Stage Freight

Yesterday I suited up (or I suppose more accurately I was preparing to de-suit) for my performance of Brad for the first time in something like 7 or 8 years or so I had a real sense of nerves. We were also in theater one, the biggest space to accommodate the larger crowd that we were expecting for the show; I’ve performed in theater two nearly a thousand times and the bigger space only a handful of times.I’ve performed Brad countless times (ok, I wasn’t counting, it technically is a countable number) on my time on the cast. I did a quick brush-up on my role before the show and as I did I realized the collective muscle memory of the thousand or so performances took root deep in my brain. It just felt so weird — like someone pressed play in my brain.Despite that as I stood in the side aisle waiting to tag in I was dreading the moment I would go on stage. I couldn’t back out now — I would strand the rest of the cast and hurt the show.Deep breath.I tag out the first Brad and take my place next to Janet.The Time Warp’s final chords fade to silence. The Transylvanians scattered about on-screen.Another deep breath. The spotlight began to swing over onto me and Janet.

“Say, do any of you guys know how to Madison?”

Other than the blocking, which I kind of flubbed at times (and it wasn’t helped by being in the “wrong” theater), I knew even the little gestures. I think I did a passable job of the task. Somehow running around in my underwear was completely natural — like I had done this just last week. It was rather creepy actually.It felt like my first show all over again, except that I knew how to do it as if by magic.Most every time in the past when I was regularly doing Rocky I loved it. Sometimes I was reticent before the show, but after the show I just had energy.And like in the past... I loved it desperately.