Stage Management

So I know Wednesday is usually Hot Link Wednesday, but I'm gonna save Hot Link day for a day when I really don't have anything to write.  Maybe tomorrow, or Friday.  Anyway - we had rehearsal tonight - the first solid tech-thru since cue-to-cue on Sunday.  

I was recently bitching to someone about how I feel like I haven't really been giving my all to this play that I'm stage managing, and how I felt bad about that.  Stage management can be a very thankless job, and I think I was sort of feeling that before it was even happening.  But. 

But tonight was an awesome night.  I forgot.  I forgot how awesome it is to put up a show, and to hang out with like-minded people who love to create theater, and who like to stay after rehearsal and shoot the shit and talk about nothing...and everything...

I forgot.  I forgot how much fun it is to give line notes in the presence of the playwright, who totally appreciates that you are making sure that the actors are saying the lines that are supposed to be said, the lines that she put herself into when she was writing them on the page. 

I forgot.  I forgot the camaraderie that develops in the booth between the designers and the stage manager, as I try to turn their vision into each set change, each lingering moment of letting the actors and the scene "breathe" for just the right amount of time before pulling the audience into the next scene.  

I forgot all of this because I was looking at it as a job, a task that needed to be done, and not a joy.  A lifestyle choice.  A hobby, and a dream come true. 

So I'm posting this in the hopes that next time I am going into tech week feeling like an unmoored boat, I remember that it really all does come together, and that it's fun, and that that's why I do this in my spare time, when I could be sleeping or watching bad television or reading a book.  Because I love it.