Monday is Tarot Day! That beautiful, priceless feeling of accomplishment

While in the throes of toiling last week on our Broadway Ballot benefit cabaret, one of my fellow castmates, Barb, said these words:  "This is the kind of project that, when you're done, you really feel you accomplished something."

I couldn't agree more.  Like the craftsman pictured in the 8 of Pentacles card, I feel like our combined skill came through - and today we can breathe that sigh of satisfaction in a job well done. 

In the span of eleven days (well, thirteen eventually if you count the two days of performance leading up to the final day, yesterday Sunday) around twenty of us accomplished the Herculean feat of mounting a show with over two dozen numbers, some of which were very complicated (like Sondheim.  Or Cole Porter with eleventy-seventy verses).  And we did it.

The sense of celebration over this task was so very palpable every single night, but the energy shifted as the days wore on.  After Friday's performance, we were so pumped with adrenaline that we danced and goofed and ate like hopped-up five-year-olds at the after-party the theatre threw for us (some of us actually were more hopped-up than the energetic 5-year-old who was a part of the cast!  And what a true trooper he was.)  It was all about letting go of the anxiety which had built up for almost two weeks' time.

Saturday was a lower energy: still grateful that we were, indeed, getting through everything, but more subdued and, frankly, tired.  Something finally had to give and, well, Saturday was quieter somehow.  And there was much yawning.

Then Sunday kicked in and suddenly we became seasoned auteurs who'd been in rehresals for this for months!  There was a strong sense of solidity, in spirit and in skill, that beamed like the sun through each and every performer.  Shoulders were held high.  And when we all met up in the dressing room afterward, many hugs were shared, a few tears were shed.  We left a bit battle-worn, with a  number of heads shaking in disbelief, and a true sense of pride in the gift we gave our audiences every night: our talents, our heart and soul, and our desire to create a benefit we all could feel grateful we were a part of.

I take off my pointed, mystical hat to all my Broadway Ballot Buddies!!  Oh - and we raked in scads of money for the theatre, selling over 97% of all available seats!