Still a Part

 

 Yesterday was the 5-year anniversary of the last performance of Romeo and Juliet at Virginia Peninsula Community College (then Thomas Nelson Community College). Today, I had wonderful moment of memory from that production. I was not in the cast, but backstage, managing stage left. 

 Being an actor in that role is sort of weird (at least for me). You have no contact with the show or the cast until tech week (a week before opening). By the time you show up, bonds have been formed and the group is already a group. Now, I was friends with many of the cast, and looser acquaintances with others, but some, I'd never met before. I felt like a sort of half-outsider, a tangential bubble to the cast and crew that have been working on this show for the past couple months.

 So, this is the memory -- my warmest and fondest memory from that show. During the party scene where Romeo sees Juliet for the first time, most of the cast wore chem-light bracelets and/or necklaces. As they exited, many of them festooned me with their colorful, glowing jewelry before heading to their dressing rooms to change. It was a small thing, perhaps not even an intentional thing, but it made me feel truly a part of that show and that cast. It still warms my soul today, 5 years on, still makes me smile at the thought of those people, some I still barely know, but all of whom I will love 'til the day I die.