May 2003 – Page 10 – Priscilla Spencer

For the first time in Jesuit’s history, tonight’s show was completely sold out.

And now it’s over.

The show went quite well, I think. Barring minor catastrophes that were more-or-less spotlessly covered (I wonder how many people noticed I sang the wrong verse in “What Does He Want of Me?”), I thought it was a great performance. Apparently, I made most of the audience cry. XD But now, it’s over. After the performance, I spent a long time talking to all my friends, then Mr. Oliver, and by the time I got up to the changing room, everyone had already left for the cast party. As I assembled my clothes to be sent back to the various costume retailers, it slowly started to hit me.

In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Arthur finds himself incapable of comprehending the gravity of the Earth being destroyed, and he cannot mourn until he breaks the catastrophe into tiny pieces. It all hits him when he realizes that there is no longer any such thing as a McDonalds hamburger. Right now, I feel pretty much like Arthur. I looked around at the completely ordinary objects surrounding me, then burst into tears. The white-out rendering of “Smiling Joe Pedophile” on the greenboard. The make-up mirror and the surrounding bins of make-up, almost entirely consisting of “Light Japanese” foundation. The couches. All the costumes. The water jugs and the three bags of orange slices.

None of it will I ever see again.

As I walked down the stairwell from the dressing room, I realized that I would never walk down that stairwell again and I cried even more. As I drove to the cast party, my brain started tackling the idea of never seeing certain people again. I’m going to try to see the fall shows at Jesuit, as they tend to correspond with college Thanksgiving vacations, so I wouldn’t have to cope entirely with the loss of Mrs. Felice, but the idea of never seeing the other seniors again was too horrible to consider. Thank goodness I’ll see them again at the Drama Banquet! But then after that, nothing.

Jesuit theatre has been my life, almost. Sophomore year, I was depressed and bored with my life. I would try out for Hockaday productions, but because I hadn’t been chosen previously to be in one of Mr. Blaydes’ plays and because I wasn’t in Mrs. Wetherington’s precious choir, I didn’t stand a chance. After a week of building resentment, I convinced myself that I would talk to Mr. Long (our arts chair) and ask him if I could student direct a play. That very day, Mr. Long randomly approached me and asked if I wanted to audition for “How to Succeed” at Jesuit. And the rest is history. I got out of my funk, and life was beautiful again. As long as I was involved in something theatrical, I was the happiest girl in the world. And now I’m Aldonza, and life can’t get any better than this.

The horrible part about the realization that “it can’t get any better than this” is that the only way to go is down.

And now it’s all gone. I’ll go to prom tomorrow, and it will be as if nothing happened. As if I’m not missing the final performance or the set strike or the cast party, which I’ve decided not to try for as apparently no one else is going. But I’ll know. I feel like my life is a literary device. Mentally, I’ll feel out of place and wrong. Physically, I’ll be the same way. It’ll be hard to cover up all the bruises on my arms now that I’m wearing a strapless evening gown. People are probably going to think I’ve been abused, when really it’s just a casualty of one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I don’t even feel the bruises. I don’t even notice them, except when I see them in the mirror.

And now I’m crying again and it’s 2:35 in the morning and I’m supposed to be getting my beauty sleep so that I don’t look horrid and wrinkly for prom. I think I’ll read more of “Wee Free Men” instead.