“The clock strikes midnight at Sidney Harman Hall. Another show done, and I’m heading home in hopes of engaging in sweet dreams about... that rental event that starts tomorrow at 8am?! And the five projectors that I have to hang from the ceiling in the Forum after that?! Am I going to make it to orchestra rehearsal on time? I don’t know who wants to start their event that early, or who wants projectors hung from the ceiling, but I do know that I continue to work quite a zany schedule while still being able to call that which I have outside the theatre a life all the while trying very hard to maintain my sanity! I’m sure all of us working in the theatre world can fully understand the state of a sleep-deprived prisoner, and while my own sanity comes and goes (as some of my fellow colleagues can confirm), I do somehow manage to keep my life away from the Shakespeare Theatre an actual life.
When I was considering joining the McLean Symphony Orchestra a while back, a fellow theatre friend of mine said to me, “Wow, you’re like a real person!" This made me laugh, of course, but strangely I knew what she meant. How do I do this, you say? How do I balance a crazy work schedule with my personal life without being the next to fly over the cuckoo’s nest? I do owe a lot of my ability to maintain my non-work activities to a great department at work. Without the mutual respect that the five of us in the sound department share, I might not be able to attend Alliance Française events, or run that 8k on St Patty’s Day, or film weddings on Saturdays. We all compromise a little bit to accommodate each others’ personal lives to a certain degree, and we have a boss who is more than happy to see that we are all getting enough time away from work to ensure a more productive group of sound folks. If I have a race I want to run, or a vacation I'd like to take, I can bring it to my boss and we work together to see who’s available to work in my place while I’m out. Similarly, if someone else in the sound department asks for time off, I will step up to take their place while they are out. We work as a team, and are therefore able to properly fulfill our own personal lives.
Now, this is not to say that I get to do everything I would like to do outside of work. There are times when the schedule gets quite hectic and I am not able to get a night off. There are times when events pop up, the schedule changes, and all of a sudden I’m canceling my own plans. It’s in these instances that I am ever grateful to have such considerate groups of individuals outside of my work environment. The people in my amazing young adult group at Messiah UMC are always understanding of group get-togethers or meetings that I have to miss. Likewise, the McLean Symphony conductor has always been accepting of times when I have either had to be late or miss a night of rehearsal. And so the story goes it’s a juggling act, in which I’ve had to become rather skillful.
But why do I do this, you say? Why do I continue such an outrageous balancing act? I suppose the short answer would be that I love it. Despite the craziness of my job, I love the variety of work that I do, the people with whom I work, the atmosphere of the theatre, and the challenge it all presents - hanging projectors and everything! I must admit that I am completely new to the theatre world in my career, and this is the first job that I’ve ever really enjoyed in my career, so I have been motivated to accept the responsibilities it has presented albeit I have to make sacrifices at times. As this is my first theatre job, I have tried hard to maintain my previously “normal” life by continuing the activities that I have enjoyed since the age before I started working crazy nights and early mornings. The good thing about this is that I don’t take my free time for granted. I try to make the most of it while I can. And so, life continues on... I can work in theatre and be a real person all at the same time!”
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