Exactly one year ago, I was a singing actor making my debut in the Studio ACT's production of Working. I know that I've already written about the experience here, but I just want to stress the following point before going any further: I learned more in those 10 weeks than I ever could have expected to, and not just about music and theater, both of which I learned plenty. In those 10 weeks, I learned about myself, about challenging the limits of what I can do, and how I can do it. Most importantly, I learned what it felt like to be a part of a community of people.
Though I have not participated in any theatrical endeavors since, I hold my time in Working very close to my heart, ready at any moment to wax nostalgic about it to anyone who will listen. Last night, Sam and I attended this year's Studio production of Stephen Sondheim's Company. As excited as I was to see the show and some of the people I had worked with last year, I had my hesitations--the next few words will be sacrilegious to all musical theater purists out there, but here they are: I don't particularly like Sondheim's body of work, full of too-clever lyrics and circular melodies that zip around and around but never make it to a place in my mind where I would think to hum them.
One disclaimer, though: I have never actually seen a Sondheim show except for Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, which I hated. Company was my first live presentation of Sondheim, and I now suspect that it won't be my last.
The show was thought-provoking, especially at this point in my life, and the cast was awesome, full of talent and earnest wonderment. I sat in the audience and remembered having the same feeling of wonder last year when I stood up there, singing with my company, stumbling through dance steps, fighting back tears during the final song of the final show, knowing that my time in Wonderland, a whirlwind of a trip, would be over soon, even though I was ready to stop, was so tired after two weekends of shows.
When the stage went dark last night during the first major scene change and I saw an actor lug out a heavy wooden set piece, I could sense the heft of that block, having lifted that exact piece on and off stage countless times before. When actors walked off-stage, I could see the darkness that awaited them. As they took their final bow with beaming smiles and eyes that scanned the audience for family and friends, I felt a faint ache in the pit of my stomach, as though all of their excitement, all the dedication, pride, and exhaustion had been condensed into a ball, a pill that I swallowed and now threatened to expand and burst out of me.
I, like them, was so proud to have been standing by those I did, lowering my head and bowing to an audience I was so proud to have performed for. I would go home each night after a show and be unable to sleep, lines of songs and monologues weaving in and out of my ears. I had never been filled with such energy, and never since until last night, laying in bed and singing silently to myself, "You're always sorry, you're always grateful," until other thoughts took over, then nothing.
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