Just Thinkin' About Tomorrow

    So, my senior year is fast approaching, and for the first time in my life, I feel old. Not really, really old, but grown up. This has me up all night facing the dizzying prospect of adulthood. Before it was a thrilling yet terrifying prospect that caused me some angst (where to apply to college, what to major in, etc), but now it is all so real. Every time I turn on my computer I can feel it shaming me, an ever present reminder of the applications I should be filling out, of the responsible and grown up future awaiting me. It scares me. To add to all of this I now feel conflicted about the future I had planned for myself. Before, I was sure that a ‘real job’ in the business world would suite me fine, with some hobbies. Like a simple dress that you spice up with a belt. But now I’m rehearsing for a new show, Romeo and Juliet. This wouldn’t be a big deal, I’m normally in three to four shows a year, but this one is different. It’s in the summer, so it rehearses on a more professional schedule, and for the first time in a long time I have a decent sized part. I’m having so much fun and working so hard that it is taking over my life. Partially because it is summer, and partially because I have a pretty obsessive personality, I have to force myself not to think about it all the time. I want to just rehearse my lines and read. This is making me wonder if, perhaps I chose wrongly. Perhaps I am making a huge mistake by putting theater on the back burner. Then I remind myself of all of the reasons being a professional actress is so incredibly hard; why it isn’t right for me. Then I think, but lots of people do it and have real lives and families. The director of Romeo and Juliet, for example. Then I think, but they have no leisure time, because all of their leisure time is everyone else’s work time. Then I give up and sit around in a confused, adolescent stupor and try to block any thoughts at all, which, as I see it, is the grown up thing to do. then I put off college applications to run my lines, having accomplished nothing but to upset myself. And finally, I sleep, hoping the answer waits in the dream of tomorrow.


In "Phantom of the Opera," each show uses over 14 costume dressers, 200 costumes, 20 scene changes, 10 smoke and fog machines and 250 kilograms of dry ice.