Pure Imagination

Morning after the first weekend of "Willy Wonka the Musical."  I am typically zoned out.  Not helping is the fact that we've just "sprung forward" (which sounds even worse in the past tense.)  Jarrah kept moaning, "I'm so confused..." this morning when we woke her up in the dark.  "We are, too, sweetie."  "They should give a week off from school after the time change."  "I've been saying that all my life."

Looks to be a beautiful day, though.  It will be weird not to go to rehearsal.  The show went really well this weekend and I had my personal best on my solo number Saturday night--David and Jarrah were even there to see it.  By which I mean I got through the singing, the tango, the patter AND "the business" (which includes waving a tiny French flag around) without getting out of breath.  That part was the true triumph.  All the other times I've been secretly praying, "Please let me get to the end of this song without passing out."  Truth.

Everyone has been awesomely nice and we're having a lot of fun, but it's been an overwhelming week. For one thing, there are a lot more kids around on this show.  Sure, there were kids in "Bye Bye Birdie," but they kept the poor things sequestered in a tent outside the dressing room--here we're all together, and sometimes the noise level is pretty amazing.  The other thing is that until opening night, we weren't even sure we'd have a show--we were that behind in tech.  This show has a lot of complicated sets, sound and light cues, as well as video clips that have to be perfectly timed, of course.  None of that happened even at our Thursday night Tech Dress, which was performed for an audience of charter school students and their families.  Let's just say I was reassuring myself that at least they weren't paying.

By Friday, we miraculously had a show with all the bits in place, and except for a glitch here and there, that was true all weekend.  Even as I'm congratulating myself on a successful opening, I'm beginning that melancholy process of letting it all go, as we have one more weekend and then it becomes part of community theater history.  I don't have any other projects lined up, or auditions I'm looking forward to.  The next two shows with this group are for kids only.  Two other productions that interested me have show dates when I'll be away in May for my college reunion.  So I'll just have to keep my ear to the ground.

I'm sure it will be nice, for a couple weeks, not to race out after dinner into the chilly evening for rehearsals, but I know I'll get antsy soon.  What will be next?  Who knows?