Oh, What a Weekend it Was. . .

Well, the Culver City Public Theatre (CCPT) 2007 season has come to an end. And what a weekend it was. There was that incredible mixture of joy and melancholy. The audience was great and uplifting in their response. The King Midas cast (pictured below, courtesy of Heidi Dotson who is kneeling in front) responded to the audience and each other in true ensemble fashion.

I came away from the day and the season with a special memento. Dean Suh, who did the artwork that was used on both the cover of the playbill and the front of the annual T-Shirt, gave me a signed copy of the original artwork which I will soon have suitably framed. His drawing was based on 3 photographs that were used for the season's publicity flyer. Pictured are John Glass and Shannon Pritchard (as seen in Much Ado About Nothing), Eric Billitzer (in the Good Doctor) and The Ancient One (as King Midas).

At the end of the day the season ending barbeque was held and there was a lot of mutual back slapping for a season successfully completed. Personally, I was ready for the end because I have either been rehearsing or performing since the end of January and it is time for a break. But, there are feelings of melancholy too. It's over!!! The work and the audiences are gone for a while. And the King Midas cast, with its very special chemistry, will never perform as a single unit again. Those of us who continue to see each other will share stories of the experience but it isn't quite the same; it isn't the same high that comes from collectively touching an audience with a story to which they respond enthusiastically. I will miss that collective sense of joy and accomplishment that comes when you succeed in touching others lives through theatre. I know that is one of the main reasons I perform on stage or, in the case of CCPT, in the park.

Well, there may be an afterword or two about the season over the next few weeks if other pictures and stories from the come forth. But CCPT is now dark until 2008 after a wonderful, successful season.