That Magical Moment Before The Show Starts

It was the fall of 2004, and I was sitting in the theatre at my high school — my theatre, my second home. For the first time in a very long time, I was sitting in the house — in the audience. It was the teaser for Nickel and Dimed, and we were doing something a little different, which meant that most of the cast wasn’t performing. Darkness was all around, and then a light shone on my friend, sitting high up on the scaffolding with a guitar. My friend began to sing David Gray’s “Silver Lining,” and it felt like magic. There was something so perfect about the moment that it gave me shivers. It just hit me that that was what the audience saw, heard, and felt. And it just meant all the more to me because it wasn’t merely a show I might watch: it was my show and my friends.