An Impromptu Rehearsal

Saturday night I returned to the theater for a special event. A dear friend, who also happens to be my favorite director, finished her degree and a commencement ceremony along with a reception was being held at ACT. I should clarify that the only person at this commencement ceremony that had actually graduated was my friend. The valedictorian's speech was script that was lovingly written by the organizers and the rest of the "graduating class" were the casts of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Out of all the commencements I've been to, not only was this the first that didn't threaten to put me to sleep, it was by far the funniest.

It was wonderful being able to see my theater family again, many of whom I hadn't seen in several months. There were even a few people there that I hadn't seen since I retired. Of course, since it had been so long, the questions I heard the most were "what are you up to?" and "how is the writing going?" I've written in a past post about how I don't mind answering these questions. However, I've never been subjected to it with as much frequency as that night. It actually started to get on my nerves. I had to remind myself that being asked about my writing was a good thing. If they weren't genuinely interested, they wouldn't ask.

It didn't occur to me until near the end of the evening that this was exactly what I'd like to happen at WorldCon. So in some ways this was an unexpected practice run. (Leave it to actors to turn an event to an impromptu rehearsal without knowing it.) Once I had this mini-revelation, the whole night turned around. The questions ceased to be annoying and I didn't need to draw on my acting skills to make the thirtieth answer as energetic as the first. Yet again, changing how I view the situation has provided me with exactly what I needed.