Thespianism

It is over. Rehearsals are finished, the shows are done, the aftershow party and after-party aftermath are mere memories (if you discount the mystery bruises and apparant trashing of bedroom). There's something so delicate about stage shows - you rehearse for months, sacrificing time, social situations, money and health, for a grand total of about 7 hours of performing which are gone in a flash of greasepaint. So why do we do it? What is there to actually get out of it?

Well, loads. I get asked this a lot because I don't live with any stagey people (they are all Art History/Classics/Anthropology people, although Lala did help out backstage), so I have many reasons ready waiting in my brain.

1. Showing off. Whether you're in it for the dancing, the singing or the acting or a mixture of them all, anyone who likes being on stage likes showing other people what they can do. In fact, everyone likes people to know what they do, except that if you're writing a book, for instance, you are relatively disconnected from the public eye - they only read the book. But if you're on stage, there's nowhere to hide. Everyone knows it's you because they can see you, so you are putting your supposed talent out there and inviting everyone to judge the harsh (or beautiful, if you're lucky) reality of it.

2. Doing something you love. You only get up on stage if you really want to - it's not like an office presentation that you do because you have to and just overcome your fear of it because it's your job. Like, I love dancing, so I want other people to see it the way I do and to love it too. This isn't even in a pretentious look-at-my-beautiful-art way, I just want people to have as much fun watching as I do doing.
3. Having a massive amount of fun with people you love. Even if you don't know anyone at the start, you'll end up knowing these people even better than you actually want to. You'll see each other at the very extremes of emotion - stressed, euphoric, angry - and then go to the pub for post-rehearsal drinks and see everyone chilled out, happy and drunk. If you're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) you get to kiss someone, or dance with someone, or do something with someone in front of loads of people that you'd never normally do, and you have to just jump in blind. This involves putting a lot of trust in each other - and actually, this applies throughout and entire production. If one person fucks up then the entire show is that tiny bit worse than it would have been. So you put everything you have into that one show and that one group of people.

Then you have the tiny things that might be just me...

4. Getting to be someone you're not, even if it isn't real.

5. Wearing loads of make-up (inlcuding massive false eyelashes), having massive hair and wearing what might be a really strange outfit, but knowing that even if you look like a knob up close you look amazing to the audience.

6. Applause. This probably falls under the showing off part.

7. That moment. There's always a moment. Usually a few, and not just in performances. It could be a dance that suddenly clicks and is just amazing to perform even in rehearsal. It could be when you suddenly get through a scene with no mistakes. It's almost always the first time you do a run and suddenly realise you have a show. It's definitely always when you hear the first audience reaction to the first number of the first performance.

Having read these back, they do slightly cross over each other but what the hell, they're all still applicable. There's just something about musical theatre, and I think it takes a certain sort of person to enjoy doing it. It's completely different to performing straight plays (as the Drama lecturers at uni are continually telling everyone in no uncertain terms) because it's never, ever realist - it's never real to burst into song and dance at the drop of a hat, although I wish every day that it was.

Once you've got the rehearsals, tears, tantrums and finally some epic performances out of the way, you can concentrate on the aftershow party. It's my belief that a show without and aftershow party is a complete waste of my life. We've spent (in this case) several months getting to know each other, shouting at each other, flirting with each other, causing each other accidental injuries during dance rehearsals, losing our voices 2 days before opening night, hearing those immortal words "Act 2 once more, please!" at midnight after several hours of dress runs, and generally working our thespian arses off, so why oh why would you not have a massive shindig to celebrate it? I know that some of the best parties I have ever been to have been aftershows... I think it must be a mixture of alcohol, pent-up adrenalin, a tendency for everyone there to want to sing, dance and show off, several inter-cast flirtations to reach their peak and an exceptionally luvvie habit of everyone kissing everyone else's bums and telling them how fabulous they were and are. I believe I spent a large proportion of the night/very early morning playing SingStar(why I ever thought I might win considering who I was playing against is a mystery, but that's cider for you) and taking various photographs of imaginary scenarios...

I am completely aware that this last sentence probably deconstructed all the good work of the preceding paragraph by making it look fucking lame, but this just proves the point that you had to be there... so go have an aftershow party of your own. Except you have to have an actual show first. So go join a drama society. Trust me, you won't regret it.