There's No Business Like Show Business

After being a part of theatrical productions since before I can remember, I have discovered what show business is all about. Being a stage manager, theater has never been about the applause from the adoring fans or the flowers after the show. If it was all about those things, the theatrical world would be a bunch of productions on a bare stage, in the dark, that no one can hear. What show business is all about has to be more universal. Something equally appreciated by the opera diva and the master electrician.

As I sat on my computer in the middle of the night after the closing show of L'Incoronazione di Poppea, I started to piece together the mystery of the theater people's lifestyle choice. I spent the night jotting down upcoming shows in the Boston area and the numbers I could call to plead for a job, an internship or just a spot to sit backstage. Mind you, it was 3 o'clock in the morning and I had to be at church at 8:30 the next morning. I should have been in bed, sleeping soundly, dreaming of misplaced props and actors who missed their cue. But, instead, against my conscious self's protests, I sat jotting down the information that would consume the only free days I have this summer.

Why you may ask? And at that moment, I could not have told you. I was consumed by some Freudian subconscious being who couldn't stop looking for the next show, the next big thing. As the next morning rolled around and I could feel myself drooping from exhaustion, I got a FB message from my new friend Ellie. She told me that the Poppea withdrawal would be over soon and the next show was on its way. After Ellie said exactly what I was subconsciously repressing, I realized what show business was truly about...

Broadway thrives because shows end. As obvious as that sounds, it goes a lot deeper than that surface statement. A show begins and you have a group of a hundred odd people working to produce it. And then they produce it and it runs and it runs and, in Rent's case, it keeps running. Then, as all things in life do, it comes to an end and all of those people are no longer invested in it. There's a void, a post-production withdrawal. The only thing that seems to fill that void is working through the pain by finding another production to consume your soul. You have no time to grieve a loss if you have something else to fill its place.

But that's only a piece of the puzzle. If finding another production was all that mattered, there would be Broadway professionals doing community theater shows out of the nearest YMCA. You have to move on and you have to keep moving up. Never being satisfied is a hallmark of the theater. No dance routine will ever achieve perfection in the eye of the choreographer. No set will ever live up to what the set designer envisioned. No actor says, "I only want to do community theater". They shoot for Broadway. Every show could be the big break so actors and designers keep working, thriving off of what is to come. And if you do make it, who says that you can't become the best in the biz?

So Poppea did come to an end. I left with a new appreciation for the term diva and a few friends that I hope to keep forever. I left with more knowledge on opera and people and the biz. I left with a thirst for more work, more professionalism, more theater. But most importantly I left the cast party telling everyone that I'd see them at the MET.

Regardless of where we are in our careers, whether it be just going into school or just retiring from one's day job, the dream is still the same and we'll all keep doing shows because, to quote the little red haired Annie, "Tomorrow a penthouse./ That's way up high/ Tonight/ The "Y"".

Another Opening, Another Show

Allow me to begin this like I do most things in my life:

Please turn off your cell phones, the performance is about to start. (Cue house lights).

There is nothing quite like the opening of a show. Your pulse is racing a mile a minute. You can feel the audience's excitement as the curtain rises. You can sense the nerves of the leading lady as she takes her first steps on the set. And the best part is? Hopefully, you get to do this every night for the rest of your life.

Welcome to the theater. Everything that is good, holy, bad, unholy, emotional, insane, stressful takes place in or around these walls. An exaggerated, dramatic form of life takes place upon the stage for millions to scrutinize, be baffled by and maybe even enjoy.

But the theater is also a place of hurt and self-loathing. A place where you may be perfect at what you do but not the type of perfect that a director is looking for. A place where you need to fit into the same costume every night regardless of how many brownies you ate. A place where creating an alternate reality means selling yourself to that alternate reality.

I have sold myself to that alternate reality. An undergrad stage manager at one of the top conservatories in the nation, I will spend my college nights making a prop keg out of styrofoam rather than drinking out of one. I look forward to perfecting my craft and eventually taking it to the MET. As a stage manager, I am always Switzerland; the conscious observer taking note of the moves the other player's make without making myself a part of the game.

This blog is part diary, part expose and part therapy. I will tell you what I see from the unbiased shadows of the lighting booth. I will probably rant about one actress or another and about how she is ruining my life even though her quest for stardom is hopeless. I will most definitely attempt to explain my alternate reality and why I love living in it.

So just as Hamlet tossed about a skull, debating whether it was nobler to live or die, I now leave you with another of life's eternally unanswered and completely overdramatized questions: To read or not to read. I suppose that that is the question.

-ABos.