November 24, 2003
If we all stand together, we won't fall down
Another show closed. My La Salle theatre career grows by one - Assassins, Triumph of Love, Nunsense, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Footloose, And Then There Were None, and now The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Pretty full (and fun) run for the last two years.
I had lots of doubts going in, which were unfounded. I keep gravitiating towards a more "professional" approach to theater (whatever that means for me) and thought the show was a step backwards at first - you know, piddly little musical theatre at its worst, flat characters and cliched musical numbers. My fears were unfounded - we did the show justice, and really made it shine. It shone on so many levels - costumes, acting, set, script, lighting, props, everywhere...so many compliments, so many "this is the best we've seen" comments from alumni and friends. We did this show justice, and it was awesome. We "found" the show in between the notes, in between the script, in between the musical numbers that seemed cliched at first...we found the drama, the action, the meat if you will, and dragged it kicking and screaming onto the stage of Dan Rodden. And people liked it....by my initial counts, we sold somewhere between 700 and 1000 tickets for the show.
The cast party proved to be fantastic...for the first time in four years I felt like I let my hair completely down and just had a good time. I wasn't worried about being busted by the police, or about anything - it was just a great party. I paid for it when the room kept spinning in six different directions when I got back to my room, and when I was hunched in the bathroom for what seemed like hours...
But it was all worth it. I even proved to be kind of eloquent at the party, saying the line that heads this journal - "If we all stand together, we won't fall down" - to most of the people I was standing and leaning on during the night. And I'm feeling better today.
I have no eloquent words for the closing of this show, or song lyrics lamenting the ephemerality of the experience. For a while, it was. And now it's over, and it was fantastic.
I leave you with a photo of my housemates from the show, and a photo of the best electrics crew ever. Click both for larger versions.
