Time woke up: 6:07 (excellent), time got out of bed: 6:25 (not bad), minutes took getting to school: not entirely sure (and really, who cares?)
It’s dark backstage, black like shoes, like coal, like soil. Whispers whisk and toes tap. People push past people, past props –– a piano, a chair. I love it back here: here in the wings, without light, without words, where person morphs into character and back. I love listening for cues, moving furniture and changing sets. I love the quick, quiet conversations snuffed out early by an angry “shhhh…”, a “be quiet”. I love being part of the workings, like the belts and pulleys in a clock, the dials and turns. That’s what plays are. A series of sections pulled and knotted together and then tossed out on stage, vulnerable like chicks or pups, until it hatches and grows into something bigger, more vast than expected.
Onstage, it’s a different world. Lights beaming, faces in the audience blurred, their laughter and reactions the only clue that they’re alive and paying attention. High-school plays have a genre all to themselves. There is something that sets them apart from any other play put on by any other acting company. Perhaps it’s the set, built by students and parents, painted by students and parents. Perhaps it’s the fact that for every play, there are a hundred rehearsals, a thousand conversations and smiles and laughs. Perhaps it’s the youth, the energy and quirks of young people, the inside jokes, the odd friendships, the maturity just starting to peek up from behind mounds of innocence, childishness.
The audience is clapping now. Loud, fast. Through the cracks between the flats of the backdrop, I can see them, dim, and the actors, bright, bigger than life. These are the moments when discoveries are made, talents surface, satisfaction is gripped and held and cherished. These are the moments where people shine, shine like they might not ever again.
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