2 months ago, you would've heard the stress in my voice and the yearning for this show (RENT) to be over. But now, I want nothing more than to have just one more weekend. I have quickly become attached to RENT and everything it stands for. I have made some amazing, life long friendships and these people have become more than friends; they are my family. Every night on stage, I had the opportunity to tell a story. A true story. And every night, it brought me to tears. For those of you who didn't get the chance to see this show, I will tell you that I completely broke down on stage. It was so hard not to. I've never felt so passionately about a role as I did with 'Mimi'. I also felt passionate about every single person on stage with me. Like I said, we are family. So when someone 'died' or broke down, we all felt it. As I said in a previous post, I'm not one who takes compliments well and to hear people tell me I brought them to tears or that they were sobbing, just blew my mind. How can I do that? But I'm glad this cast was able to move people. This show isn't just about a drag queen, a stripper, or a rocker with AIDS. It has a much deeper meaning. I have never had such a hard time walking away from a show or a cast before. Sunday, during our matinee, we gave our freaking all! We didn't worry about blowing our voices out or saving energy for the next weekend. The last performance was specifically dedicated to anyone and everyone effect by/with AIDS. That plus the fact that it was our last show, made us all overly emotional. Curtain call was an absolute tear fest! I couldn't stop crying. I'm tearing up just typing this. I wish I could express all the emotions I felt while on stage. By the end of the night, I was always physically AND emotionally drained. Do you know how exhausting it is to go thru 'physical with drawls' on stage? It might not sound like much, but man oh man...it was tough. One of my bestestest friends came to see the show on Sunday. He's a HUGE theatre 'geek' (love you Ivory!) and takes it very serious. I knew he'd tell me the absolute truth on what he thought of the show. He had to compose himself after the show because he was a 'hot tranny mess' as another friend put it....lol! Our little joke. Anyway, I was all cried out when he got to me but we hugged for the longest time and I just knew he was proud of me. And that meant the world to me. We talked and he had lots of things, great things, to say. I don't even know where to begin on that. He said it was the hardest on him to watch me cringe and wrentch my body on the table during the scene in which I 'die' and that he just kept thinking 'Lindsey, stop it! Just get up!'. Him and another close friend of mine were sobbing at this point in the show. After all that was said and done, the cast took one more group photo on the set. Now, if ya'll really know me, you know I like to look my 'best' in pictures. Well, by the end of the show, my makeup is HORRIBLE (on purpose) and with all the tears that were cried that day, I looked like a hot mess. I guess the picture will just capture what I really 'felt' at the end of this show :) It was definitely hard to have to clean up our dressing room and see it empty. And it's still so weird to think that we don't have another weekend to do this show. Everyone in the cast who is on Facebook has had sad, sappy status updates that just breaks my heart. My hubbie's status from last night was about how the set was already torn down and in pieces on the floor. That broke my heart. Some of you may be thinking I just need to get over it and move on; it's just a freaking community theatre production. But seriously, this show was and is meant to touch peoples lives. It's a TRUE STORY about REAL people living out something that is REAL. People die everyday from AIDS/HIV.
It's taken me 2 days to write this much. I don't know if it makes sense; I don't know if I repeated stuff. I don't want to go back and read it because I don't want to get sad. I'm also starting to get sick...I'm so physically and emotionally drained that I think I'm shutting down. But at least I have my evenings to relax and get caught up!
Thank you to everyone who came to see the show!
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