Fifteen Minutes: And the Show Goes On...

The clenched fist flew into Nick H. Weil '00 and instantly, the audience knew this was no ordinary Harvard show. Saturday night, during a production of the Gershwin musical "Crazy for You" at the Hasty Pudding Theatre, the fake fighting on the stage got out of hand and real blood was spilled. "It didn't hurt," Weil recounts of the stage fight gone bad. "I just whirled around as usual. I did everything as choreographed, and then as I was bent over, I saw pools of blood on the stage." But even after the incident, he decided to keep performing--after all, it was only the beginning of the second act. "As long as I wasn't woozy or anything, I had to keep going. I owed it to the audience and the company to carry on," he says. Weil stayed for another 30 minutes, which included the show-stopping, spangled finale. After the final curtain call and standing ovation, the assistant director rushed Weil, still in full costume and stage makeup, to University Health Services, where doctors washed away his foundation and blush to clean the "Y-shaped laceration" above his left eyebrow. Because of the nature of the injury, they then had to send him to Beth Israel Hospital, where doctors gave him eight stitches. Ever the consummate actor, Weil was on stage the next day as Wyatt, the cowboy. And he'll be there this weekend too. Nothing can stop Weil--he's "Crazy for You."

--V. C. HALLETT