The rush of adrenalin from the wanting to try to do a new thing, a scary thing. And the rush of adrenalin when you realize your heart had decided long before your head knew about it.
The terrifying, dizzying dance of nerves during an audition, those moments when you have to prove to the world what you already know you can do. The heart-wrenching realization that, no, really, you’re proving it to yourself all over again, too. Will you forget your lyrics, the ones you practiced a thousand times in the car coming home from the grocery store? Will your excess energy create wobbly, unstable vibrato, or will you push too hard on the high notes and go sharp?
The heart-fluttering email or phone call. The one that says, “You’re in.” The one that says, “You’ve still got it. We saw lots of people, and they were good, but you were the one. We want you.”
The rehearsals and the learning of lines. The inscrutable pencil scritches made in the margins of your script. Blocking your scenes. Forgetting your blocking. The lull in practice when somebody goes up on a line. The ache of the silence when you go up on a line. The jaw-dropping, kidney-punching reality check that you are all dependent on each other, so do your homework. Don’t screw up.
If you do, though, we’ll hug it out.
The first time you walk the back alleys of downtown to the stage door. Your door. It is still light out, and many folks are clocking out for the day. Not you. Your game face is on. You don’t need to go through the MainStreet entrance, baby, you’re in. You’re one of the players. Back door friends are best, anyway.
The lacing of the costume. The smell of atmosphere-corroding hairspray. The heat—the oppressive heat—of the dressing room lights as you apply your pancake makeup, lipstick, false lashes. The shoes that pinch and are worn at the toes and have just enough give to make sure your point is pretty.
The rituals: Break a leg. Mérde. Thank you, Fifteen. Thank you, Ten.
The wings, so fraught with emotion and tension and nerves. Don’t look at the script, because you know the damn thing, even when you forget you know it.
The moment, that final moment, before you part the curtain and make your first entrance. You are not yourself anymore, baby. You are other. You have emerged anew.
The crowd watching, waiting, laughing where you’d hoped they would and not laughing where you thought they would. The fear that you will see someone you know and become immobilized with fear at disappointing them, only to realize, once you’re onstage, that now you’re someone else and that audience doesn’t matter. Let the actor backstage worry about that now. You have work to do.
The inevitable screw-ups and missed cues and stories to tell of recovery. The shaking hands and shaking voice, at first. And then the settling, the careful shift into comfort. You’ve got this. You have got this.
After nine years of grading papers and finishing graduate school and wiping boogers and shopping for groceries and taking care of family, here—these things—are what I had forgotten.
It’s fun to take a moment—perhaps not every day, but every now and then—to sit back and remember who you are, and who you’ve been, and who you might be again.
* written March 30, 2013, opening night of Lauren’s first show in nine years.