songs live.

We can't be heard over the music.

And we're lip-syncing

like it's RuPaul's drag race.

the underage and Asian special

lip-syncing of course to the cast album

and so I have no choice but to go for it and three in front of 300 people I lip-sync to

I feel a surge of deep satisfaction but channel the king astride his noble steed

but you know it's okay because this serves as a reminder of of what I had just overcome, this past self that I had fixed, corrected with sheer determination and force of will.

And what's more, from the audience, a sound begins to ripple, a sound which I begin a long and vital addiction to.

Laughter.

A sound which to this day makes me feel a surge of deep satisfaction.

Thank you very much.

Phil Wang grew up in Malaysian Borneo until the age of 16 when he and his family moved to the UK.

I asked Phil if he held any resentment over the director's choice not to cast him as Bert, and he said, Pam definitely made the right call.

As I've grown older, I've realized that Mr.

Banks is in fact the heart of the story.

He's the one that undergoes the great change and learns how to be a father.

A couple of Christmases ago, I watched the film again and cried my eyes out at this epiphany.

He said that that first theater experience unleashed the performer in him, and he can still remember the excitement of being in the wings.

His love of the sound of laughter eventually led him into a career as a stand-up comedian and writer.

You can find his comedy special, Philly Philly Wang Wang, on Netflix, or check out his book entitled Sidesplitter, part comic memoir, part book of funny essays on the mixed race experience.

Thankfully, the event was well documented and Phil has shared a few priceless photos of the production, which you can find on our website, themoth.org.

If you're listening now and thinking, I have a story, well, why not share it with us?

What's the one thing people don't know about you?

I can legitimately say I was in a freak show.

It was 1972.

My best friend Kathleen and I were excited to be going to the Greene County Fair.

Let me paint a picture.

We were in camping shorts, pigtails, pre-braces, overbite, glasses.

We found ourselves several hours before pickup and with about $1.50 each.

So we made the decision to invest in a freak show.

And we thought we were in trouble when a woman came out and said, girls, girls.

instead she said we're a little shorthanded would you help us and so my friend Kathleen and I said sure I was miselectric audience members would come up and I would shock them poor Kathleen was uranium girl she sat in a folding chair with a pillowcase over her head and the barkers said if you look at her face you will be blinded We never traded.

She's still mad at me to this day.

You can go to our website, themoth.org, and look for Tell a Story and find out all the info for how to pitch us.

Or you can call us at 877-799Moth.

That's 877-799-6684.

Coming up, learning the true meaning of the show must go on and an unforgettable performance from Liz Fair when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Hey, it's Jill Schlesinger, CBS News business analyst, certified financial planner, and host of the podcast Money Watch with Jill Schlesinger.

It's a show where we answer your questions about your money, from investing to retirement and completing your taxes.

I'll be your financial coach and help take the stress out of managing your money.

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This is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Meg Bowles.

Fun fact, the phrase the show must go on originated back in the 19th century in the circus world.

Something unexpected happened, a performer was injured or an animal ran wild, the ringmaster would say the phrase to get the audience's attention and keep them calm.

These days, it's commonly used whenever anything unexpected happens that might put the show, whatever it might be, in jeopardy.

Ashley Johnson shared her very unexpected show must-go-on moment at a story slam we produced in Washington, D.C., in partnership with public radio station WAMU.

From the Miracle Theater, here's Ashley live at the mosque.

I am originally from Maryland and I knew at a young age that I wanted to be a professional actress.

I was one of those weird kids who would lock myself in the bathroom and look in the mirror and make myself cry because I was getting prepared for all the dramatic roles that I was going to play.

So I decided that after I graduated from college that I was going to move to Los Angeles.

So three months after graduating, I moved to LA, the place where dreams come true.

Well,

let's just say that things didn't quite work out how I thought they would when I got there.

So I ended up getting a corporate America job.

But it's okay because I figured I could work in corporate America while pursuing my acting career and I wouldn't have to be a starving artist.

So year one rolls by, I'm working in corporate America, not really doing anything acting related, but it's okay because I just got to LA still trying to find my groove.

Year two rolls by, got a promotion, not really doing anything acting related because I'm making money, more money than I've ever seen straight out of college.

Year three rolls by, year four rolls by, year five rolls by, and I am miserable.

I did not move to LA to work in corporate America.

I'm tired of sitting at that cubicle, so I quit.

And I knew that there were three things that I needed in order to pursue a career in acting.

I needed a good headshot, I needed training, and I needed an agent.

I had the headshot, was taking classes, doing the training, but I didn't have an agent.

So I started sending my resume out, my headshot and resume out to different agencies all over LA.

And one day, I got an email from an agency asking me to come in to audition.

So the big day for the audition arrives and I get to the office building where the agency is and I'm greeted by the receptionist.

She gives me two different scripts.

One is a commercial script and one is a dramatic script.

And she tells me that I have five minutes to prepare and that she'll come back and get me and take me to see the agents.

So I prepare.

I'm ready.

I go in the room.

I go through the commercial part of the audition.

Did a great job on that.

I go through the dramatic part of the audition, did a great job on that.

And I'm thinking I'm done.

I look over to my right.

Well let me tell you how the room was set up.

It was three agents one on my right one on my left and one in the middle.

So I look over on my right and I notice that the agent has my resume in his hand and he's staring at it a little longer than he should be and he's his eyes stop at the bottom of my resume.

He says, you sing?

And I'm like, yeah, I sing because I put it on my resume.

And he's like, let's hear something.

Okay, pause right there.

Three days earlier, I was having dental work done.

I've had a chipped tooth since I was a little girl, so I decided that if I'm going to take my acting career seriously, I need to get my tooth fixed.

So I decided to get a veneer, and if anyone, if you're not familiar with that, they pretty much shave your tooth down to nothing to put the permanent tooth on there.

Well, at least that was my experience.

So they did that, and they weren't able to give me the permanent tooth that day, so they gave me a temporary one, and they also gave me a plastic covering

to keep the tooth in place just in case.

Back to the audition.

You sing?

Yeah, I sing.

Let's hear something.

So I walk over to the agent's desk and I take a tissue off his desk without asking mind you and I spit the plastic covering

in the tissue and then I sit it on his desk.

I don't know why I did that.

My nerves must have got the best of me.

And I go back to the center of the room and I proceed to sing and boom.

The tooth falls out on the floor

I was so embarrassed it was so silent in there you could hear a pin drop well in this case you could hear a tooth drop

in that moment I had to make a decision a decision am I going to finish this audition or am I gonna run out of here from sheer embarrassment Y'all want to know what I did?

I picked the tooth up off the ground, popped it in my mouth, and sang my heart out.

So I'm happy to report to you all that I did end up getting signed by that agency.

I was awarded a contract, and they really didn't care about my missing front tooth after all, because as the saying goes in show business, the show must go on.

Ashley Johnson is still in Los Angeles and still acting.

Since sharing this story, Ashley has published three books and is now writing for TV and film.

She says, things might not happen on your exact timeline, but never give up.

Our final story comes from singer-songwriter Liz Fair, who in her long and successful career has experienced many a show must-go-on moment.

She shared this story at an event we produced at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, which was presented by public radio station WGBH.

Here's Liz Fair.

I had

a top 10 radio hit, a song called Why Can't I?

And the indie press was coming after me, accusing me of selling out.

Up until then, I'd been known for my raw and gritty sound, my confrontational lyrics.

I was famous for challenging the mainstream.

I was the girl who sang Fuckin' Run.

I was the girl who sang Supernova.

But that was the 1990s.

Now it was the 2000s.

And the music business had completely changed.

Pop music was all the rage.

This was the era of Britney Spears and InSync and Boys to Men.

And my small indie label had partnered with a major label to try to share in that success for their artists.

But when that partnership failed and they divested,

I became a negotiating point, almost collateral.

And I was left behind at the major label, a company that really only cared about getting hits.

On the one hand,

I was excited to be playing in the big leagues.

I'd grown up listening to radio, and I'd always wanted to hear myself on the airwaves.

And I was ambitious.

But on the other hand, I'd lost my anchor of the people who understood the kind of music I made and where I came from.

I quickly learned that on a major label, there are only two speeds.

You can idle in the back waters and go unnoticed and unpromoted, or you can plunge into the rushing river of commercial success.

It was sink or swim time for me, and I decided to swim.

So I worked with pop producers and we came up with a couple tracks that they thought would be commercially viable.

And I began to do back-to-back events, all of them scary.

I sang God Bless America at the opening Game of the World series.

I performed in amphitheaters.

I did interviews, videos, and photo shoots.

I was in a pop media circus.

When I got an offer to sing Winter Wonderland at the Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting in New York City, I was so excited.

I always loved Christmastime.

I thought it was such a sparkly and magical season in a very long and oppressive Chicago winter.

And as a 13-year-old,

I couldn't imagine any greater success than composing a classic Christmas carol, a song that would live forever.

And even though this wasn't going to be my own song, in some small way, I felt I was fulfilling a lifelong dream.

But the day of the performance, I was deathly ill.

I had the flu and a temperature of 103 degrees.

But I couldn't call in sick.

I'd been announced.

This was a live broadcast.

I had to show up for work.

When I got there, everyone was asking me questions and giving me instructions, and I was still learning the lyrics.

I was going to be singing along to a backing track, a format that I wasn't particularly comfortable with and didn't totally trust.

It seemed suspiciously like karaoke, and I totally suck at karaoke.

So I was distracted.

And I didn't notice until I looked up into the mirror and saw my reflection and saw that the hair and makeup team had given me like a news anchor face and Shirley temple ringlets.

And I was horrified.

I didn't even recognize myself.

And I turned to my tour manager and I whispered,

How bad is it?

Do you think anyone's gonna notice?

And he laughed.

And he's like, Truthfully, it's not great.

I mean, it's a look.

But we didn't have time to fix it.

I had to be out on set.

So they put this heavy blanket around my shoulders and they walked me outside onto the plaza.

And we stood there in the freezing cold, waiting for the broadcast to go to a commercial break.

I was shivering from head to toe.

Tremors were moving up and down my body.

My teeth were chattering so loudly that I was afraid it was going to be audible on air.

They'd constructed this little isolation booth,

kind of like a little tent, and they ushered me inside and sat me down on a stool.

The sound guy attached me to my microphone.

The lighting guys had these beauty lights glaring in my face, making my eyes water.

The camera guy was tracking his shot.

The hair and makeup team were still tugging on my hair and blotting my face.

I'd been the center of frenetic activity, a team of people for hours.

And then they all backed away and I was left by myself out there,

alone, facing the camera and five million people watching me live.

I could hear the sound of my raspy breath and the thud of my heart.

I knew I had to wait two bars before I started singing.

That was my cue.

And as I listened in my earpiece to the anchors introduce me, I waited for the music to start playing, but I didn't hear anything.

I started to panic, and finally, the track rose up in my ears.

I counted, I waited the requisite time, and I started singing.

Sleigh bells ring.

Are you listening in the lane?

Snow is glistening.

Something sounded a little off,

but I thought, okay, it's the audio mix, it's just strange.

And I plunge ahead into the second verse: Gone away

is the blue bird.

Something's still not right.

Here to stay is a new bird.

This sounds really off.

He sings a love song.

Oh, fuck, as we go along,

walking in a winter wonderland.

And that's when I realize I'm in the wrong part of the song.

The melody I'm singing is completely clashing with the chords.

It sounds awful.

It doesn't even sound recognizable.

And so I freeze and I stare straight ahead, listening intently as I try to find my way back into this song, listening for any clue as to what section I'm in.

But what the audience sees is a stupefied woman, slack-jawed, wide-eyed,

with 10 seconds of dead air, 15 seconds of dead air, 20 seconds of dead air.

And I can see my reflection in the camera lens, and it's those damn poodle curls again.

So by the time I hear the bridge chords, and I'm so elated that I actually know where I am,

my mind has gone completely blank and I can't remember any of the lyrics.

So I just start singing gibberish.

I'm pulling like phrases and words from other parts of the song, repeating myself until all of a sudden, it's just over.

And everybody rushes back in and they unhook all the equipment and they put the heavy blanket around my shoulders and they start walking me back inside.

And it's like I'm in a trance.

I'm totally numb.

I can't believe that just happened.

I can't believe I just humiliated myself in front of the greater metropolitan area of New York on live television.

Everybody feels incredibly sorry for me and they're all trying to reassure me that it wasn't as bad as I thought and everyone at home is making food and they're drinking and talking.

But I can tell from their faces that they're lying.

And I go back to my hotel room and instead of all the congratulatory calls and emails that usually happen, nobody knows what to say.

So the next morning, my manager calls, and I ask him, how bad was it?

Do you think anybody noticed?

And he's like, truthfully, Liz, it wasn't great.

Howard Stern has been making fun of me all morning, speculating that I had a stroke or that I was on drugs.

And and the indie music press is having a field day.

They've been waiting for me to fail, and this is almost too easy.

It's low-hanging fruit.

I remember one joke that my curls were so tight, oxygen couldn't get to my brain.

But I don't have time to feel sorry for myself, and I don't have time to recover from my illness.

I'm on to the next performance and the next.

But that was the beginning of realizing that I didn't belong here.

I didn't belong in this space.

If I'm not connected to my instrument or to my band,

if I don't feel passionately about the song that I'm singing,

if I'm not coming from a place of true authenticity, it's going to be a disaster.

So I

fulfilled my obligations and the season wound down.

But that was the point at which I truly let go.

Thank you.

Liz Fair is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who's been recording and touring for over 25 years.

Her debut album, Exile in Guyville, is considered by music critics to be a landmark of indie rock.

More than two decades later, her influences in contemporary music is felt more than ever.

Liz has also written a memoir entitled Horror Stories, which is a fun read, but also an insightful look into her experiences in the music world.

Now it's time for this show to wrap it up for now.

But we hope you'll join us again next time for the Moth Radio Hour.

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Meg Bowles, who also hosted and directed the stories in the hour.

Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch.

The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Janess, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa.

Our pitch came from Andrea Crouch from Lookout Mountain, Georgia.

Moss stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.

Our theme music is by the drift.

Other music in this hour from Chet Baker, George Gershwin, Jason Meshes, Cormack, the Sherman Brothers, Paul Leakin's world-famous Calliopes, and Liz Fair.

We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Rhys Dennis.

For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

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