FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Show People: There's No People Like 'Em.
Note: This is the first part of a post from February 2013. I had just returned home after a whirlwind weekend spent at Sacramento Theatre Company, where we rehearsed and presented a staged reading of A Little Princess. That weekend had me thinking back to one of my earliest memories from working in the theater in New York City.
My "day job" ... in my office on the 29th floor at Random House, Inc.
It was 1984 and I had just moved to New York City. By night, I was working as a Stage Manager for a production of Comedy of Errors at the Equity Library Theater. By day, I held down a job typing contracts for a publishing company. I would work through my lunch hour in order to be able to leave work a little early. I’d throw on my sneakers and head uptown to join the “Comedy” company in tech rehearsals.
On one particular night, it seemed that everything that could go wrong technically was going wrong. It was getting late. The actors had been on stage for most of the day. For myself, I was already exhausted and I knew that I would end up with only a couple of hours of sleep before getting up to return to my corporate job the next day. I was weary, and when yet another “stop!” was called while a lighting cue was recorded, I was seriously questioning the wisdom of pursuing a career in the theater.
But then something happened on stage that reminded me why I had chosen this path. It was a small thing, really. The actors were standing in their places on the set; clearly, they were even more weary than I, but they stood quietly, allowing the lighting to be painted around them. And then, without comment or fanfare, the actor playing “Dromio” silently walked over to the actor playing “Nell,” and gave him a great big bear hug. Just a simple gesture, but that hug was an “aha” moment for me.
I leaned over to Robert, the Production Stage Manager sitting next to me, and pointed to the two actors on stage. “That’s why I work in the theater! ...Because at Random House when you have a bad day, no one comes over to give you a hug.”
There are other reasons, of course. The process of creating theater excites me, inspires me, challenges me, and fulfills me. But, boy! It sure makes the process all the better when you’re working with nice people.
