One Touch Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness
Tomorrow's Venue
I am now all 'showed out'. Another excellent performance this evening, and now I really know that they do not need me any more! I can relax and enjoy the fun!
I am so honoured, I realised when I got home after the end of show tonight that my 'work place' had been featured on the wonderful blog
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com
which I read with great admiration and enjoyment. Thank you so much Rhonda!
I came home tonight and shared a very late supper with two of my cast members. We laughed so much about what had gone perfectly, and what had been disasterous I began to wonder if I would miss the annual life disruption that is 'the show'. So many folk were pressurizing me when it was over, jokingly telling me that they were booking us for next year, or 'how could I possibly stop doing it'.
I suppose that folk who only ever enjoy the final product never really understand what a long and tiring journey it is until opening night. In a perverse way the very LAST thing one would want an audince to see was the hard graft - to them it is one night of fun, tears, escapism and freedom from the daily grind, the magic of the theatre. For the performer, musical director, and producer it is the end of much physical effort combined with the ever present panic of the dreadful possibility that one might conceivably run out of ideas. A very real kind of theatrical writers block.
I felt that this year, more strongly than ever, an I am absolutely sure that it must be the time to quit, whilst one is ahead, and go out with a roaring success.
I have sung in, or produced 37 shows in the last 25 years of my professional life. That has got to be a long enough sentence for anyone!
I am ahead.
I must quit.
It's been marvelous.
