(no subject)
I've been coasting on an adrenaline rush for the past few days. Who needs drugs when your body pumps out an endless stream of the smoothest, most reliable intoxicant you could ever want? I feel like I could lift a car or chew through wire cable or set the room on fire with my eyes like Drew Barrymore in that creepy Stephen King movie.
Conversely, it doesn't do much for the sleep pattern. When I finally do crash before the next massive high, I have all-consuming dream cycles where the overture plays on a loop while my throat dries up and I'm trying to be witty, but I can't find the sheet music and half of the orchestra is out on a cigarette break and the New York critics are scribbling in their notebooks and dammit, that french horn just keeps blaring...
...and I wake up, conducting in 6/8 time allegretto with one hand, and the other is tearing my hair out.
There wasn't much waking up today, because there wasn't much sleeping. You see, it's Opening Night. It deserves capitalization. It's fucking OPENING NIGHT.
And I'm a wreck. But in the best way possible. I'm terrified, but excited. Months and months of preparation. I took this sacred cow and completely rebuilt it from the ground up. I'm mixing my metaphors, I know, but fuck off, I'm on a roll...the songs are the same, they're Judy's, but the arrangements are mine. I've dressed up Judy and tonight I have to take her out and hope that I've done a good job.
It's one thing to take the stage by yourself, or with your backing band and go down in flames with your own songs. It's another to take the stage with a full orchestra and blow it while trying to interpret someone else's work. In front of rabid Judy fans, the cream of the New York scene, and my fans, no less.
Tonight has the potential to be that "showing up naked to school" dream come to life. But it won't. I'm prepared. I know this work better than anything else at the moment. It's going to be fabulous.
But now I need to get over there and start fussing and delegating and be a general pain in the ass. I'm going to be everyone's worst nightmare today.
Conversely, it doesn't do much for the sleep pattern. When I finally do crash before the next massive high, I have all-consuming dream cycles where the overture plays on a loop while my throat dries up and I'm trying to be witty, but I can't find the sheet music and half of the orchestra is out on a cigarette break and the New York critics are scribbling in their notebooks and dammit, that french horn just keeps blaring...
...and I wake up, conducting in 6/8 time allegretto with one hand, and the other is tearing my hair out.
There wasn't much waking up today, because there wasn't much sleeping. You see, it's Opening Night. It deserves capitalization. It's fucking OPENING NIGHT.
And I'm a wreck. But in the best way possible. I'm terrified, but excited. Months and months of preparation. I took this sacred cow and completely rebuilt it from the ground up. I'm mixing my metaphors, I know, but fuck off, I'm on a roll...the songs are the same, they're Judy's, but the arrangements are mine. I've dressed up Judy and tonight I have to take her out and hope that I've done a good job.
It's one thing to take the stage by yourself, or with your backing band and go down in flames with your own songs. It's another to take the stage with a full orchestra and blow it while trying to interpret someone else's work. In front of rabid Judy fans, the cream of the New York scene, and my fans, no less.
Tonight has the potential to be that "showing up naked to school" dream come to life. But it won't. I'm prepared. I know this work better than anything else at the moment. It's going to be fabulous.
But now I need to get over there and start fussing and delegating and be a general pain in the ass. I'm going to be everyone's worst nightmare today.