Thank You Places

May 9, 2007

Mornings are particularly challenging during tech week. I forget… it's been too long. I've somehow managed to not be involved in one – as full-fledged crew - for long enough to lose momentum. Not since September… and then there was also a mountain of peripheral stresses. So I wake up in the mornings reluctantly. Wasn't it just a few short hours ago when I closed my eyes... because inevitably after moving like molasses through the rest of my day, I am always wide awake at that final hour of getting home.

And I ask myself why I do it. Running crew is one of the more thankless jobs in theater. You can't even watch the show. A number of tedious moments crammed into close quarters with piles of furniture and sweaty actors, who always manage to get in the way when we try to achieve a swap of said furniture in under thirty seconds. All to just wait for the next exchange and dodge the curtains flapping with the drafts of doors closing and actors sweeping across the stage.

Plus, we don't get to leave at night. The actors go home. We stay until midnight… later… to paint the floor, to fill in holes, to move more furniture to impossible hiding places in the little theater. Even as the feet ache, the eyes grow heavy, and the shoulders are knotted with so much stress. (Have I had time for a decent run in the past four days? Of course not.)

But there are special moments… minute as they are… that somehow justify the sleep depravation, the turning of one's skin to Hulk green, and the invisibility. Like painting said floor when in comes a Hovey local at some random hour of the night, offering to get us beer, as the director granted the request to crank up the Dropkick Murphy's to my favorite assonant song. Or abating the sore feet by choreographing our own dance moves to the fabuloulsy performed disco and rap numbers. The gratitude of the actors who actually get crew… because they've done it. And the... truly wonderful camaraderie and inside humor amongst the other amazing crew.

This one isn't the same without Mahthah… but… there will be enough fun to keep me going through the next two weekends, enough to not regret sacrificing my time or sleep yet again.