And we are his sisters and his cousins and his aunts
It is tech week at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre and I am not there. It is tech week for someone just about every week at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. For quite a few years, two weeks a year, it was tech week at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre for me. Not that I was ever on stage, although once I was the pit orchestra. Yes I *was* the orchestra. Me and my flute. Peter Pan, 1999. Improvised my own music even. Watched the elder beach urchin play Wendy. And a mermaid on the nights she wasn’t playing Wendy.
I have sat in the audience at the Lydia and I have played in the pit at the Lydia. Most of my experiences there were with the A2 Young Actors Guild as a parent volunteer or the administrator of the disorganization. Tech week, when the cast and crew move in to the theater is always exciting, no matter how large or small the performance venue. The Lydia? Everybody was SO excited to be back at the Lydia again. To be able to enter via the STAGE DOOR! Yes!!! The kids in the cast (and the parents and the director and producer and even the long-suffering administrator) always loved when we finally moved in to the theatre. We’re here at the Mendelssohn again! And we would all proceed to take the place over again. And I mean take it over! 40-60 young actors running, jumping, swinging from the rafters. Dressing rooms and the costume room down in the bowels of the place. The Green Room. All of it. It was so much fun.
Fast forward. Mouse’s upcoming play is at the Lydia Mendelssohn. I am not there tonight. I won’t be there all week. I will not be in the orchestra pit and I will not be in the ticket booth and I will not be backstage. I will be in the audience. I will be banned from the backstage area (I think). As part of my job, I used to have to ban relatives and friends of our actors from getting into the green room and beyond. This is all okay. I think. I don’t have young YAG children any more and I have my own wonderful full-time job but I do miss tech week at the Lydia Mendelssohn.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
This post made me REALLY miss gymnastics and being part of that world. 🙁 But we have to move on from it and it’s fine to let go. But oh, the memories, right?
November 17th, 2009 at 12:16 am
My favorite memory was playing at Hill Auditorium. I was a senior in the orchestra. We played Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. Pioneer High’s orchestra, Pioneer and Huron choruses, some boys choir and soloists from UM. It was the best orchestral performance I can remember (with me as part of the show). Of course, there was nobody from my family in attendance because they were picking up Pooh who was returning from England (if I remember correctly). Resentment? Me? Never! But Carmina Burana remains a personal favorite.
November 17th, 2009 at 9:26 am
They weren’t picking me up from England, b/c they (& you?) were at the cabin. I returned on a Saturday, (I think), and Becky’s boyfriend and Alice’s dad (I think) picked us up. They came home from the cabin on Sunday. (or whatever the next day happened to be.) I probably bored Mrs. Burmeister who came out to garden, and got waylaid by me. Lonely? Me? Well, hardly ever…