Comedy, Anxiety, Tonight [UPDATED]

I guess you could call tonight my directing debut with this theater group, as my One Act class presents "The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet," and I am just a little excited!

And a little anxious, I suppose.  Last night we had one last rehearsal--still without sound, and not at the performance venue yet--and it was not totally reassuring.  A couple kids were missing, it had been two weeks since our last rehearsal, a couple of my leads were still not solid on their lines (even though I KNOW they will have them by tonight!) and Juliet's bed broke. I kept things light-hearted, but afterwards wondered if I should have been much stricter.  Because last night I dreamed that for the actual performance, the kids all kept forgetting their lines and kept laughing about it, and kept missing their cues because they were distracting one another in the wings, and then the whole thing fell apart and people started leaving before it was over, and finally the Area Coordinator stood up and said that our allotted time was over.

The upshot is that my standards and expectations have all fallen away, and I'll be thrilled if we just get through it tonight!  My head reminds my anxious heart that the kids are well-prepared. It's a good script, and these teens certainly know how to milk the comedy in it.  There will no doubt be mistakes and unforeseen circumstances with an unfamiliar stage and adding sound for the first time tonight, but the audience of parents and friends will be gracious and appreciative.

And so will I.  We've all worked hard all session, and I am going to enjoy the fruits of our labors tonight!  In between panic attacks.

UPDATE:

So, they totally did me proud.  Put those kids in front of an audience, and they performed better than they ever had before!  All my students increased their energy not just a notch or two, but maybe TEN from the dress rehearsal we had the night before. The sound ended up being good enough with just the choir mikes and a few others, so we didn't have to use wires on each kid, which was way better.

It was a joy to watch.  I just sat back and relaxed.

Too bad it was only one performance!  I sure hope the video turns out.