That's the Show Biz...

Just a few hours ago I was singing, dancing, and attempting to seduce my husband in front of hundreds of people (much less awkward than it sounds, amazingly.) I returned home just in time to bathe my sick baby, who threw up sweet potatoes in the bath before I got him in his pj's and tucked him into bed. Now I'm on the couch alone, eating pizza and drinking wine, while the rest of the cast is at a party celebrating the closing of our show. What a day.

We closed a musical called "The Gypsy King" today, a show my husband and I have been involved with for over two years now. He plays, well, The Gypsy King... and I? I'm one of the King's two favorite, um, "girlfriends." (Thus, the attempted onstage seduction.) We got involved with this show when it was being performed as a reading (on-book, minimal staging) at a festival of new musicals. From there, we performed as part of a month long workshop of the show (off-book, staged, minimal sets and costumes) while I was in my first trimester of pregnancy. This spring the show got a full production as part of the theatre's season, and after 4 months of working on it we finished today.

I was fortunate enough to be able to understudy the show, and then perform the final 2 weeks for an actress who had to leave the show early (to do a different show.) When you add that to the week I performed for some sick actresses, I performed about 3 weeks in all of the 3 month run. It was the perfect solution for a new mom. I mostly was at home, but got to perform enough to quench a bit of the raging need to be onstage. :) It was fantastic to come in for the last few weeks, to have some fun before closing with the cast.

We went out with a bang today, literally (one of the performer's mic's went out - BOOM - in the last scene) to a standing-room only audience. My partner in King-Seducing Crimes and I got stuck together onstage by our hairpieces, and had to work our lil butts off not to laugh through the entire final scene. The audience was awesome, and it was the perfect ending to the two year long process.

Before I was a mom, the closing of a show meant that there was some serious partying in store. Performing is an emotional business (ha, clearly) and casts get very close. It's difficult to work so closely with people for so many months, only to have it all end and everyone go their separate ways. It's hard for me now to sit here alone on my couch, while my husband is out enjoying the closing night festivities without me. I'm not going to lie, it's a little rough to be the one to stay home with the baby and miss out on tonight's fun.

Being a mom is all about compromises, and often it's about not getting to do things you used to be able to. And it's not always easy to reconcile OLD me, and her desires, with New Mommy Me. However, if Elliot wakes up soon upset as a result of his wee stuffy nose I'm MORE glad that it will be my face that he sees and my arms reaching to comfort him. I'll get to hear fun stories about tonight's party... but being the one to go cuddle my son when he needs it? That's something I really can't miss out on.