Ersatz Eloquence

Another show closed and put away. Wow. The Music Man (with Centre Stage) was a great show and a great experience.

I ended up on props, making sure everyone had their props and everyone gave them back. And boy, did I make sure. We had two prop tables, so I kept one nice and as-empty-as-possible for current props. And as the Wells Fargo wagon was rolling out just before intermission, I'd get everything from Act I stashed away in its home (after checking each one back in on my checklist), and all of Act II ready on the neater table. Props falling apart? No problem. The poor books for the Library scene and Pick-a-Littles were getting destroyed, so I ended up hot gluing almost every book back together. Poor, poor books. I'm also a professional Pinwheel Repair Person now. That's going on my resume.

All in all though, it really was just great to be there. Everyone involved with Centre Stage is great; they're all friendly, helpful, hard-working, and just great to work with. I came to help because I had worked with their choreographers before, and I thought I'd see if they could use any help. Turned out that there was much to be done, and in the weeks I spent working with all these strangers, I quickly joined the wonderful family they've built over the past ten years.

I want that. When I think about ISS, I see a group of people like those at Centre Stage. Heck, I see Centre Stage sometimes when I'm imagining. Before Centre Stage, I only knew that I wished for a way to do the things I see ISS doing. But now? Shoot, now I can see it's all possible and actually reasonable. Because the people who run Centre Stage and make it all happen? They've got homes, cars, food, comfortable lives. I may dream of the poetry of the life of a starving artist sometimes, but really, I want to have enough to give freely much more than I want my life to feel like some sad but beautiful story of love and passion and a bunch of silly nonsense.

It's crazy to me that I am very much living out my dreams already, at only 18-years-old. Shouldn't I have to wait until I'm at least a few years out of college minimum for this? The answer, of course, is no way. I should have been living out my dreams for years. And I was, as a young kid, until I got it in my head that life was supposed to be hard and miserable. Boy, that was a weird phase.

Speaking of dreams, I've finally gotten "Without Direction" published (order via me here or through Lulu.com here), and am working on getting it sold. There are some local bookstores I'm going to try, as well as trying to get schools anywhere in the world to put it on. How awesome would it be to have my play put on by someone else?

Yeah, like I said, living the dream.