The emptiness theater kids feel after a show is real. You’ve been filled with scheduling and rehearsals, building up to this moment when outsiders can see exactly what you’ve been working on for so long. And then after the stress and the tears and the drama, you give this wonderful performance, the cast comes together in a spectacular moment. Then it’s over. And you have nothing to fill your nights and you have nothing to stress over. Suddenly you’re a regular person again and you can feel the emptiness in your heart that each show fills. You take down the set and put the costumes away. The stage becomes a blank slate once again, just waiting for you to create something new and amazing on it once more. All the messes backstage are cleaned up and the lights are off, as if no one has ever been there yet. It’s empty and hollow and sad.
The place for you to create is just sitting there waiting for you create. For the cast and crew to work tireless hours, without a break, to bring together a different universe on the stage that we can all dissolve in for only an hour and a half. But now it’s over and the ghosts return to their empty home and wait for theater kids to return for them to haunt. Costumes are put back where they belong, as if no one has ever worn them. Wood and nails return to the scene shop as if they didn’t once create the platform or the walls of someone’s home, if for only a moment. Props go back to their places, as if they weren’t used to make an audience laugh. And the dramatic pause is held onstage until a new production begins, until the stage is occupied again with drama queens, techies and shy kids alike.
The place where auditions are held and where strike takes place. A stage where kids realize their talent and find a new home. Then the home closes if only for a week, but the family stays. We feel the emptiness if only for a moment, once the lights have been shut off for the last time, the audience claps for the last time and we take our final bows. IT seems like the end of the world almost, as if we will never feel this good again, there will never be these good of times, we will never make these best of memories ever again. We change out of our character, wipe off our makeup and go home. Just ready and waiting until the next show. And we start all over again.
