Which is actually kind of weird, considering the process by which I got to this point. I detested the dancing, and my entire philosophical outlook on life is contrary to the entire point of the play. I didn't expect much of the play, and for most of the practices that's what I got. It was cool being with friends, sure, but not amazing. Then came the week of dress rehearsals. Suddenly, everything was made real. We were no longer just a bunch of kids coming together to make a play. No, we were exactly what Mrs. Flatland wanted us to be: a team. From the eighth graders to the twelfth graders, we came together as one sentient being.
We were determined and focused, yet at the same time still relaxed. Let me tell you what I have no doubt will become one of my favorite stories to tell about the play. Besides my two dances, my main scene is one in which I play the card game whist in the background (fancy, eh?). At the second performance I was sitting at my table behind the curtain, waiting for the curtain to pull back and for my scene to come. And a minute or two before the appointed time, what happened? Mrs. Flatland, the director of the play, sat down on an adjoining chair and played a game of Crazy Eights with me (I won of course, but she beat me the next night). This struck me as so (excuse me for overusing the word) amazing. Instead of pulling the normal director routine of walking around agitated and anxious, our director was relaxed enough to use that valuable time playing a card game. Pretty cool.
And finally there was the cast party. After being super hyper most of Saturday afternoon, in the evening I got to settle down and become even more hyper. The cast party is yet one more place that I found evidence that we were indeed a team, even after the play was finished. In previous years people who knew each other well would hang out in groups and plays games, while the other people would just stand around a bit more awkwardly. Not so this year. There was a good fifty people at that cast party, and yet I could not find anyone not having a good time. That was just the kind of cast we were.
"Kind of cast we were". I guess I'm starting to acknowledge that the play is done. It certainly doesn't feel like that way. I wouldn't feel odd at all to show up next Tuesday for play practice as if nothing happened. But yet it has. So much has happened. If just a few little things had went wrong, the play would not be the amazing experience that I will forever remember it as. What if there had been no Rumpus Butterfly? What if I hadn't decided to go to the cast party? WHAT IF I HAD LOST MY CLAVICLE AND DIED? But those things didn't happen, and Pride and Prejudice will forever be awesome. In fact, I'm not even sure if next year's play (Shakespeare), will be able to hold up to the standard which Pride and Prejudice set. I dearly hope so. Also, a lot of the people who were in the play are also in Mock Trial. I can assure you that I can't wait for that :)
