Be prepared for one thing, if nothing else: being a music director (or producer or choreographer) for a show, will disrupt your life, your relationships, your career (assuming you have a separate one), your social life, probably your sex life (assuming you have one), your diet, probably your driving skills and just about anything else you care to mention.
Be prepared for this too: you just won’t care.
Well, you sort of will. It’s not pleasant knowing that you’re alienating all of the few friends you’ve stayed in touch with, or that you’re slipping behind on all those other projects, or that you’ve put on half a stone in 3 weeks, simply because the only time you get to eat is after rehearsals at 10pm when all that’s left open is KFC.
But what you’re involved with, and what you’re absorbed with and how it repays you, manages to forgive all of these drawbacks.
The sustained motivation and occasional euphoria is not dissimilar those experienced during ‘Flow‘, but on a macro scale, spanning several weeks or months.
In the case of West Side Story, you don’t fatigue of the music. It just gets better and better the more time you spend with it. You become more astounded at the genius of Bernstein, and you keep seeing your actors, dancers and singers grow more accomplished at bringing to life the great vision of its creators.
Just make sure you don’t piss everyone off too much; the show will end eventually!
This is the online journal of Tim Reader and all-round HappyPlace™.
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