The other day on my way home from rehearsal in SF, I was struck by a horrifying thought: what if stage management is God's way of preparing me to have children. And it's not like I had a terrible rehearsal or anything; actually, it was great, and everybody was really on top of their game. But as I was typing the rehearsal report I started thinking about all the things I've been doing on my last two SM gigs:
-- Coordinating eight separate schedules to make sure everyone shows up where they need to be on time.
-- Emailing the office to make sure we have a space to play in.
-- Putting everything away when we're done using it at the end of the night.
-- Mediating heated discussions about insignificant details and facilitating mutually beneficial compromises (though this was definitely the last gig I was on, not the current one).
-- Making sure that everyone eats, gets potty breaks, and takes their vitamins, except myself of course.
And of course when we get into the actual performance space I'll be keeping track of everybody's stuff and seeing that everything gets done the way we need it to happen. There's even a good dose of sleep deprivation and kissing boo-boos…it's all the tropes of parenting, but minus having to rent out my uterus for nine months.
And then I realize that I keep doing this voluntarily, and know that I may, in fact, be doomed to procreate. At least I can rest secure in knowing that I will always be able to blame theater for why my kids got so screwed up. My mom does it all the time.
