The Five: Post Closing Rituals

Anthony R. Miller checks in with a few of his favorite things to do when a show closes.

With Terror-Rama closed and packed away, I find myself in an odd place, that period of time in between projects. All of the sudden, I’m not crazy busy, there are no more emails to reply to, I realize just what a mess my house is. But most of all, I’m a little sad. I’ve spent the last year of my life on this show. And while I’m turning right around and jumping to the next big project, I find myself with one day devoid of responsibility. I have no meetings, no rehearsal, no call time, no promoting to do, DEAR GOD WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MYSELF? Well, it turns out I have a few things that I always look forward to, filling the void if only for a moment.

Do Laundry

In the last month, the only time laundry got done was when I could toss a few things in the wash while cleaning blood soaked costumes. Now it is time to tackle the large pile of dirty laundry that has collected over the last few weeks, and not a moment too soon, I wore my last pair of clean underwear on closing night. Toss in bed sheets that haven’t been washed since the day before tech week, all my clothes that have been used as costumes, and the one hoodie I’ve been wearing since opening, (I’m superstitious.) and the laundry pile is like a National Landmark. Tourists take selfies in front of it, people stay two days just to see all of it, mule guided tours take you all the way to the top. Nothing says closure like reuniting yourself with the t-shirt you wore for the final dress rehearsal, almost a month ago.

Eat Cake

Self-Explanatory.

The Great Email Purge

Oh man, nothing beats creating a new mail folder and filling it with months of emails. Emails about casting, costumes, rehearsal schedules, contracts, call times, program notes, stupid questions, and box office reports can be filed away, making your inbox manageable again. Oh look, I DID get an email about my phone bill being late, well I’ll be.

Catch up on TV

My Hulu cue is backed up for weeks; the notion that I have spare time, much less more than 45 minutes of spare time to watch TV has been crazy talk. But all the sudden my nights are free and I’m home by 6pm, it’s time to catch up every show I haven’t even been able to think about. I seriously have no idea what’s happened on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s time to veg out and recover from responsibility overload.

Remind people that you exist.

Between load-in and opening weekend, I saw my daughter so few times; she started asking for ID. But seriously folks, I’m pretty sure my friends and family didn’t come to my show to support me, but more so to confirm I was alive. My girlfriend and I produced this show together and despite cohabitating, we haven’t had a non-business talk in weeks. How is she? I have no idea. What will my boss think when it’s 5 pm and I’m just now leaving work?

Now keep in mind the time in between projects can be weeks, days or a couple hours. In this case I have about one day before I dive into the next project. So I’m gonna soak it in, and enjoy the little things, like having a weeks’ worth of clean socks, the ability to sit still and do nothing important for extended periods of time, and cake, because y’know…cake.

Anthony R. Miller is a writer, director, producer and seller of theatre tickets. His show, “Zombie! The Musical! Live in Concert and One Night Only”. Is December 14th at Terra SF.