one perfect moment.

Every now and again, things line up in such a way that make any other notion than I lead and utterly charmed life impossible to entertain. I work a lot of jobs, one of them is stage managing at the Northwest Folklife festival. This is my 8th year, and began and continues as a way for me to get my theatre fix every year since I don't really have time to do much else. I've been stage managing since I was sixteen, so the ins and outs of the job are no surprise. This particular gig winds up being stage and house managing because my stage is very intimate and the doors for performers and audience are the same.
I was toying with the notion of asking for a different stage this year as I'd been working with the same acts for quite a while and was curious to see what the rest of the festival had to offer. When the offer for the contract came, I was in the middle of a full time button mashing contract and didn't really remember that I meant to shake things up a a bit. I'm' glad I didn't. At FL this year, there were a few people in high places who moved on, so everyone one kind of moved up a step. It's been interesting to watch because you can see the pet problems that people wanted solved from below, and now they finally have the power to make that happen. One of the changes has been my stage. I feel like they finally have a feel for what my stage can do. A lot of things they were expecting to be a crowd issue weren't, one thing was. Friday I started earlier than usual after putting in work at 2 other jobs, so I was kind of tired and cranky. friends have been there throughout the day to help out, and today when one finally had to leave one of my favorite MCs came in and continued to rock my world. Me stage has been almost perfectly full all weekend long, not to much, not to sparse. pretty good. And still I'm tired and kinds of cranky because the hipster showcase with the piercing acid jazz while I have a migraine fills me with a burning hate.

It's easy to get caught up in the "gig." Just do the work, get them in, get them out, next.

Tonight my last act was magic, pure and simple. They were musicians who've been playing longer than I've been alive, each phenominal in their own right. This year they shook things up a bit and played together in what amounted to a Celtic jam band. I was winding down, locking doors in the back, cleaning up and poked my head in. And couldn't walk away. They were having a fantastic time on stage. The ease and grace with which they played, the natural, organic connection from which beautiful music flowed... they were having fun. relaxed, happy, just being who they were. Then I looked out into the house and Every. Single. person was smiling. Everyone was picking up on the band's vibe and in the middle of my exhausted cynical day was a room full of happy. Genuine, warm fuzzy happiness. Some ladies came down to swing dance to the jigs and they did very well, twirling and swirling and missing and picking back up and laughing the whole time. My MC asked my sound guy who'd been having a day of epic frustration if they could do one more after they were supposed to be done. I didn't know this so when he let them go, I snuck behind the stage and asked if it was ok? He said R had approved it, I said "of *course* you asked R, how could I ever doubt you?"

When they were done, I blinked and the whole house was on their feet. I've been doing this 8 years. Don't remember a standing ovation. Then the band pointed to R, and the house turned to applaud my sound man, who is awesome and made of unicorns and really deserves the recognition. And then R said, sure, one more.

So they played a waltz that one of the fiddlers wrote 30 years ago and loves to bits. And people came down. My floor was filled with happy couples at the end of a magic night. No one was self conscious, no one was awkward. There was no tomorrow, no worry, no past, no pretense. Nothing but the music and that single feeling that filled my theatre and spilled into the lobby then the dance floor and the stage and the aisles were full. I had forgotten that magic from my early days in high school when I would lead my gang of tool using thespians to one moment of "yes, we did it, and we are awesome." In a gang of high school misfits or complete strangers, giving them one moment where they absolutely belong, that one absolutely perfect moment is why I do this. I have never, as a stage manager, cried before. I've wanted to out of frustration and fatigue and people who get annoyed when I guard their safety or steal my food. This meeting of hearts and music in front of me was so beautiful that I could not hold back a tear, nor would I have wanted to.

I have a bank of memories that I keep of utterly beautiful moments so that when I nee to pull something out to remind to of the things that aren't falling down around me I have some "stock footage."
This is going there.