The way things are (or the way they were?)

Serenading Louie...

It's been a hectic week of late nights, little time at home, and stress stress stress but it all seems to be winding down now (or should I say "up"?) to opening night, which is tonight! Things are coming together nicely, and I'm proud to say we have a nice little show to put up. It's kind of cool to think that it came from us, from nothing, and has become something special and (hopefully) moving, that wouldn't have been there without us... I must say, though, that I'm greatly looking forward to a nice weekend at home, with little responsibility, lots of rest and the first Hawks pre-season game!

Speaking of which, I've joined on as a contributor to my friend Matt's sports blog, The Zen of Ed Hochuli. Kind of interesting to write about sports! I'm sort of the token female, you know, providing the ladies' perspective and such... check it out if you're interested, Matt knows his stuff and his posts are fun to read (along with the other guys on the blog).

I realize I never really talked about "The Underpants" closing, I think I was kind of wrapped up in moving on to Serenading Louie. We had a good closing weekend with great crowds, and I'll definitely miss doing this play. The character was so much fun, and I felt honored that I got to go on such a fun journey as her each night. When you look close, there are really not too many plays out there with fleshed out, complex, strong female leads in my age range, so doing The Underpants was a real treat. And hard. Cause, dang. She was difficult... but I think that also contributed to how much I enjoyed playing her.

Shows at SecondStory don't really go out with a bang like some other theatres (closing night parties, etc.) They sort of close quietly with everyone moseying off in to the distance like they were in a Western. And you hope you see everyone again, work with everyone but... well that's the paradigm of most theatre friendships. You meet great people and you're the best of friends for 2 months while you rehearse and perform a show, and then they're pretty much gone. It's rare for a friendship to "stick" after a show and evolve into something beyond a professional friendship. It's kind of sad but it's really just the way things are. You can't force them. But when they do blossom into real "outside of the theatre" friendships, they are pretty darn strong because of the passion you share. Here's some irony for you: the people with whom you make these temporary theatre friendships during a show probably get to know more about you than a lot of your friends outside the theatre, because 1.) they are working directly and cooperatively with you every day at rehearsal, and 2.) acting is by nature a very personal process, and you open up quickly with people you're in a show with because, well, you have to.

Anyway, just some rambling thoughts I've had. It's a fascinating world to inhabit, and I'm so used to it I sort of can't see the forest for the trees. So it's nice to step back and make an effort to understand it once and a while.

That's all for now, I'm off to do some work and then get ready for opening night! Wish me broken legs!