The Beginning of the End

Working at a summerstock theatre is an experience unlike any other. For three months out of the year, you pack up everything that defines you as a individual and move off to a brand new city, far from everything you've ever known. On your first day, you don't know a single person there, and yet you are immediately thrown headfirst into a high-intensity environment where you have no choice but to put forth 110% every minute just to keep your head above water. You spend between 8 and 16 hours every day at work with people you've never met, and the remaining time is spent in whatever living quarters you've been assigned with the same people. Spending nearly every waking moment with the same people for three months, you quickly develop very close bonds with people around you. And then, just as quickly as it began, the countdown to the end of the summer comes to an abrupt end, and you are whisked home to your separate schools and cities, back to whatever life you lived before summerstock.

We said goodbye to a very dear friend yesterday. The event was largely understated and unceremonious. The time was 3:30am, four hours into the final changeover of summerstock. As we took our ten minute break, she said last goodbyes, gave out last hugs, and walked out the theatre doors for the last time. I must confess that, even as we promised to cross paths sometime in our futures, I was secretly wondering if this might be the last time we ever saw eachother. For that is the hidden curse that is summerstock - even as we bond together, we fear that the bridges we build, the friendships we gain, and the memories we create can exist only within summerstock.

Over the course of the next three weeks, one by one, more and more friends will depart summerstock and return back to their own separate lives, taking with them only the memories created at summerstock. Some memories will be forgotten, others will be shared, and still others will be kept locked away from the outside world. As I say goodbye to each departing friend, I know not whether we will ever see eachother again in this life. But however our individual paths through life progress, our summerstock friendships and our summerstock memories will stay with us as we return to our pre-summerstock lives.

"Have you ever wished for an endless night?
Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight?
Have you ever held your breath and asked yourself,
Will it ever get better than tonight?"

R