It’s opening night and my alarm starts blaring at the dreadful hour of 6:30 AM. I so desperately want to roll over and turn the obnoxious thing off, but there is a theater tradition to dress up nicely on opening night. So I grab my phone and look at the blurry screen, attempting to read my notifications from the night without my glasses on. It never works well, and yet I still try. I open random social media apps as I try to get my mind awake, hoping that I don’t accidentally fall back asleep (that happens often). I lay in bed the longest I can before getting up with an annoyed sigh, I keep myself awake by saying I get to sleep in on Sunday.
After changing into a nice dress and doing a basic makeup look (on opening night we get to dress up nicely) I walk into the living room to say good morning to my parents, but more importantly, I say good morning to my cat, Ji Ji. I grab a protein shake and run out the door seconds before the clock ticks to 7:50 AM. Luckily I live close to school so I don’t have to leave very early.
Rushing across campus I slide into my first period English class seconds before the bell rings. My class sits in an awkward focused silence as we wait for our teacher to walk in. Today is our first test in the class, we all want to do well. After she walks in and passes out the test sounds of pencils rushing against the soft lined paper. Multiple choice, short answer and a short essay. I’ve got this. I breeze through the multiple choice but pause when looking at the short answer. I am so tired and the words begin to blur together, staying at school until 7 stage managing and dancing takes a toll. I push through, I write and write. One word after another, silent focus carried me through the two short answers.
“Twenty minutes remain,” Ms. R calls out.
My eyes go wide. Twenty minutes?! I think to myself. That is not enough time. I rush to plan out my essay. I panic as the words don’t string together as they usually do.
“Fifteen minutes!”
I don’t even have my first paragraph done. I’m scrambling, like if I were a dozen eggs I was about to be served at an IHOP.
“Ten minutes.”
People start getting up, handing their papers in. How in the world are they already finishing?! I keep frantically writing. I’m spitballing at this point. My thoughts have lost cohesion and I’m rambling.
“Five minutes,” but there was a pause this time, she adds. “Hey guys if you don’t finish you can finish up next class.
Oh. Okay sweet. I stop panicking and take a breath. I’m able to finish the next class. So I finish my sentence, take a breath, and hand it to her as the bell rings, telling her I need the extra time.
I have free period next so I go to the library and relax for a moment. I use this time to calm my nerves from both the test I just took and the anxiousness for tonight’s show. I look over my cue sheets and ensure that everything for tonight is set up well. When I’ve deemed it good I begin to work on my homework, or at least attempt to before letting myself wind down with a puzzle game. I know it seems like an oxymoron, but I find puzzle games like those from the creators, Rusty Lake, distract my mind and let my body physically relax. I continue playing these games as I rest my mind from the oncoming anxieties of the day.
It’s a special bell so instead of going to third then advisory I head to the Sikes Theatre to listen to a talk about our capstone projects. I completed my project back in the fall, so I needn’t worry too much about all of that today. We head back to advisory and work on our reflection papers (they don’t have to be formal papers or a paper at all, i’m making a slideshow).
Note: this next part is written in past tense due to writing it after the fact.
The afternoon seemed to breeze right past me. Trying to think of the details now is a struggle as they seem to have skedaddled away from my mind. But I shall do my best to summarize my last two classes.
In math (Probability and Statistics), we worked through some of our homework problems while making jokes because we have a lovely chaotic class. I pull out my computer and type away as much as I can. But to be perfectly candid, I do remember pulling up wordle for a bit and playing some of the New York Times games. I of course finished my notes later though.
Next was Honors Wind Ensemble. We played through a few pieces such as “The Star Spangled Banner” because we had been asked to play for the Ortega River Run. We had fun as always, and it was a very enjoyable and fun class. Then the final bell rang, I left the band room and went to change out of my ‘fancy dress’ and into what I wore for the senior piece.
I went back to sit in the hallways as I waited for dinner to arrive, but due to some mixups, we didn’t get dinner until a bit later. The stress and the long day finally caught up with me when I was sitting with my friends and crew and I ended up snapping at one of them (it wasn’t anything bad and I apologized for it afterwards). To cool off, I went outside and just sat with my headphones on and played on my phone. I didn’t even realize but I sat out there for about an hour and a half. I get called back inside as I have to get my notes from the previous night. I find out that during my time outside the food has been brought out and I was only a little salty that no one came and got their stage manager to tell them food was here, but oh well.
It was then 6:30. The afternoon flew by, and now the house is open. For anyone who doesn’t know theatre terms that means people are allowed to come sit in the audiences at this point. During this time I set up my phone and started on my makeup. I went onstage later, and I wanted to look nice. Slowly but surely the seats fill up and the clock ticks by to 6 :55 and I call “places” over the headset. I then call all my standbys and wait for Ms. Black-Bowling to start the show off by saying prayer.
“Standby grand drape (the curtain), standby music, curtain warmer out go, grand drape out” I paused and took a deep breath, “go.” And thus the show kicks off, my final opening night.
To stage manage I have a very specific way of doing things. The picture below shows what I would argue was the hardest piece for me to call, “Ramalama.”
This is how you would hear me saying most of these cues. Keep in mind that I’m staring at a stop watch the entire time to keep the timing on track.
“Lights (pause) Go.
Music (pause) Go. [This is when I start the stopwatch.]
Cue 91.5 (pause) Go. Standby Tab and standby traveler to open. These are two separate cues.
Cue 92 (pause) Go. Tab (pause) Go.
Cue 92.5 (pause) Go. Traveler to slowly open (pause) Go.”
And etc…
During intermission I went to say hi to the people I know in the audience before heading backstage. This year I was lucky enough to only stage manage Act I of the show, so I could participate in the senior piece during Act II.
Waiting backstage was fun, as I got to watch the others before I went on. Before I even knew it the senior video was playing; I’m on next. I line up to head backstage and prepare myself to go on. The curtain flies out, the lights illuminate the stage, and the melodies of “Rivers and Roads” fill my ears as muscle memory kicks in.
The movements flow through me and before I know it we’re in our ending pose and the curtain flies back in. But I have no time to think, I run offstage and change quickly for the next piece, the finale. The seniors wore all white to stand out from the others in the dance. So, I jump into my outfit and move backstage as I wait for my cue to go on.
As before, the song plays, and the muscle memory kicks in. We end the senior section with a line downstage and reach our hands out to the audience. That’s when it hit me. I didn’t realize how many people were really out there until I got the chance to look out. But I didn’t have long, it’s my cue to run off stage and bring the rest of the seniors with me. So I turn and run, officially ending the first time I was on stage at Episocopal’s dance concert.
Image courtesy of Emily Garrett.
