Thespians...

More thespians?

Yes! But this is an extra special case of thespianism. Every year the high schools from around Montana round up all their drama geeks and have a convention hosted by the University of Montana to show off their skills, enjoy performances, take workshops and geek out in harmony.

The Rep always performs a show just for them, on a night they have a grand banquet and after they do some theatrical presentations. THey are the best audience we have. They want to be us; actors, designers, technicians all. From the cheering, applause and vocal reactions it feels more like being at a sporting event with passionate fans than an ordinary night of theatre.

We toodled out of Butte at a liesurely pace, as we couldn't load into the theatre in Missoula until 5:30. That's right. Our record load-in time thus far was four and a half hours, and we had two. I had a confident feeling the entire day, although the slushy gray road conditions grated at it the longer we went, not to mention the high pitched, consistent beeping from the brake warning system in the truck (I rode with Derek that morning). We managed to drown it out with some carefully selected music although I have to say that the impact on my eardrums might have been worse than trying to be Zen about the beeping.
But I digress.
In any case, we checked in at the motel, killed time - I showered, had dinner at Liquid Planet with Lauren (I had a free crepe coming my way!) and napped.
Despite our worries, our home team backed us up with a huge crew, many of whom had helped to put the set together and in the gung-ho, burning daylight spirit of an old West barn raising, we slapped her up in an hour and fifteen minutes and time for paint touch ups before we opened the house doors.

It just goes to show that the old saying is true... 97% of the things you worry about never happen.

It's the things that will creep up on you out of nowhere that should keep you up at night.