There were lightning riding hobbits and "Vote for Jenna" shirts. There were thugs and funny little green hats. There was a surfer/hippie/loser guy with a greasy long haired wig who happens to share my DNA. There was a stun gun which we have affectionately named The Raptor 100. And there was laughing. There might have been, kind of, alot of laughing. At parts I hoped were funny and at parts I really, honestly, never considered humorous. Front row dwelling cackle woman made sure to keep the guffaws coming as freely as drinks at an open bar. There wasn't an open bar. For obvious reasons.
I was getting a little worried there a few weeks ago. Turns out, it's not much easier to coordinate three adult, five high schoolers and one elementary schooler's schedule than it is to coordinate 25 kids in the Christmas pageant. You'd think it would be. But really, it's all dramatic, right down to the rehearsal schedule. But it came together. (Tell me, Thespis, how is it that since you first stepped out, plays have had a way of coming together?) It meshed during our trial run for the Sunday Schoolers. It melded even more in dress rehearsal. But, to be honest, nothing could have prepared me for the way my actors "brought it" at the performance.
I don't laugh. The lines just, cease being funny to me after so much work and so many rewrites. But the ad libs on Sunday night are what snuck up on me. I watched this thing that I created snake around on stage with a life entirely its own and wondered if that might be what it's like to have a child. To know that you brought it into existence but it now belongs to you no more than it belongs to them, or to the universe, for that matter.
I hope that someone, somewhere in the audience, was drawn closer to the Lord. I hope that through ditties and stage blood and zealous Christian females and nerds and cheerleaders, someone realized that being a believer doesn't mean we can't laugh. I hope someone, somewhere, is lead to Christ through comedy. If this is accomplished, I will be able to sleep more soundly at night. And Jared just might be able to pass ceramics.
