Opening Night

Tonight I open Every Brilliant Thing at the Warehouse Theatre. Or re-open I suppose is the more accurate statement.

I love opening nights. I wrote this piece back in 2013 on the opening nigh of Hamlet. It still rings true today.

We run until December 15. Hope to see some of you there!

DLN

Tonight is opening night.

And opening night is my favorite thing in the whole fucking world.

One of my goals in life is to not have this tumblr account end up like so many on line writing projects I have embarked on- abandoned. Left for dead. A ghost town on the internet, an enterprise of great pitch and moment whose currents have turned awry.

I have an excuse for not writing- I have been rehearsing Hamlet. And playing Hamlet, I’ve come to find out, is kind of an all consuming experience. I usually have three to four projects going at the same time. I’m not bragging. I don’t even think it’s necessarily a good thing- it’s just habit from college and my days of doing rep theatre. As recently as May I’ve had four projects going full steam- Hamlet research, The Elephant in My Closet promotion, my new play Folly Beach, and a pilot I was working on with a friend. Plus trying to eek out a meager living and maintain my personal relationships. I stay busy. What can I say, I don’t drink anymore- that tends to free up a lot of time.

But for the past three weeks it’s only been Hamlet. And an amazing cast of actors. A brilliant team of designers (seriously- the set and lights and costumes- I just can’t.) And one of the most talented directors in the country. In the most beautiful city in the world. It’s been actor heaven.

In a few weeks I’ll start writing again because life will return to normal. Life always returns to normal. The sets will be torn down, the costumes will go into storage. The gels in the lights will go back to wherever gels for lights go. Our lines will start to slip away. The actors will no longer see each other every night. The director will back to New York. It will be over.

It’s one of the themes in Hamlet I find so inspiring. No matter what we do, how powerful we become, everything ends. In a perverse way it’s the thing I love most about the theatre. It’s forward, not permanent. The perfume and suppliance of a minute. No more. And while music and paintings and novels are tactile, and live on forever, theatre is a writing in water. It’s an experience we, the actors, the crew, and the audience, have together, one time, and then it’s over. Because no two shows are ever the same. No two audiences are ever the same, and the play, no matter how big and powerful, will always end.

It’s so beautiful. And it breaks my heart.

But that is not now. That is yet to come.

Tonight is opening night.

And opening night is my favorite thing in the whole fucking world.