Musical Memory
From down the sloped hallway, voices waft through your ears
filled with songs about pirates, love, and harmonious melody as Pirates of Penzance practice unfolds.
As you what it’s like sitting in there,
to surround yourself with twenty other singing voices,
dreaming of the day you can perform the musical on stage and feel accomplished,
a sense of relief that it’s finally over.
All the practice has paid off,
and now we can go back to our normal life again.
Actors, musicians, stage crew can finally drift off to sleep
at a normal hour,
the honors work that had been put off for months
can be completed with the utmost attention to detail.
No more late night dress rehearsals,
no more hoarse voices from belting out songs,
too high or too low for natural ranges,
constantly stuck in your head from incessant humming,
no more hot, cramped dressing rooms, and
actors can finish the never-ending piles of algebra equations
world history vocab,
and chemistry notes,
and meet deadlines on time,
stop drifting to sleep in classes
filled with snooze-inducing lectures
and monochromus powerpoint slides .
But it isn’t over.
The songs still play on repeat,
Go Home with Bonnie Jean,
Jeannie’s Packin Up,
and the memories still brush
across the forefront of my mind,
like paintings on a fresh white canvas.
And we miss it.
The stage us back to perform,
blinding stage lights,
set pieces,
leftover flowers from the hill,
reminding us of Brigadoon,
the musical we all vowed no talent could beat.
Filled with the delight of donning sweaty costumes on the stage again,
colorful dresses and character shoes that pinch heels,
and resonate on the brown wooden stage floor
and caking on layer after layer of thick stage makeup,
pasty white foundation,
bright pink blush,
and enough eyeliner to last for two years,
but still filled with delight and forgetting all stress and worry of the day
with the ability to show a different side of the world,
show people that not all the goodness in the world has been lost,
and make people, laugh, smile, forget their problems.
As soon as eyes scan over the email saying, “Dear thespians and musicians! We are so excited to announce this year’s musical - Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance!”
your heart races at the thought of having to prepare for another audition,
but delights at the chance to perform again
with friends and classmates
as you celebrate the fact that your acting skills did not evaporate over the summer,
the ability to capture eyes and attention with graceful movements
to fascinate audience members with the dancing talents
no actor knew they possessed,
to don puffy white dresses,
eye patches,
swords,
and new braided hair-dos,
styled hair peppered with flakes of grey,
for the delightful father of nine beautiful maidens,
and wow the crowd for one last time.
The last musical memory for the seniors before they walk across the stage,
the same place where they performed, so many times,
musicals and plays that created so many memories,
and move on to new adventures,
and new experiences,
as graduation slowly peeks around the corner.