Going Batty: Leaving The Cave

Yes, Bat Boy wrapped a few weeks ago.  Sorry it has taken me this long to write about it.  There are a lot of great pictures on my Facebook, should you have access to that and care to look.  :-)

Every theatre person probably understands the term "post-show depression."  It is brought on by the sudden void of rehearsal, adrenaline, creativity, and cast-family when a show closes.  It might be characterized by a sudden sadness, emptiness, and boredom, which may start during or immediately following closing night and strike.

Almost everyone in our cast and crew expressed that they experienced post-show depression, which is ironic because in the weeks before the show, things got very stressful.  Out of respect for the school and my cast family, I won't elaborate on the causes of stress.  Extra rehearsals meant that leading up to opening night we'd been together every day for over two weeks for about 6 hours at a time (to put it into perspective: this is a community college show, and we were originally scheduled to rehearse only five days a week for 3 or 4 hours).  Our dedicated technicians worked even longer hours than the cast did, sometimes from early morning into very late at night.  Technical and artistic elements slowly and painfully came together, and we were scared for what the final product of the show would be.

The night before our final dress rehearsal Carl took the time to talk to me about how obviously discouraged I was with both some people and the process as a whole.  As always, he helped me find the fire burning inside of myself to keep going and strive for excellence.  Might sound strange, but he told me the story of Shakespeare's Henry the V.  At the darkest hour of war, this exchange took place:

King Henry V: I know not if the day be ours or no.
Mountjoy: The day is yours.

That evening I went home believing that "the day" or rather, the show, would be ours.

You know what?  The day was ours.  The miracle I was hoping for happened.  We put on a show I was proud of.  I managed to sing and act and get my dance steps right, all at the same time. :-p I watched my fellow cast members do amazing things: encourage one another, power through serious sickness, help one another, and react gracefully during unexpected mini disasters.  We built upon our work and played to our audience, with each performance becoming better than the last.  I had the time of my life; spending almost every waking hour in the theatre and being a part of a community of hilarious, talented, and loving people.  We finally started to live and breath the show, quoting and singing it throughout our daily lives until we couldn't escape it even in our sleep!

Carl has a tradition of writing a poem for the closing night of a show and reading it to his cast.  There was barely a dry eye in the room, including his, on the closing night of Bat Boy.  We had left "the cave" and walked into the beautiful light of a world we had created together.  The sweat, tears, and laughter of this show will resonate with us for a long time.