River Campus 'Spamalot' performance held up by more than just weather

Weather wasn't the only thing holding up the cast of "Spamalot" on its way to Cape Girardeau Sunday. The tour bus was a few hundred yards behind an accident on an interstate in Illinois that held up traffic for several hours.

Most ticket holders were notified about the canceled show Sunday afternoon. Bob Cerchio, River Campus assistant director, said about 50 people showed up to the theater and found out in person.

Southeast Missouri State University will mail a check to people who bought tickets with cash or check. The charge for credit card users will be refunded to their card. People who paid with cash or check should call the box office at 651-2265 to verify their mailing address.

Cerchio said the River Campus is trying to reschedule "Spamalot" with a spring date, but that it would be tough to fit the show into an already meaty calendar of events.

The show is touring in 2011 and Cerchio said Southeast would "definitely shoot for next year."

The show was in Milwaukee on Saturday and had a performance scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Bedell Performance Hall in Cape Girardeau.

Under normal driving conditions, the cast would have reached Cape Girardeau in plenty of time, Cerchio said. The snow slowed the bus down but alone wouldn't have stopped the show.

"For several hours, they just couldn't move" due to the accident, Cerchio said. "Some of the people in their cars were running out of fuel. That's how serious this was."

After the bus was clear from the accident, the snowstorm became another factor. Cerchio said a representative on the bus with the cast called him and said visibility was about three car lengths and they were driving at 20 to 30 mph and he knew they weren't going to make it on time.

"We take it one step at a time," Cerchio said.

Normally a cast arrives in town with time to check into a hotel, settle in and then head to the theater. When the cast got stuck behind the accident, Cerchio said, the actors decided to skip the hotel and come straight to the theater.

"It just kept getting later and later and later," he said.

At the least, the actors need about an hour to get dressed and apply makeup and wire the microphones, "and that would have been rushing it," Cerchio said.

Cerchio said River Campus staff called news outlets and began calling ticket holders as soon as the decision was made to cancel the show. When people buy a ticket, the box office creates an account for them with a phone number and address.

"We called or left messages with 90 percent of ticket buyers," Cerchio said.

One of them was Bernard Landewe. He and his wife Shari had tickets for the show and got a call around 5 p.m. telling them it was canceled.

"We understand that it was just impossible for them to get here on time," Landewe said.

He and his wife attend one or two shows a season, and "Spamalot" made the cut this year.

"We like a good laugh. I'm a fan of satire and parody," he said.

Landewe said he would buy tickets to "Spamalot" again if the theater is able to reschedule the show.

Cerchio said in his 34 years of scheduling theater shows, he's only seen three canceled due to weather.

"It's frustrating, but when the big man gives us snow, what're you going to do?" he said.

charris@semissourian.com

388-3641