No matter how often you check your props, costumes, instruments, something always seems to go wrong when you least expect it.  I suppose that's the beauty of live theatre and thank "the powers that be" for awesome actors.  As Emily calls it, this was my "Erhu nightmare"

So for those who heard, or haven't heard, after Cassandra exits, I have to play the "Trojan Women" theme song on the Erhu. Well, the Erhu didn't want to cooperate that day.  I tuned it up prior to show, and was ready to go.  Everything's cool.

Okay, now comes time to whip out the Erhu.

Took it off the hook - no problem. 

Took it out of the bag - The slip knot didn't slip...bugger. 

Took the Erhu out - No problem. 

Started to play - Dammit, the bloody thing is out of tune. 

"What the hell am I going to do?"  Well, my first thought was just to improvise something, but as I started playing, I was thinking "I can't improvise something because the song is played throughout the show, if I improvise something, it wouldn't work for when Hecuba and the chorus actually have their big musical number.  I better tune the damn thing."

So I ended up tuning it on stage.  I'm sure it sounded awful. However, I am so thankful that I got it done fairly quickly.  Afterwards, I was able to play the theme song...in a different key, but managed to finish it.

Maybe I should think of a contingency plan should this happen again….Like playing the song on 1 string instead of two.