Happy Face - "Don't Be Afraid"

And with that, I can now officially say I have directed my first play. Right before graduation to boot! It all feels so surreal; graduation, this show, the whole works. But I honestly couldn't be happier (stressed to the nine's, sure, but happy nonetheless). I am so proud of how far my Happy Face cast has come! I love each and every single one of them more than anything! I was so completely terrified coming into this production. I had little to no faith in my directing skills before we started this. I didn't think I knew what I was doing or hardly any good at it. I was so scared that people would judge me too harshly for my choices or something like that. But hey, were we are! We opened this show and it’s fantastic! Plus people are absolutely loving it!

Opening night went great, not smoothly by any means BUT everything that night threw at my actors, they dealt with like complete pros! The curtain was pulled to reveal sets behind it, so my actors adjusted it from backstage. A sound cue didn’t go off so my actor improvises and tapped her heel. One of my actors missed their entrance so they other covers and they dealt with how to make it up extremely smoothly. The vase fell off the table and my actor, completely in character, responded to it falling. Of course, the entire time I am sitting there in the audience just CLUTCHING my seat for dear life. Because, at this point, there’s not else I can do. I can’t run up and fix it. I can’t pause the show and deal with it. I have to just sit back and be there supporting them. Which is so incredibly hard, just letting that go. Letting them be up there, just having to know and believe that they've got this. In a sense, letting your little baby birds fly. Letting go of that control and power and having faith. It's also this notion of letting it go into the audience's hands as well. Just saying to them, here is what we’ve created for you, please for God’s sake like it. And just sitting there… waiting….hoping. And then... sitting in the crowd among them, realizing that they do actually like it. Thankfully for me, it is also pretty well written (thank you, Cole) so I didn't have to do a ton of work, it speaks for itself. But it's so rewarding being in the audience and feeling their laughter at the funny moments, their cringes at the awkward ones, and in some cases, their tears at the sad ones.

So, if you have already seen the show, thank you. And I thoroughly hope you enjoyed yourself. If you haven’t seen it, please do! They’re so wonderful! All of us students have really been putting a lot of work into this. Again, I couldn’t be more proud of my actors.

So here’s to opening nights and here’s to putting on a show!

-Sam