Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Yes, it's always like this

A while back, I somehow fell into the job of costuming for a dance company. It isn't anything I'd ever intended to do. 

Every show presented more technical challenges. How to get the pleats to lay flat? How to secure the boots that were too loose? How to ensure that a girl's top stays in place? All these little details that I had never thought of before. I mean, who thinks of these things? Well, now I think about these things. But that wasn't the biggest challenge. 

You see, I didn't grow up as a performer. I did a couple of plays in high school. Small shows and I had very small parts, which was fine by me. Now, suddenly I was involved in these huge productions with elaborate and expensive costumes. Hundreds of pieces to keep track of and repair and replace. It all seemed pretty straightforward and each show started out that way.  Alas, it never went as easily as I planned. Things were torn, or misplaced. There were last minute casting changes that led to last minute alterations.

Early on, one show went especially wrong. I hadn't thought about that evening in a long time and then I read Maisey's post and it all came back to me in sharp detail. It was one crisis after another all night long. I literally didn't sit down before my name was called again by panicked dancers - Torn pointe shoe ribbons, tights with holes, makeup stains, ripped tulle, lost headpieces, tears and stains, glue and thread and needle.  Finally at the end of the night, the star was back on stage - neatly sewn into his costume with the broken zipper - and I turned to some of the veteran performers. They were celebrating our success in getting everyone back out on stage on time. The audience had no clue how frenzied we were back stage. My hands shaking with an excess of adrenaline, I couldn't see anything to celebrate. "Tell me it isn't always like this," I said, half-joking. I wanted some reassurance that some day I wouldn't have to do this, some day in the not too distant future I would get it right.

They assured me that it was indeed always like that, and if you were very prepared and very lucky, the audience never knew. It was one of those moments when the world shifts around, like a kaleidoscope, and suddenly you see a different pattern. 

I wasn't supposed to get it right every time. It wasn't supposed to be done. I wasn't supposed to be done. Being accomplished didn't mean being finished. I carried that thought with me out of the theater that night and it quite changed the way I thought about my life.

I'm not perfectly organized or getting everything right. Every single day is an adventure. I'm making it up as I go along.





10 comments:

  1. First off allow me to say, wow Julia! I would have lost my patience, my voice and certainly my sanity, but you did it and succeeded. Kudos! Secondly, the story you just told fits so well into fiction. As writers, we cannot allow readers to see our frustration in chapter two where we second guessed the possibility of the book, or page sixty-five where the heroine up and changed professions on us. We have to show our audience, the readers, a seamless production. I'm taking this with me to the office today, Julia. Thank you! :)

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  2. Really nice post, Julia! I like the way you suggest that every day is an adventure, because every day should count. Cheers!

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  3. I am impressed - and ashamed to admit I can't sew a button on let alone costume a play! But I have put on lots of events and it's always the same, your guests and customers see the smiling faces, the wine, the nicely displayed literature not the weeks of frantic preparation. Hopefully if anyone does ever read my work the finished product will seem as well-finished as your ballet show. Thanks for another great post.

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  4. Well what can I say except you know only too well the sheer panic that goes on behind the scenes of one of my productions :D

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  5. Lovely post, Julia! I think I would have gone and hid in a closet :)

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  7. Great blog and great attitude! Here's to new adventures. (raises glass in salute)

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  8. Yeah, I'd be in the closet with Lacey! IT's true though, the same thing happens with writing. What the reader sees is - hopefully - a great story with lovely characters they can get lost in. They don't know the tears, the chocolate, the alcohol, the tantrums, the rewrites and the angst that go into making said story. Nor should they! :-)

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  9. Julia, fab story, and fab analogy.

    You are such a good storyteller. I felt I was there backstage with you in that blur of adrenaline.

    You are doing a marvellous job of making it up as you go along!

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  10. great and interesting blog!


    -fashion illustrator-

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