Rodrigo Lopez, 2003 Donruss Elite #9

Right off the bat, I apologize for the above scan. This is one of those charming cards with an all-foil background, so naturally all that shows up are the fingerprints.

As baseball players are a superstitious breed, Rodrigo Lopez is one of the few Orioles of any note to wear #13. Steve Barber is still the best of the lot, of course. Although this happens to be my favorite number, I must admit to belonging to another group that is heavy on superstition: Theatre People. You might be familiar with some of the classics. Before a show, you never wish an actor good luck. You must say "break a leg", which is just morbid and perverse, but charming nonetheless. Any utterance of MacBeth, a traditionally cursed play, is verboten. When speaking of one of Willie Shakespeare's finest works, you are to refer to it only as "the Scottish play". (As an interesting aside, one of my drama professors once directed a production of the aforementioned play, and decided that he alone was suited for the lead role. On opening night, as he jumped off of a platform for his death scene, he landed awkwardly and suffered a collapsed lung. He made a full recovery, but was forced to watch from the sidelines as someone else took the reins for the remaining performances.)

There are less universal superstitions that pervade the stage world, as well. The theatre building at my college was known to be haunted. One of the ghosts was a young girl; to keep her happy, all senior thesis productions featured a toy duck (or ducks) somewhere on the set.

The theatre folk adage that's weighing heavily on my mind at present is the notion that it's a good omen to have a final dress rehearsal that runs less than smoothly. Supposedly this means that you're getting the last few hiccups out of your system before it really matters. If it were all the same to me, I'd feel much more confident heading into an actual performance knowing that I was already clicking on all cylinders. But I think that's part of the mythos; if you breeze through the final dress, you might let your guard down and foul up when you're least expecting it.

In an hour, I have my final dress rehearsal for "The Frustrations of Stoker Pratt", a hilarious new play written by my friend Liam. I would love for it to go smoothly, but I have absolute confidence that the finished product will be polished and entertaining no matter what. (This is more a belief than a superstition; "Theatre Magic" has helped every play I've been involved with to turn out well, no matter how rough the rehearsal process had been.) At any rate, if you're in the Washington, DC area over the next few weeks and want to support the arts and have a few laughs, check it out and ease my neurotic fear that no one will come to the show. Email me with any questions.

Time to go break some legs.