It's been a while. I know because... Because... Um. Well, I know that it's been a while. And you know that it's been a while, so let's just leave it at that. As many of you know, I've been quite heavily involved with a little somethin' somethin' called MDT (Musical Dance Theater). Yep, it has pretty much taken over my life in the month of November.
Let's talk about that.
When I first saw the rehearsal schedule for "Big" in the month of November, I just about died on the spot. And without even experiencing anything! But I lived through the moment, and life continued on. Fast forward a couple of days to November, and there we go. November 1st. The first of many 2:30 - 6:00 p.m. rehearsals yet to come. My thoughts for these rehearsals after school consisted of the following: "Yeah. My life is over." Or, "There goes my life." Or maybe even, "I shoulda known." I was sure that I was going to die, even though I, by some miracle, survived the initial shock of seeing the rehearsal schedule for November.
So November went on. Some days slow, some days quicker. But eventually we got to dress rehearsals. Our first dress rehearsal was on Saturday the 12.
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Big Bad Tech Day. That's what the directors like to call it, and I can now see why. It was crazy. We ran through the show twice, once with Kalin, once with Ryan. After we finally finished, I was ready to go home and crash, but of course my homework load came to haunt me.
The Monday following Big Bad Tech Day, we had our next dress rehearsal, 5:00 - 10:30. The next day was the same. Then Wednesday our call time was 7:30 a.m. because we were doing an in-school matinee for other schools who came on a field trip to see us. Then our very first performance was that night!
. . .
I'll just say it didn't go too well. After chatting about it the next day, and what we were doing, and why so many things messed up Wednesday night, our Thursday night show improved by 110%. Then Friday it improved at least another 100%. Then today, Saturday, we kept that same energy up. And our show is AWESOME! To say the least.
But why am I telling you all of this? What are you supposed to get out of this post? Let me tell you.
When I first looked at the November rehearsal schedule, I almost died. When I went to the actual rehearsals, I mentally died. When I got home at 6:00 every night, I felt like my life outside of MDT died as well. But looking back on this whole experience, I realize that this is life. Life is busy, that's just what it is! Out in the real word, you're not going to have a whole lot of free time. Out in the real world, you'll be working your butt off every day. And out in the real world, you're going to be exhausted.
What an experience this has been! It's amazing, really. To look how far this show came from being nothing, to being a whole heap of messed up jumbles a week before opening night, to opening night, to a day after opening night! All because of hard work and realizing that sometimes, things take up time. But work is good, and working for a goal in mind is even better. And when you have the opportunity to show somebody else your work of art is a very gratifying experience.
I'm so blessed to be able to be in MDT, as much as I thought it was taking over my life. I've learned a very valuable life lesson, and that is that good things take work. And usually, it takes up a lot of work. But it's almost always going to be worth it. I'm so grateful for the people that helped me learn this, maybe inadvertently, maybe not. But I'm so grateful nonetheless.
Everybody come see "Big the Musical" before we close on Tuesday night, and see the work that we've put the effort into for you!
