One of the worst things about a closing night, even if it’s the end of a play that failed, is that you are not just ending a run, you are leaving your family and they are leaving you. Oh, your paths will cross, everyone’s on Instagram, you’ll stay in touch fervently with everyone for a few weeks and then just a few people, the ones you can’t bear to be without.
It’s a funny kind of family, dictated by producers, fate, script, and casting agents. But then, inevitably, it is a family. Alliances form, misunderstandings occur, petty disappointments and misheard gossip accrue, all of that. But in this family the play is not only the thing, it is the ONLY thing. As soon as you cross the threshold from the unlit wings onto the brightly lit stage, you are in this sacred space with others and you can do none of this magic without each other, and you know it.
It’s a funny space, this one, here is a love that cannot speak its name because it cannot really be described. Our lives in the theater, together, really is, as the Bard said, “Such things as dreams are made of” in every sense. We are ourselves, of course, our quotidian. neurotic, distracted selves, entering the theater won’t change that.
Except that it does. We watch what we bring of ourselves into this space because here we are with our family and we don’t want to fuck that up.
By Evalyn Baron
On February 13, 2026
So glad you dipped your writer gift into this rich, challenging topic….i appreciate each line, each insight….i bet you have lots more you could say about theater and the families it gives birth to……the intensities and demands are what good story telling are made of….thanks for this….Happy ❤️ to you!