Like two or three of the other folks involved in Ragtime, I also find myself coming full circle in the final semester of my senior year. My very first show at Duke was Sweeney, which I joined abruptly after two months of telling myself I wasn’t going to do musical theater at Duke. Aaaaand guess where I ended up? The costume shop.
It’s surreal, wheeling the costume racks up to the dressing rooms every night. I have such vivid memories–some very good, others the reason why I’ve tended to avoid more theater in the last four years–of doing virtually the exact same thing as a first-semester freshman. Last night, as I was forcing the men’s rack into the elevator, a wheel caught on the door, and I almost cried for no particular reason other than the amount of time and experience crammed in between two similar and vastly different events.
Most of you know I’m also here to document the show’s making for my capstone project. That probably deserves a post of its own–what I am here to say now is thank you all, sincerely. Being with you for the last several months has honestly been a highlight, and not just because of how remarkably accepting you’ve been of someone who is not in your cast, running your show, or particularly noticeable outside of bringing you clean socks.
Thank you for being so uniquely diverse, interesting, and fun people who make doing a semester-long project dynamic and not death-inducing. Thank you for shining a new light on a collaboration I was uncertain about after my freshman year.
You are all doing amazingly–I expect some day soon I’ll maybe be able to get all the way through ‘Til We Reach That Day’ without completely falling out halfway through.
Also, thank you for hanging up your costume. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
-Z
