NEW YORK, NY (GlossyNews) — On May 18, 2010, the economically embattled country of Greece received 14.5 billion euros ($17.9 billion USD) in aid from what Greek bankers presumed to be the European Union.
A banking official close to orchestrating a deal with the EU announced the following day, “The 14.5 billion euros was transferred to Greece a short while ago, through an anonymous donor that we believe to be the ECB [European Central Bank].”
The loan, which accompanied 5.5 billion euros from the IMF last week, was seen as a godsend by officials across the country. Unfortunately, their excitement was premature. Today, the mysterious benefactor came forward to demand the money back.
Bernard Jorsz of the American Theater Company broke the news this morning during a press conference held in New York. “We completely understand how embarrassing this is to the good people of Greece, but due to several bookkeeping discrepancies and a clerical error in shipping, money we had planned to invest in a European production of the Broadway musical ‘Grease’ was inadvertently diverted to the ailing nation. Apologetic as we are, we need that money back. Our ticket holders, our board of directors, our producers and our backers simply won’t look the other way on this.”
Jorsz spoke briefly with Greek prime minister George Papandreou to discuss a compromise where the money would be used to fund the production in Greece instead of Western Europe. The Greek government, however, could not guarantee the same resource commitments or audience draw that producers projected for Europe. In the end, the potential deal fell through.
“We’re not giving up on them,” Jorsz concluded. “I think we can talk the producers of ‘Jersey Boys’ into a similar deal. It’s an awful musical here, but Greek audiences will probably love it.”
Grease the musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School, follows ten working-class kids as they master the arts of love, cars and smoking. At the time it closed in 1980, Grease’s 3,388-performance run was the longest yet in Broadway history.
Greece the country traces its roots to the civilization of ancient Greece, generally considered to be the cradle of Western civilization. It is widely esteemed as the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic Games, Western literature, political science and thousands of sodomy jokes. By the close of 2009, Greece was one of the most bankrupt countries in the EU.