Such was the name of my drama showcase, which played its final performance last night. It was an incredible weekend in which I made my NYC stage debut, and the five weeks of rehearsal leading up to it were some of the most difficult, but also unequivocally the most rewarding weeks of my time at this school. 

Our show centered around themes of identity and how interpersonal relationships interact with that identity. The name of the show came from the pregnant silences that would fall as people's struggles came into conflict. There were nine different scenes put up, and the two that I was in were from "Bad Jews," by Joshua Harmon, and "If I Forget," by Steven Levenson. 

My characters from the two scenes were very similar as far as the stock character went, but their personalities and how they dealt with their problems were so different from one another, and also from me, and that made figuring them out a real challenge. What helped was the people I was working with - all of them were so in it and so committed to figuring out the scenes and what made them work, that it made my job easier. 

All of our performances were great, but while we up there this week, we really learned the kind of difference an audience can make. We gave it our all every time, but audiences are also active participants in a theatre experience, and sometimes they don't hold up their end of the deal. When that happens, you just have to power through and stay in the moment. Other times, though, the audience is so thoroughly invested that the work is halfway done for you; you just get to go out there and enjoy the time to explore the people and moments you've spent so much time getting to know. 

Our final performance was that kind of performance. The audience was packed and our energy was high, and we just took the advice our director had been giving us for weeks which was - fuck it. Go out there and fuck it.

And fuck it, we did.