Just finished playing for one production.  Performance week is always the big adrenaline rush.  Right up to the bittersweet final performance when a few tears are shed, extra long hugs are given, and you snap a few pictures with your favorite people.  That’s the culmination of all the work.

I went right from that show to directing the FDSH Spring musical.  I’m at the very beginning – teaching choreography, confirming music cuts (if and when they are necessary), giving out the blocking, etc.  It feels like I am forever away from polishing, taking/giving notes after a full run of the show, giving make up and hair the thumbs up (or thumbs down!) . . . the thrill of performance and the stress of tech week seem so far off in the distance.  But I know it will all be here sooner than I think.

Today it was reviewing staging/choreo for tomorrow night’s rehearsal, confirming the assignment of some minor speaking parts, and tweaking music cuts to make a song work just a little bit better for the pit and the actors.  That kind of work can be time-consuming.  And it NEVER gets applause.  But I love even the “tedious” stuff like that.  Teaching the choreo and the blocking can be repetitive but I love to see the progress.  Even when that progress is a baby step forward.  I absolutely adore getting to work with new faces as well seeing how much familiar faces have grown since last year.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, I have had some paperwork/planning to take care of for the summer youth theater program I direct.  Scheduling rehearsals, creating the audition packets, etc.  We are still several weeks out from auditions so the fun is nowhere near beginning for that just yet!

This part isn’t fun.  To most people.  And it definitely isn’t glamorous.  But it is thick with possibility!  With the Senior High show, the pieces are starting to come together.  For the summer program, we are putting some tools in place to increase parental involvement AND we are growing the program in some fun ways!  To an outsider looking in, this is the boring stuff.  But to a theater geek like me?  The excitement has already begun to build and the possibilities of what will be are still in front of me.  To some, this phase of production is seen as a “necessary evil.”  To me, it’s just a different kind of wonderful.