Perspective

Last night I got only four or five hours of sleep, so this morning I purposely slept in a bit, meaning I didn't have time for breakfast before working with a couple hundred kids (who aren't all that easy to handle unfueled and unslept). Then I finished work -- exhausted and ready for a nap before rehearsal -- only to find out one of the actors in the short play I wrote and am directing can't come to tech and her first time in the space will be during a performance.  So I stressed for a bit on my way home, then de-stressed by playing piano for a couple hours (giving my walls an angst-ridden Tori Amos concert is always good therapy) and then returned to stressing about the play as I left for rehearsal.  Will the actor know how the transitions work if she can't be there for tech?  Will the festival directors kick us out of the show when they find out we're missing an actor at tech?  Will there be any transition traffic jams during the show since the transitions won't be fully rehearsed, and will that throw the guy running the lights and sound, since we're not allowed to supply our own stage manager and he won't have ever seen the transitions before?

And then on this rainy day, as I stepped onto the subway, carrying a lot of bags containing our show's props, the subway doors started to close on me.  Slow-moving with my burden of bags and terrified I would be caught in the doors, I tried to back out before the doors completely closed.  And just as I wrenched by bags out a split second before the doors finished closing, down I went, slipping on the rain-slicked platform and hitting the train as I fell.  Images of that horrific Homicide: Life On The Streets episode where Vincent D'Onofrio gets caught between the train and the platform and gets torn in two flashed before my eyes in that slow-motion-yet-happens-in-a-millisecond way peculiar to terrifying moments.  Fortunately, I put my figure skating training to good use (learning how to fall without hurting yourself is imperative in a sport where you launch yourself off ice into the air with knives attached to your feet) and managed not to hit myself too hard and to scoot back from the gap and the train.  And fortunately the conductor didn't start the train right away.

So I'm here to tell the story.

And I'm not stressed about my play anymore.

As I like to say as a stage manager when people get very anxious during tech rehearsals, at the end of the day, theatre is just dress-up and make-believe.  Magical dress-up and make-believe -- dress-up and make-believe that, if written and executed well, can have the potential to change someone's life....  But it's not life and death.  And a sloppy performance, while frustrating, will do no more harm in the grand scheme of things than fail to ignite any sparks.

Train doors, however, ARE life and death. 

So do your best with whatever circumstances life throws at you, wear shoes with good grips, and look out for closing subway doors.  And then put everything you have into dress-up and make-believe and magic-making so you can make all the bad things go away for a bit.