why
break a leg?

VERSION 1 - 1970. El Paso, Texas.

I first heard the expression “break a leg!” during my freshman pre-registration at Ysleta High School, back in the 'burbs of El Paso, Texas. I was 14. At the end of the day I was still exploring the campus trying to get the hang of my new high school. I poked into the cool darkness of Ysleta’s magnificent 1000 seat art-deco auditorium and discovered a Senior Thespian Play already in rehearsal. The Thespians were all fourth year actors who had actually started rehearsing their back-to-school play before regular classes had started.
         My eyes were adjusting to the dark as I first heard my future drama teacher Ms. Lynna Counts say those inexplicable words. Actually, those were not the very first words I ever heard her say. Her first words were much more disturbing. I stood just inside the door. She was sitting with her back to me in the middle of a darkened and empty seating area facing and directing a brightly lit stage. It was full of kids older than me. The first words I ever heard from her were the shouted commands to “Kill the baby spot !” and “Bring up the Bastard Amber!”.

Hold on.

...Kill the “baby”what? ... The “bastard” ? It was the 70’s and I was raised Lutheran. It’s hard to believe now, but us kids could barely talk like that secretly to our friends back then. How could a teacher get away with that kind of language out in the open?
         Before I could either sit or run, the rehearsal ended. The house lights came on. I felt exposed and naked because I could now be seen standing in the aisle. Lynna Counts shouted to the cast “All of you: ‘break a leg!’”. She stood and turned seeing me for the first time. She was a pretty lady (for a teacher). She frowned at me.
      “What do YOU want?” she growled.
I stammered out the words, “I swear... I swear I didn’t hear a thing,” and I bolted from the theater.

Five days later school started and I re-met Ms. Counts. She was to be my first year drama teacher. She didn’t remember me, which was good. Somehow she had softened her attitude from the rehearsal of several evenings before. As the school days went by I enjoyed 'Beginning Acting' and I grew pretty much unafraid of her. After a few weeks I asked her (privately after class, of course) about the ‘baby-killing’ the ‘bastard’ and all of the ‘leg breaking’.
         She seemed surprised for a second and then she began to rock with gentle laughter, but it wasn't mocking... Come to find out, the baby in question was a ‘baby spotlight’. To kill it meant to kill the electricity running to it because the director wanted it turned off. Then there was a ‘Bastard-Amber’ gelatin or ‘gel’ [a heat resistant colored filter] that went over a spotlight allowing the lamp to project a darker, redder amber color. The name ‘bastard’ used in this context was acceptable because a bastard amber was darker and different from the other ambers gels available.
         Lastly she told me that to “break a leg!” was a time-honored expression of good luck that had been around for many years in the theater. She speculated that in the make-believe world of theater it would be bad luck to wish an actor ‘good luck’. In fact, she asked what was the worst thing that could happen to an actor who followed the time-honored tradition of ‘the show must go on’? A dedicated actor could only be stopped by a broken leg. By wishing the worst, one hoped the that worst would never happen, see? She said it was an expression of ‘irony’.
      OK. This didn’t make a lot of sense to me but I never said so. At that strange and peculiar moment I was totally distracted and overwhelmed by the crush that I had just developed for Ms. Lynna Counts. I was 14. She was in her late 20’s. At that tingly moment she could have broken either of my legs for luck if she wanted. I probably would’ve said "Wow. Great. Whatever...".



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