After two weeks of show shut down, the final cupcake was stacked along the wall, the floor was vacuumed and the benches arranged in a row in front of the costume racks. I have spent the last couple of weeks putting away the tea cart, packing away the Beast and his paws and trying to find a place big enough to store Mrs Potts hoop skirt...she was a VERY big woman!
There is always something bitter sweet about closing a show. By the time you get to the end of the run, everyone has nailed their part so well. They all begin to mesh as a cast and the stress of opening night is far behind them. Everyone is eager to go another weekend. The cast party and then its over. You are standing in the middle of a volcanic mass of costumes, shoes, props and scripts that need to sorted, cleaned and put away. The scripts have to be boxed up and shipped back to New York. I am never sure if it takes more time to put the show together or to put it all away.
I do enjoy the quiet. I like to take a day to sort through the costumes slowly, looking for tears, cleaning, finding the container they came from and a place to put the container back when you are done. We are getting quite the collection. With each show, I try to clean out unusable items and pull some for the next show. I remove the cast member's name and for a moment remember something unique or special about them. The little cupcake girls may have been costumed the same but each of them added their own brand of icing to the cake.
Cogsworth's cap and clearing the drawers of the Wardrobe. Babette's hat didn't make it, but Mrs Potts hat should go in the Upstart Crow Studios Hall of Fame. I was thinking how fun it would be to have a case where you could point to such things and remember the story behind it. Each show has its own memories, stories, inside jokes and energy. So putting it all away is time spent savoring the remnants of 60 kids who were beauties and at times, beasts, but were always something to crow about!
