Three down... one more to go... and then?

Doing the encore of 52 Pick-up has been quite the experience. We had around 60 people our opening, 70 the second and we sold out last night. I can only hope that many people want to see a 2pm matinée on a Sunday of the last long weekend before the end of the summer! Too much to wish for?

To be honest, Stewart and I really didn't rehearse that much for the encore. It's as if we still felt the show in our bones, knowing that the movements and intentions weren't far away. We were a little rough on the lines at first, but that came back quite quickly. What has surprised us throughout the encore is our inability to plainly enjoy performing. We come off stage, sometimes give each other a hug, sometimes not, and immediately start talking about the pacing, the audience reaction in certain scenes, the missed moments, the overly long moments... we can't just come off stage in a flurry of adrenaline and congratulate each other on a great show.

We both love this show, don't get me wrong, but I think we need a longer break from it than a few months. We need a year break from this show so we can completely re-evaluate what we've done with it. I doubt that we'd want to change the whole thing, but some distance would sure be useful to help us properly evaluate ourselves. You know there's a problem when I step off stage thinking "Wow, I was crap tonight, but Stewart was on fire." and then Stewart looks at me and says "Sorry I was so off tonight... but you were fantastic!"