As ever with amateur theatre (sorry, I am not going to cave and call it "am dram"), there is always such a huge crash after a show. You spend three months, a quarter of a year, with a group of people two to three times a week, and then after just three nights, pouf, it's gone. In the old days we used to perform Wed/Thu/Fri/Sat and then more often than not one matinee at least, so you got a good four to five performances and by the end of the week you felt like you had had a proper run. But nowadays financial necessity and reality, especially for a play as opposed to a musical or a kids' show means that most of our shows last for just the three nights.
The post-show crash was always true, even way back when you had five shows to do, but somehow the ability to equate each performance with a neatly-drawn third of the rehearsal time makes it seem worse. I don't know why that is, maybe a similar psychological phenomenon to the whole £9.99 "it's less than a tenner" thing, only in reverse. Kind of.
It's funny how just one extra night on a run can make such a difference. I suppose it's the theatrical equivalent of Mr Creosote's "waffer-thin mint".
Anyway, compare the current post-show crash with the one time when we did a show for a very extended run. When Arena performed Oh! What a Lovely War, we did four nights plus a matinee at the Regent Centre in the Autumn, then another night at The Mowlem in Swanage, then we toured extracts here there and everywhere as we raised funds to take it to Colorado, where we performed for another three (or was it four?) nights the following August, so we were rehearsing the show for the best part of a full year, and did three separate productions, as such. When that was over it was very sad, the way a "wrap party" that movie actors talk about feels, I guess, but it also felt like we had done it justice and it was time to move on. Usually, the post-show feeling is one of "I want more". Which probably accounts for why people keep doing show after show after show, I suppose!
The post-show crash was always true, even way back when you had five shows to do, but somehow the ability to equate each performance with a neatly-drawn third of the rehearsal time makes it seem worse. I don't know why that is, maybe a similar psychological phenomenon to the whole £9.99 "it's less than a tenner" thing, only in reverse. Kind of.
It's funny how just one extra night on a run can make such a difference. I suppose it's the theatrical equivalent of Mr Creosote's "waffer-thin mint".
Anyway, compare the current post-show crash with the one time when we did a show for a very extended run. When Arena performed Oh! What a Lovely War, we did four nights plus a matinee at the Regent Centre in the Autumn, then another night at The Mowlem in Swanage, then we toured extracts here there and everywhere as we raised funds to take it to Colorado, where we performed for another three (or was it four?) nights the following August, so we were rehearsing the show for the best part of a full year, and did three separate productions, as such. When that was over it was very sad, the way a "wrap party" that movie actors talk about feels, I guess, but it also felt like we had done it justice and it was time to move on. Usually, the post-show feeling is one of "I want more". Which probably accounts for why people keep doing show after show after show, I suppose!
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