Today was the day I cried. Not full-on crying, but I found myself being really emotional. A big part of it was probably from not sleeping much last night (I'm still adjusting to this whole fresh air overnight thing and haven't gotten the hang of how much to open the windows so as not to be awake and freezing by 6am.) But part of it was that we tackled two of the more joyous moments of the show - "Hummingbird Heart" and "Let Me In." There was something about the day that just felt locked in, like everyone on the room is now fully on the same wavelength. Not that we weren't before, but it felt like the getting-to-know-each-other-and-the-piece period is behind us. The actors all have a mutual respect and camaraderie after a week of staging and we're far enough into the process that they're fully comfortable with the entire row of creative staff that watches them for 8 hours a day. It feels easy enough to keep getting some really hard work done.
And I think I've been in my own head, worrying not only about rewrites and staging but also just hoping that everyone likes my work. Even though it's about 15 and 16 year old girls, there's so much of myself and my heart and pieces and parts of my own life tied up in these characters that it's really overwhelming sharing it sometimes. And today I kept having moments of a kind of unspoken understanding with both actors and characters, where I felt like the girls aren't just mine anymore. Not like I feel like they've been taken away from me, but more that everything that was on the page and in my head has been brought into the physical world so completely that I don't have to guard them anymore. More than anything, it's allowed me to take a brand new look at them all.
I think that's what was overwhelming today. We started working on the scene before "Hummingbird Heart" and the barrage of lines in the scene were getting confusing, so the actors just sat down and read through the scene into the song for their own sake. I got back from pouring coffee and was half-listening while mostly trying to avoid the flies that were out in full force today, and as Margo started singing I heard the lyrics in a new way. I've easily heard that song sung a hundred times (at least) but listening to it today made me re-realize just how much I love the girls in this story. And when it was up on its feet, every time it got to the amazing vocal harmonies in the bridge I had to make sure to hold perfectly still so the tears that kept welling up didn't leave my eyelids.
By the time we got to "Let Me In" I thought that I'd be able to be a little more clinical - after all it's a complicated song that I've always had a few reservations about lyrically. So when we got to staging the verse I've always been least sure about (involving the popular girl's confessional moment) Krystina stepped forward and sang the lyrics simply (and, as always, beautifully). Seeing it sung in relation to the other girls on stage cut right to the heart of the character and I saw so many new colors in the moment and wound up understanding the girl in a brand new way. That moment of discovery might have been the most emotional experience today.
I expected to learn a lot while we were up here, of course, but I don't think I expected to have my eyes opened the way they have been. All I can to do is continue to revel in the way that Joe and Rich and these actors are giving us more than we ever thought we had in all our years behind music stands. And probably (hopefully) cry a few more times...
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