Fund in Memory of Jordan S. Nichols

It was late on a Sunday evening when everything Jackie Nichols had worked for, everything he'd put his energy and imagination into creating, fell horribly into perspective. His life's biggest achievement, a $12.5 million performing arts center on the corner of Cooper and Union, was nearly ready for its public debut. Playhouse on the Square's alumni were flying in from across the country. The press was calling for interviews. The bills were already paid. And as if any man needed more reason to be proud of his hometown legacy, his son, Jordan, had returned from New York to star in the first show being staged in the theater his father built.

But on Jan. 3, one phone call turned everything upside down. Nichols doesn't remember whose voice it was, only the urgent tremble in it. Two minutes later, the producer and his wife, Leah, were rushing into the Blue Monkey, a bar two blocks from his house in Midtown. The room was still, as if the curtain were closing on a Greek tragedy. Jay Rapp, the choreographer of the upcoming musical "Pippin," was counting out a rhythm one only hears in medical dramas. One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! ... Jackie's 24-year-old son was on the floor, lifeless, save for the blood circulating through his body via CPR chest compressions administered by waitress Tara Miller. "I saw my son lying there and I felt a tightening of my whole body," Jackie said. "I was shriveling up on the inside like an enormously bitter lemon. Nothing else mattered at that moment."

'A very uncommon thing' Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome sounds like it might have been concocted by an amateur playwright for a bad night of mystery dinner theater. Or a satirist, ribbing the thriller genre. But what seems contrived for fiction is a real possibility for those who inherit a rare genetic flaw. Only within the last 20 years have doctors figured out why, on occasions, a healthy young man with no history of heart problems will go to sleep one night and never wake up. Doctors now call it another name: Brugada Syndrome. Maybe just once in a lifetime, an unknown trigger shuts off the body's power to the heart. With no warning, it just stops. Only an electrical shock can restart it.

"It's a very uncommon thing," said Dr. James Porterfield, an electrophysiologist at Methodist University Hospital. "I started practicing in Memphis in 1981 and have seen only five or six cases. Most of the time you only find out someone has it after they drop down dead." And that's how Jordan found out. Scott Ferguson, director of "Pippin," said the cast had spent the entire day rehearsing, but Jordan wasn't one to pass up on a chance to hang with his fellow actors, even when he was tired. "He was halfway through his first drink, talking about New York, and he just fell backwards in mid-conversation," Ferguson said. "I thought he tripped. But then he was lying there, gasping for air. His head hit the floor really hard. We all thought that was the reason." The ambulance arrived 12 minutes later. Paramedics shocked him seven times before rolling him out on the gurney. "That's what was so scary," Ferguson said. "They were shocking him for so long. No one talked or left for 30 minutes." When word got out, Jordan's supporters rushed to the hospital. In came the cast of "Pippin," and then the staff of Playhouse, who were more like family. Thespians inundated the waiting room as the drama reached an intense climax. The hospital staff ushered them into the chapel. Jackie thought it was all over at that point. "This can't be a good sign," he remembered thinking. "But as it turned out, the reason was that we were such a large group of people. There was more room for us there."

New beginnings There's a lyric from the musical "Pippin" -- from the opening number, in fact -- that has taken on a much deeper meaning for Jackie now. "We've got magic to do, just for you We've got miracle plays to play We've got parts to perform, Hearts to warm, Kings and things to take by storm As we go along our way." Jackie didn't choose "Pippin" for his son to star in. The title was proposed more than a year ago, when Jordan was in New York performing in "The Fantasticks." Then he went to Washington and was in the world premiere of a musical called "Giant," which didn't end up transferring to Broadway. If it had, Jordan would likely be there now. "We decided on 'Pippin' because it's a show about new beginnings," Jackie said. "It's about the search for meaning in life. We were opening a new theater. It was the right show for the occasion. It was just lucky for all of us that Jordan could be here to do it." Luck. Magic. Coincidence. When Jordan's friends add up the circumstances that resulted in Jordan surviving his first -- and perhaps only -- Brugada encounter, the words "miracle play" don't overstate the case. They point out that "Pippin" was the first show Jordan ever performed in, at age 4. Returning to it 20 years later put him in the hands of those who could help him -- people such as the part-time Blue Monkey waitress and full-time nursing student who performed CPR. Or the cadre of world-renowned Memphis heart doctors that attended to Jordan, including Porterfield, who installed the pager-size defibrillator in his chest, which will be Jordan's safety net for the rest of his life. Years ago, the same doctor put a defibrillator in the chest of Jordan's grandfather, who had heart disease. Jackie doesn't see it as coincidence. His boy was meant to be in Memphis. Porterfield agreed on the fortuity of Jordan's survival: "Everything fell into place."

The show goes on When "Pippin" opens on Friday, Jordan will be in the audience, replaced onstage by another Memphis actor who, like him, had gone off to New York to try to make it. It's not that Jordan couldn't handle the part, physically. Aside from some short-term memory loss and a sore throat from the breathing tube when he was unconscious in the hospital, he's still able to sing, dance, act and walk around on his own. "It's unnerving because even though the doctors say I can do anything, I'll always wonder what might set it off again," Jordan said. He's staying in Memphis through March, where he can recuperate with friends and family. To his father's success building a nonprofit theatrical empire in Midtown, which is now up to four stages, Jordan adds his destiny as a performing artist. "My dad bred me with a respect for the theater that most actors can't fully appreciate," he said. "I grew up seeing every single aspect of what he does, from the acting to the picking of the season to the running of the business. There's so much that goes into it. "If there's one thing I've learned from him, it's that no matter what happens, no matter how overwhelming things can get, you always have to love what you're doing. "No matter what happens, the show will go on.