That’s why I do theatre.

To change the world.

I was reminded of it this week in two very different, yet parallel experiences.

Sunday night: 2 minutes to places.  The basement of Gallery 119 which serves as our dressing room for Hamlet.  About to enter a theatre with a mere 6 people in the audience, this cast of strong amazing women didn’t bat an eyelid.  They continued their prep.  Laughing, last minute touches to the eyes, a little powder on the those, shoveling down the last of dinner, making fun of each other, bending to squint into poorly lit mirrors.  They were here because they wanted to be; because we had a story and we wanted them to tell it, and they know how and do it with flare.  And I remembered why I began this incredible adventure called theatre.

Today, Wednesday afternoon: Girls, Inc. in Lowell.  A classroom of peanuts.  Three feet tall and five feet tall.  Big and small.  Round and straight.  Every shade of brown, peach, pink, and tan known to man.  And everyone of them watched with wide, anticipating eyes.  They wanted to know who Hamlet is, is the story real, why is he fighting, why does Laertes say goodbye to Ophelia, is Ophelia still there, she dies without getting to love Hamlet, how do you do that kick, where does he go, what does he do.  And one little girl “I guess it’s like how we learn things everyday without even knowing.”  “Yes,” I said, “that’s a good way to put it.”  These girls, our future, I tell stories to make their world a better place.

I am but one person.  But I have the power to call together hundreds to put a story on stage.  I have the power to arrest a classroom of children and teach them to know where they are in space.  I have the power to make an audience sit up and pay attention.  I have the power to help others do the same.

This is why I do theatre.

I’m wearing the clothes I thought I’d be excercising in, but I never made it to my living room and its DVD player because my daughter arrived  home an hour earlier than expected and had missed her morning apointment for a flu shot.  So we went to the doctors instead of working on my cardio.

My hair was washed.  Yesterday.  It was also styled.  Yesterday.

I had a taste of Hamlet rehearsals yesterday when we rehearsed a scene for a private fundraising party.  So my head is stuck in Hamlet clouds.

I went to a different fundraiser on Tuesday, for New Exhibition Room, and laughed so hard I cried.  The night included irreverent love songs by a threesome who looked far too preppie and sweet to be spouting that kind of vocabulary, two pieces by my new favorite Goddess: UnAmerika’s Sweetheart, a burlesque dancer with more grace in her little finger than I will ever ooze from my entire being, hosted by a character actress whose specialty is playing an 87-year old ex-vaudevillian.  Not to mention the Steamy Bohemians.  I was going to stay for the first half hour and ended up being sad when I had to leave after it ended.  I would have like to stay and play but my head was pounding for a visit to her bed.

I have entirely neglected my “day job” as I struggle to keep up with the marketing material for GANemeed.

And I’m about to be late picking up my child who’s angry at me for putting her in aftercare and sending her to her dad’s house extra this week.

It’s been a long week.  I look like I’ve been sleeping in a sack.

But I am inspired.  Excited.  I can’t contain my wings.

Now, if I could only fit the whole sleeping, eating, exercising thing in, this Rough Week would be perfect.