The Theatre Is A Wicked, Wicked Siren..

First of all.. how did it get to be almost the end of October and this is the first time I've had to complete a post?! I just want you all to know I've started like 33 of them. I never get time to finish because I weigh getting a post out to the world against oh.. sleep. Or sex. I think you know which of the latter things end up taking priority.. yes, you do. But I digress..

Fall has descended on Seattle and I'm kind of happy for it because that means more excuses to stay inside and get cozy in front of Dirty Sexy Money or The Office AND not feel bad if dinner solely consists of gourmet bread and cheeses and accouterments with a little balsalmic and olive oil for dipping. Mmm. At the same time.. the sun disappears until next June practically and it gets pretty dark and grey, which equals depressing sometimes.. especially when you've discovered you're suddenly a theatre widow.

When Boyfriend gets wrapped up in a project, his focus is 100% directed. Not that I didn't know how busy and how pulled in however many directions he was when I met him.. and not that this weekend didn't have me smiling with pride because it did. He really knows how to inspire a group of people with his energy and love for a script. It's been pretty amazing to watch Arabian Nights come together. The cast is so cohesive and they've worked really hard. The crew, including Jake, has been supportive but firm in how they've pushed the actors and it's something to see when he tries to get something out of them. They're smart, they're driven, and it's clear they were all excited about opening, which was this last weekend and a pretty smashing success. Seriously - you can read it right here!

Tech weekend was insanity. Those committed to designing and hanging lights started at 12:30am on Sunday morning - after our rental and our monthly late night was done. I came in to start repainting the walls in the cabaret to prep for the art we're exhibiting during the run of the show. They're photographs of Afgahnistan by my friend Wazhma's father - most post-9/11 and obviously war-torn. They're simply stunning. It's nice to have an art show that's so relevant to the play we're doing and I was really proud of myself for thinking of her and securing it.

Jake and the technical director had started at 8am to construct the new bar that really pulls the lobby together. He had rehearsal after that, and then worked the bar for the late night show. So when we all started at 12:30am, he'd been up for close to 16 hours already. When I arrived, they were already moving the seats to an in-the-round formation, the crew was hanging tulle and silks up in the ceiling to give the theatre a tent-like feeling, they painted and organized the bar and the old bar was moved to become the box office and with all the painting in the cabaret, it all started to feel fresh and new and I was getting more and more excited for this opening - and more exhausted. It was 4:30am - no wonder. So the crew and I called it a night.. er.. morning.. and left Jake to finish up for another 30 minutes - dedicated as ever - to get the last bit of painting done on the theatre floor. We had a quick goodbye and I went home and crashed at my place with the cat, ready to start again the next day at 2pm.

After sleeping til after 11 on Sunday, it didn't feel like I'd triumphed much over the tired. I texted Boyfriend good morning and didn't hear back from him. I'd texted the night before as well in the wee-est of hours.. a sweet good night about how things were coming together so beautifully.. and no response from that either. It just started to get to me a little, the focus change.

When I arrived at the theatre, Jake and the crew had already been there for a couple of hours, and still weren't close to being ready for cue to cue with the cast. I went over to say hello thinking he'd lean in for a kiss since rehearsals and tech had prevented us from having much time together at all and well.. because that's a nice way to greet your girlfriend maybe. He turned right back to what he was doing sans kiss and that was the moment I started to take it personally. Silly - but I was craving just a little connected affection.. the normal things like the way he looks at me that makes me feel special, a kiss after not ending our night together - the small stuff that maintains you - or me rather. And it's not just that we hadn't seen each other. We see each other all the time at the theatre.. but he hadn't seen me.. the girlfriend. He'd started to look right thru me. The production manager was there, but the girlfriend was pretty invisible. It's just a strange feeling to go from being connected all the time and rather goofy and giggly to something that felt so..... opposite of that. I had so much work to do tho.. so I tried to let go of that moment and get started on what I needed to get done.

The painting finished, I began other errands: a food run for the crew, another one to deal with the bitchy waitress when the food was wrong, back down the street to the drug store for double stick tape and barrettes for the costume designer and three outlet plugs for the lighting designer, and by 6:30 I started to hit my wall. He and I weren't able to engage the other because we had separate jobs to do so I felt like I was on my own a lot. Then exhaustion or a food coma started setting in. When we couldn't find the new box of drywall nails I needed to finish hanging the rest of the art, I thought it was a good time for air and coffee. So off I went to get both and not a minute out the door, the sad started to sink in.

The last couple of weeks had been difficult and emotional. Therapy has been bringing up all these self-esteem issues or maybe it was just Life causing these things to rear up in every aspect of where I've placed myself - the band, the theatre, work, home and the lovelife. I'm trying to tackle these things head on and it's hard seeing what's positive in that, but I've heard myself say I'm sorry a lot, I've felt so many times like I couldn't do anything right and everything seemed harder than it needed to be. Align the timing of pms into the mix as well, which always makes everything more fun and you can probably see I was driving myself a bit crazy.

Until the last week before tech, it wasn't really affecting my relationship with the Boyfriend, but he became so focused on what still needed to happen with the play that I felt a disconnection from the times when even if we were slammed all day, we connected by the end of it and I felt secure. You have to keep in mind my past relationships? Um.. fed on insecurity so sometimes I just expect Boyfriend to change his mind - hell, I had dreams about it for the first month we were together. So because he needed a little space and needed to direct his attention to his project, I started to feel overlooked and then dismissed to my own place at night. I just felt so separate of him - which shouldn't be a bad thing, we're separate people.. but he did sort of put the relationship aside for the play and my feelings were hurt by that.

I know the novelty of someone new wears off. I know you move into something more comfortable, where the butterflies relax, the excitement takes a backseat to the priorities the new person had distracted you from at the beginning and things find a better balance. And you might discover you do have to work at some things now that you're done coasting.. and that's ok. I just wasn't prepared for the 180 I felt in the level of his affections. The theatre requires our attention, his certainly more than mine, even tho I'm there a lot but shockingly, that threesome isn't nearly as sexy as I thought it might be. It's a lot of work walking that line between the relationship of girlfriend/boyfriend and the one of executive director/production manager when the latter one trumps the former during crunch time and continues sometimes after we've left the theatre.

Honestly.. I just missed him. Duh.

The coffee I'd grabbed earlier was truly my second wind. It also helped me to refocus and I wasn't feeling as sad so I chalked most of it up to being tired. I'd finished the painting in the cabaret, got all the art hung, then went on to spot paint inside the theatre, helped with set dressing some key pieces when I saw some details that could look better, and patted myself on the back when an idea worked. It felt good to be apart of the crew, to make things happen, and be part of the creative process that would make a difference in the look and/or feel of the show. I made a difference. And I just wanted my boyfriend to notice.

It felt like we were going to go the whole weekend without a real moment between us, but I couldn't say anything without being the clingy girlfriend. I needed to be supportive. I can't imagine the pressure of being the director not to mention already being the executive director of the theatre and needing this play to generate a decent revenue so we can make a dent in the construction debt over our heads.

So I forced a moment - all Boyfriend's pressure aside - when I threw a pillow at him while he was taking a five minute nap on a set piece. He didn't like my kiss so he got the pillow.. and that did the trick. He came over to where I'd gone back to painting, looked me right in the eye rather wickedly and kissed me.. I may have melted a little. It was all I needed.. that little connection. And he did it a few more times during the night, letting me know how proud he was of all the work I'd done, what I'd helped to create. It made all the difference.

But it didn't last. I couldn't carry that feeling thru the next three days of dress rehearsals and getting last minute things done because I was on my own for most of them. It didn't help he lost his cell phone for two days so I thought he was ignoring my texts when he never got them. All I wanted was just a few minutes each day with him that belonged to us and that weren't part of getting the production on its feet. It didn't seem so out there, but I didn't feel I could ask either. I kept thinking that the play was going to open and his focus wasn't going to shift back. It was freaking me out and I finally had to tell him what I was going thru, how much it was building in me.. so much that I concluded he probably wasn't in love with me anymore.. and I was really lonely. Of course, he was sweetly receptive and quickly reassured me and tho I didn't get any more time with him because of it, I at least felt heard. And better. And the clouds parted and the angels sang and Thursday, on opening night, about three minutes before we shut the doors to the audience and dimmed the lights, he looked at me.. really looked at me for the first time in a week and smiled. I might've smiled back.. and maybe stopped freaking out.

We still have some balance to find when we're doing projects like this and some understanding to reach within both our roles in the theatre because the romantic relationship complicates things. I also maybe don't have any patience either. Ahh.. I think we'll get there.. We're at the second week of the show and we've had quite a few awesome reviews and one pretentiously bitter one, which we ignored anyway. I'm a proud mama of this production so if you're local.. seriously, come see it. I promise, that the last two weeks of my personal angst is worth how good this show is. After all that, it'd better be.