Exhaustion and fringe benefits

I am tired. Like, dragging myself out of bed, can't remember how to spell things tired. It's funny how you forget this part when you are remembering all the wonderful theatre memories. You forget how the 3 days before you open you would do anything for just another hour of sleep. How there will be at least one kid everyone wants to scream at (in our case, there are three). How it all feels like there is too much to do and everything is going to be a disaster, and you keep reminding each other that it will all be ok. I haven't ever had a child, but I imagine that this is a similar phenomenon to that of mothers forgetting the pain of labor once they hold their child in their arms. You know it hurt, but you forget just how much until you have to do it again, and you gladly do it again because it is so worth it.
It is, in fact, all worth it. When I watch the characters come to life, when something happens on stage that makes me laugh or makes me cry or makes me do both at once, it is all worth it. When kids who I otherwise would have never known say hi in the hallway or want to hang out in my room, it is worth it.
I have gotten to do some cool things in this show, and one of them has been the show photography. At the moment I have almost 700 pictures on my computer, all from this show. My pictures have been published in several local newspaper, on the front page in full color on one. I like taking pictures, and I like to think I take good ones, so this has been a lot of fun. I know I have inundated this blog with pictures lately, but I have a few more of my favorites to share...