The Moment Passes

It's a hell of a thing when you have the opportunity to perform. Most of what I do involves teamwork, and it's a beautiful thing to create something with people- to have that bond with someone. The attention is diffused, though. The audience sees you all, and some of you stand out less than others. In a scripted performance those will always be the same people, but in improv it depends on the prevailing nature of the performers who tends to catch the audience's eye most often.

When you do something that is exclusively your own thing, the audience only sees you and what you've done. That might make for the most intense experience from the perspective of the performer. Just yesterday, I did my one man show, and it was quite a feeling. While onstage, time just flew. I saw the audience, but they might as well have been faces painted on a wall for all that it meant to my brain at that moment. I heard them better, and tried to adjust on the fly a little according to their responses.

After it was over, there was a euphoria, and a powerful feeling of relief to have gotten through the whole thing without incident and to have expended all the energy I had built up. The feeling was heightened by the validation I started to get from people whose opinions I deeply respect. It means a lot when what you do really lands. The remainder of the evening was like this, with a lot of kind words coming my way. I even was given flowers that I guess were looted from a display prepared for the show.

No matter how incredible the feeling of that moment is, and it was pretty amazing, it always passes. I was feeling it while chatting after the show, and it carried over to the frozen yogurt place as well as the chicken place. After that, though, it dissipated. No matter what kind of a big shot you feel like right after a big achievement, you always end up doing mundane domestic things like washing dishes, and it brings you down. You just have to resolve to do whatever it takes to regain that initial feeling, and it takes a lot. I'll do what I have to.