#18: Closing Night
To continue: As you will recall from the last blog, I had arisen late in the morning. One of my friends from Seattle had suggested we breakfast together, but I knew that I wouldn’t have time: I had to write out checks and thank-you cards. When you have a team of 26 people, that is a lot of checks and thank-you cards to write. As it was, I worked right up to dinner and still didn’t finish all the cards, although I did finish the checks.
I ate an early dinner. Early dinners seem to be required in the theater because you’re expected to show up at 6:00. Or perhaps theater people tend to have very late dinners? Either way, I found it upsetting to my routine.
I arrived at the theater at 6:00 and got the ticket taker set up. It was Shawn Hudson this evening. He is a playwright who was going to be having a short play of his performed as part of the Fertile Ground Festival the following week.
I knew fewer people in the audience the second evening, but still quite a few, including two more friends who had driven down from Seattle. I was pleased at the chance to greet everyone as they came in. Everything ran as smoothly as it had the first evening but with the added advantage that I wasn’t trying to juggle three things right as the doors closed. I gave my welcome speech and even managed to get a chuckle out of the audience.
The audience was more responsive the second night than it had been the first. I don’t know if that was because the performance was better or different, or if it was just a different crowd, but they laughed more and seemed more engaged. And although the performance couldn’t be the revelation to me that it had been the first night, it was at least as good as the first night and was really fun and a joy to watch.
One thing that was different the second night was that I asked the music director to slow down Lucinda’s big ballad in the second act, “My Guardian Angel Sleeps,” so that she would have time to properly lament. The first night it moved so quickly it made me anxious. The second night I didn’t think about it—evidently it washed right over me—so it must have worked.
Another thing that was different was that the second night we got a standing ovation.
A note on standing ovations: Standing ovations seem to me to have gotten out of hand; they seem to have become almost pro forma these days. I think standing ovations should be limited to performances that are the best of their kind and really stand out from all other performances that the audience has seen. So, as a rule, I am not in favor of standing ovations.
However, for my own shows, I think standing ovations are a very good idea and should be encouraged.
It is really fun to get a standing ovation.
And so, with the audience on their feet applauding, I suspected that I would again be hauled up to the stage. However, I had cleverly switched seats from the previous night’s performance to throw them off my trail. Somehow, though, Jay still found me and hauled me up to the front. This time, however, I at least knew I was expected to bow, which I did, although I was still far from graceful.
And that was it. The show was over. The audience filtered out, no doubt humming various ear worms from the show. I got more congratulations from the audience, of course, and I got to thank each cast and production team member individually for their contribution to the project as I handed each of them their check. That was rewarding, because they were all wonderful and it was such a great group to work with.
There was a cast party afterward, but that sounded too energetic to me. I needed something calming. I went out for cocktails with my sister and her husband. They had been to both performances, so I was able to pump them for whatever differences they saw between them. They were not much help, however, only noting that Sir William was their favorite. (Bah!)
I stayed up late, got home late, and the theater still had to be cleaned the next day.
