Roar and Glare

We are in the theater. After rehearsing in a junior high common room for six weeks, we're finally on the real stage, with the real sets, and I'm doing some painfully real stumbling over chairs and beds that I didn't know were going to be there.

But would I trade it for all the Gucci shoes in the world? Not a chance. Hell Week is the best. The excitement of being in the theater for the first time. The feel of the lights on your face (changing every second as the lighting designer tweaks them so you don't look too green.) Finding your little corner of the dressing room. Giggling back stage when someone says something crazy to lighten the tension.

We're all a little crazy, giddy, heightened, expectant. We've got something coming. Friday night. People. To see us. And we're getting ready for them. We're gonna DO IT UP.

And all the stiff formality, polite small talk, awkward silences of the rehearsal time is gone, baby, gone. We're all friends now. Or at least co-workers with the best, most unified job in the world. Adults and kids mingle freely, laughing at the same jokes, sharing our theater horror stories. That one guy who always sat in the corner blowing his nose is a buoyant lark. I've got everyone's names down, character and actual. We're sharing lipstick and fixing each other's collars, comparing notes on our drugstore pantyhose, and in whispers, doing something very much resembling sharing our deepest hopes and dreams, because that is what people do backstage, and one of the things that makes the theater life so very addicting.

Dear Readers, we are about to put on a SHOW.