By Mia Fernandes

Edited by Ashley Yeung and Alloe Mak

One can sink into post-show depression faster than you’d think. Often, it begins before the closing night has even started. I’m not sure when exactly it happens, but it’s somewhere around the time when knowledge that you are about to say your lines and walk through your blocking for the last time hits you like a ton of bricks—paved together by memories from late-night rehearsals and every grueling tech day. As you do hair and makeup for the last time, you’ll realize that after weeks of caking on foundation, blush, and mascara—praying you won’t break out the next day—that this is the last time your face will transform in this exact way. These realizations are the beginnings of what ends up being a spiral of loss, joy, and exhaustion. 

The thing about post-show depression is that no one understands it unless they too, were in said show. Though everyone has their own version of it, it’s the very human experience of having something you love end. It’s the feeling of the finale of your favourite show, of a relationship ending, the last chapter of a really good book. The sensation of nostalgic exuberance mixed with the shattering truth you will never again experience these exact feelings in this exact way, ever again.  It’s a feeling somehow both personal and simultaneously universal that rocks you to the core and leaves you in a puddle on the floor of your room as you replay every flawless set change in your mind. How can life possibly keep moving when there’s such a big gaping hole in it?

Even once the set has been struck and the cast party is a collection of snapshots in your memory, it still takes a couple days to come to the realization that after months of spending every waking moment living and breathing the stage, it is time to integrate yourself back into regular society. It’s time to reclaim the life you had before tech week and dress rehearsals, call times and games of Slide backstage. It is not an easy thing to do. Pouring your entire being into a production means you often no longer have the capacity, energy, or mental stability to operate at the same level in other parts of your life. I was naïve at the beginning of this year, thinking it would be absolutely no problem juggling my extracurriculars, school work, and a show. I laugh thinking back, because I couldn’t have been more wrong. If you want to be part of a successful production, then you must sign a contract with the universe to state you will put your entire social and academic life on hold to allow  you to work tirelessly to bring 2 hours of wonder and joy to an audience. This, admittedly, seems like a bad deal—a really, really bad deal. I don’t know why anyone would choose it. I do, however, know that I will choose it a thousand times again. And again, I will naïvely believe that I can do everything and please everyone, and again I will feel disappointed in myself that I forgot to study for a math test, or I forgot to respond to a friend’s text message. One of my cast-mates actually put it really well – as I panicked to her about the test I felt little confidence about.

“The thing about a show like this, is that something’s gotta give.”

For me, at that moment, I was choosing to dance around in an oyster costume over learning the quadratic formula. Her incredibly intelligent  comment made me realize that sometimes life forces you to choose, as hard as it can be to do so. I was picking scratchy tights and layers of stage makeup up over reflection and refraction. Many times I wondered if what I was giving up was my sanity. If so, when would I get it back? I was consistently coming home hours after the last bell rang, only to scarf down a reheated dinner and cram as much homework into the evening before my eyes physically couldn’t hold themselves open anymore. The rational part of my brain told me that I could be jeopardizing my own future by throwing myself so wholeheartedly into that performance. The other half of my brain was telling me that if I was doing what I loved, I wasn’t jeopardizing a damn thing. During the past few weeks, as I’ve stumbled back into regular life, a life where I’m home before the sun goes down and I’m caught up in school work, I have started to understand that sometimes, to do what makes you happiest, you have to sacrifice something. This isn’t a lesson I wanted to learn. I wanted to be able to do it all with ease, have everything I wanted, and some time to smell the roses. But that’s just not how life is sometimes. And, you know what? I’m starting to think that maybe that’s okay.

I was walking down Bloor with a friend recently when I decided to voice a semi-formed thought that came stumbling out of my mouth. I had to say it out loud, or else it was drenched in shadow.  I had been keeping it muffled under a blanket for fear it would sound too shocking to my system. 

“I think I want to do theatre. Like, forever. I just think I would be heartbroken if I ever had to stop.” 

As my body and mind healed after a grueling month of rehearsals, late-night homework, and thousands of mini (and not so mini) freakouts, I was gifted an “Aha!” moment, which ironically made me all the more confused. To stop performing would be to stop doing what brought me some of the most wonderful feelings I have ever felt. To continue to perform would be to continue to sign the contract that says that life outside of the theatre will be a blurry sprint of canceled plans and half-conscious decisions. I think I might love life too much to surrender to dark theatres, but I also love theatre too much to ever experience a final curtain call. So, yes. You could say that what I am experiencing is a classic teenager-questioning-everything-crisis —one of the sorts that millions of others are going through at this very moment. We all shakily raise our fists in unison, screaming the lines to our favorite books, songs, and movies, telling every doubter that “WE WILL FIND A WAY TO FOREVER DO WHAT WE LOVE” and “WE WILL MAKE IT WORK.” The simple truth is that we think way too highly of our own capabilities. Which is, I think, our greatest asset. Only by refusing limits can we live without them and live without fear of not being content. When we accept that physically and mentally we are not capable of doing all that we love and more, we surrender to an unfulfilling life. The glorious thing about being young is that we tower our plates with experiences so that one day we’ll be able to sort out the exact portion we want. Right now, something’s gotta give. Maybe something will always have to give. But maybe one day we’ll be able to grab everything we want by the throat and dance around until our feet have blisters. 

It’s been two weeks since closing night. After I finish the first draft of this piece, I’ll be working on all the things I gave up for the chance to stand on a stage in front of hundreds of people who were immersed in a world I helped to build. I’ll start with math, then science, followed by english. And I’ll curse myself for all the work I’m doing now on the weekend. In a few week’s time, my grade 10 drama class will be gearing up for our production of The Laramie Project. I’ll be stressed because exams and culminatings will be coming up. I’ll cry from frustration, from exhaustion, from happiness. And next year, I will do it all over again. And, naively, I have enough faith in miracles and magic and hard work to believe that one day, nothing will have to give.