If you lived in the Bay City area and you did musical theater, eventually, you would work with Patricia Ankney – also known as Miss Pat.

Miss Pat was short and fat, was a good, but demanding, director, and had a nasty temper if you got on her wrong side.

In her later years, she used a cane.

If you pissed her off enough, she would hit you with her cane.

Once she threw an empty (glass) bottle at someone on stage.

And yet, she was (mostly) beloved.

When Miss Pat was rehearsing her orchestra, she expected appointed cast members to bring treats for the orchestra.

Now, understand – I’ve been on both sides of this.  I’ve played in pit orchestras and I’ve been a performer.

Pit is much easier.

There is a lot less rehearsal time.  You don’t have to memorize anything.  And you are not expected to do anything beyond show up and play the music.

Cast members had a lot of rehearsal, a lot of stuff to memorize, and we also had to help build (and move) sets.

Still, if Miss Pat wanted her orchestra to have cookies.  They got cookies.

I forget which show, but I was supposed to bring the cookies.

I brought store bought cookies.

Miss Pat had a fit.

I was told in no uncertain terms that only home baked cookies would do for her orchestra.

Fine.

I immediately went home and I baked chocolate chip cookies for the orchestra.

And before I brought them in, I licked each and every cookie.

And I hope they enjoyed those cookies every bit as much as I enjoyed preparing them.