Mid-season

‘Oh man,’ says Sahel as the staff bus rumbles out of Lewes, shaking his head with a smile, ‘you know it’s bad when you need a fourth cup of coffee by the afternoon!’ 

‘Fourth?’ says the older man sitting next to him. ‘More like tenth.’ 

Sahel’s infectious laughter is bubbling up again, and I think to myself that if someone as rubber-ball bouncy and bright as Sahel has been finding the schedule punishing, then I am fully entitled to my own mind-deadening tiredness. 

‘We’re all very tired,’ Boss Lucy is saying as we pile into Running Wardrobe. Her face looks as though it’s literally melting with exhaustion. ‘We’re going to have to pull together tonight — I’m going to need your help to get this show turned around. Flute has just been… insane. I feel like I’m not making any progress with it - not moving forward, just sideways. The stage crew are shattered, props are on their knees.’ We’re all nodding. ‘I know everything will be fine, and once the show is up, it will be great - we just need to get through these next few days.’

‘How are you doing?’ I ask the chorus ladies as I dish out hats and tights in their room.

‘Oh, hanging in there!’ They shrug and laugh at the craziness of it all. 

‘Have you seen next week’s schedule?’ Jade cries, holding up her phone. ‘No more rehearsals! Just shows in the afternoons!’ and the girls let out a whooping cheer.

‘Just one more day to get through,’ says Natalia, and it’s the same for me. The dressers and makeup girls are swapping notes about how nobody’s done any vacuuming for weeks. But it’s just one more day, and then for the rest of the season I’ll just be working on shows in the evenings and I’ll have my mornings back again.  

Blossom has brought in some dinner for me that she has cooked at home - a plate of roast lamb and baked sweet potato. She has noticed that I have been a little run down, and the kindness of her gesture almost brings tears to my eyes. I sit and eat it in the green room, watching people exchange smiles as a member of the orchestra snores thunderously on one of the couches. The dinner is delicious. 

At the end of the show, we all pitch in upstairs like Snow White’s dwarfs to help Boss Lucy and the team with the Cendrillon laundry. Washing machines are growling and rumbling, the hand-wash spinner is whirring. Coat-hangers are clanging and the hot-box door is slamming open and shut. Already, the ladies’ chorus black mesh tops are drip-drying on a rail, and the girls only took them off about twenty minutes ago.  

‘Alright, thank you everyone,’ says Claire, her face flushed with steam, ‘I think that’s all we need you for.’ 

Alison gives Blossom and I a lift back into town. Blossom is trying to entice us to join her for cocktails at the new rooftop bar above Chaula’s that her son is managing, but Alison and I are way too wrung out, and we promise to do it another time. As I spill out of Alison’s car, I give her peck on the cheek and say, ‘see you in a few hours!’ Back at home, there’s just enough time to shower, lay out tomorrow’s clothes and have a hot drink before it’s time to turn in…