Okay, this is the first time I’ve ever really worked with an actual set before, so it was all new to me. Usually strike involves putting a few props and costumes away. My experience with Uncle Vanya, was, of course, very different.

When the set was getting put together, I came in, fresh-faced (if scruffy due to that damned beard) and eager to work. Naturally, we were painting. This was good, I enjoy painting. There’s something about that methodical type of work that is soothing and also engaging at the same time. Even though we had to be very careful not to get paint on certain areas of the stairs we were painting, it was relatively easy to get into a rhythm and also be able to hold conversations with others. We sang a few times, or argued about the motives of characters in Les Mis, and all around had a good time in each other’s company, while also getting some significant work done. I came in and painted three times, about 5 hours in total, although it felt like less than that.

Saying goodbye to the set was hard. It had become such an integral part of our performances and of how we worked together that it felt like we were destroying some great monument to what we’d achieved in these past three months. But, the life of the theater is nothing if not ephemeral, and so it had to go to make way for something new. It was a prime example of entropy in the universe: the set that had taken at least a week, if not more, to go up was almost completely demolished in around three hours. It felt like a construction site: we were all scrambling around the woodworks, pulling, hacking, unscrewing, you name it, everything in the name of pulling the set apart utterly and completely. It was intense, and, as I said, actually pretty emotional. I am extremely glad that I had the chance to take part in both putting it together and tearing it down.