Day 31 - Theater Day off

Finally a day off from the theater.

All week last week I've been down at the theater, virtually from the time I get up, to 10, 11, or 12 at night.  Long days, but I love it.

I've been helping create the set, assisting the director and Stage Manager, setting up the captions and most of all fighting with the bloody projectors.

Of all the things that could go wrong, the projectors were by far the worst.  For Children of a Lesser God we wanted the show to be accessible to everyone.  Even the hard of hearing.  That meant the captions had to be clear and well formatted.  We have three projectors spanning the whole screen, and they never seem to want to co operate with us.  Almost every performance there's been something wrong with them.  And it's really hurt our productivity because we're fighting with them.

Sigh

Even when the show isn't going on, there's drama.

I won't go into all the details, because I'm not about to gossip about people on a large public forum like this... but let's just say - Theater is fluid.

If the projectors are working, sometimes the people aren't.  And that's the beauty and challenge of theater.

I love it all though.  Even more than sitting at home, reading or playing games.  Because I'm telling a story, I'm helping to anyways.  And more than that, I'm building relationships with other people, that are simply amazing.  You really grow to love the people in your show, at least I do in this one.  We've become a team, supporting and looking out for each other.  And even though we haven't done a perfect show where everything is RIGHT down to a T, we're still doing our best to make it come as close to a perfect 10 as we can.

So today I feel a little down sometimes.  I miss running in there and working on the show.  And even more, I miss seeing the cast come in during call and the comaradrie.

Friday night we opened the show officially, and had an opening party afterwards.  Everyone was in high spirits, after over 3 months of rehearsals, the show was ON!  So we went out to BP's after to celebrate.  I really really wish I could've stayed longer.  We were having so much fun, but I had to leave a half hour after.  My wife was home sick and hadn't seen me for more than 5 minutes all week.

Unfortunately, she was so exhausted she had gone to bed shortly before I got home.  And I didn't get home til 1am.

Still, she's glad I'm not there tonight.

Tommorow though!! 5 straight shows!!  Then it ends.

But not to worry, I'm already going to be working with someone else on Titanic, and then after that I've offered our director my assistance with Joseph's Technicolor Coat, and STILL after that, I'm helping our Stage Manager with Brigadoon.

I'm hooked, and there's nothing I like doing better, than being part of all this.  How this will work with my future in IT?  I don't know... One way or another, I'll find a way, because more than anything else, this is really where I want to be.

Theater Junkie