Day 10 - What I love about my job
Having to answer this question right now is either extreme irony or some sort of blessing.
What I love about my job… Well. This week a lot of the things that I might have said I love about my job are the things causing me to hate it… But that is the trick of theatre… It can turn on you at a moments notice.
I love lists. I love the week before rehearsals start combing through the script, making lists of props, lights sound. Contact lists. Schedules. I love the 1st day of rehearsal. The meet and greet, the first read. So much anticipation and excitement in the air. Its like I get to have a first day back to school ever 6 weeks or so.
I love the creative force in the room on a really productive day. Its unstopable and it gives you tingles all over. I love that as the Stage Manager I have this amazing birds eye view to it all.
I love the mothering role I slip into, it feels as natural as daycare to make sure there is water, to find bandaids, to answer questions. Later on having built up this relationship is vital as they slowly lose their minds before opening night.
I love the 1st Tech day. The Theatre for a few hours without actors… some breathing space. And calling the shots and having complete control of the room after the actors have arrived. The way it feels to run a cue perfectly for the first time… the sound of Program Sound in a booth — My favorite sound in the entire world.
I love Opening Night. The walls bursting with energy. The little gifts. The reception after. The cast and crew feeling like High Rollers… no matter the production.
The relationship you devolop with a cast in the 4 or so weeks of a run can be unreal. (It can also be awful. and volatile. and make you forget everything you ever loved about the show, sometimes about any show). So much emotion in a such tiny spaces being unleashed for days on end is pretty powerful stuff.
I love no matter how bad the show, No matter how good the show, it always has an expiry date, a countdown and you are on to another set of firsts. I love that I get to see both new cities and small towns — hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of them in the course of the year.
That I meet new people every contract I sign…
That no day is ever the same as the next…
That I am part of making a hundred people a night laugh and cry and feel and be moved to their feet…
And that come Monday morning I will be delivering Christmas spirit to places that have it a little (and sometimes a lot) worse off than we do in our pretty city and our nice warm homes with lit up Christmas tress and the promise of turkey dinner (or Shepherds Pie?)…
It would be be a good idea for me to keep that especially in perspective and perhaps read this outloud to myself every night from now until December 20.
(P.s. reading this to myself I realize it is somewhat sleep deprived and ranty sounding… however I am both sleep deprived and ranty this week… So I don’t think I will change it.)
