Here it comes. Opening night! Ready or not. Final dress and tech tonight and there will be butts in the seats tomorrow.

I’ve enjoyed great luck and opportunity in the last six months. Picasso at the Lapin Agile was great fun and my character, Germaine, got to flirt, kiss all the boys, pour drinks and all manner of fun things I don’t get to do in my real life. I got kidnapped by a mummy, tied up and rescued by the hero in Venganza Azteca. I don’t want to admit to how many times in my girlish life I’ve fantasized about that scenario.

And now I’m playing a social worker who gets buried alive and lives to tell about it and kick some scum-of-the-earth butt on her way out the door. Helen is a fierce character with a serious job and she takes no prisoners! It’s great to get a little revenge on stage – since I rarely pursue revenge off stage. I’ll admit I’ve thought about wreaking some revenge havoc on a few folks – but, thankfully, I’ve thought better of it.

I haven’t enjoyed acting this much in a long time. Why? Because I had given up. Does anybody know what it’s like to give something up that you love because you’re tired of fighting for it, because you let it turn into something other than what you wanted it to be, because life’s responsibilities got in the way, or because you started living for someone else and forgot who you were?

I know these feelings intimately. I made these choices consciously and by default. And I lived, for about 10 years, in the aftermath of abandoned dreams. Abandoned dreams leave big holes in the soul. Holes that food and alcohol and duty can’t fill. I am beginning to believe that some of the crises I have created in my life were created so I could forget who I wanted to be.

And here’s the good news and the bad news. None of the above tactics of distraction worked. Not a single one.

There isn’t a degree of numb that is numb enough for me to forget that I’ve always wanted to be a good actress. I’ve always wanted to blow people’s minds with a performance. I’ve always wanted to write beautiful poetry. I’ve always had this excruciating desire to communicate to an audience…something…

Why? I don’t know. I don’t think we’re supposed to know. We can guess. We can pay therapists to help us figure it out. We can pray about it. We can ask for an exorcism! But it doesn’t really matter. The desire to express and connect no matter what the art form is, I am happy to report, alive and well and kicking like a 12-pound baby who wants to be born and is ready to see the world.

I guess the desire to create and communicate in any artistic medium is kind of like the green things, grass – flowers – weeds, that grow through the cracks in a sidewalk. A dandelion growing on 34th Street, finding it’s way to the sun, reaching past the Empire State Building, seeking wind and propagation. If we were meant to do it, we can’t not do it.

So here comes opening night. I can see the horizon over the mountain. The show will end. And then what. Some much needed down time. Really. My schedule has been tyrannical, crazy, nuts!

I am feeling hints of relief and panic. Relief because I need a break. I want to clean my house. Panic because there isn’t another show in sight and I don’t want to lose what I have – this wonderful feeling of being an actress again. The drama queen in me, my inner diva, has come back to life (much like my character, Helen) and doesn’t want to stop.

So thoughts on the way to opening night:

• Holy Cr*p! We open tomorrow!
• I don’t want it to end!
• Thank God, it’s going to be over soon.
• What if I never get to do another show again!
• I really don’t want to do a show for awhile.
• I’m tired.
• I’m ready to have a normal life again.
• Normal is boring.
• I just want to watch TV.
• What if the audience doesn’t laugh!
• What if nobody comes to see it.
• Is it really good or am I losing my perspective.
• What if I really suck and no one’s told me.
• I really love this character.
• I don’t get this character. It’s all wrong!
• I love this!
• I’m losing my mind!
• I’m excited.
• I’m nervous.
• What if the blood pack doesn’t work!
• Sh^t! We open tomorrow!

Can anyone relate to this crazy conflicted excitement?

Tags: Acting, Theatre