Colleague Collage
What do I do with a box of opening night cards?
One of the traditions that I love most about stage life is receiving opening night cards from cast members. These cards are sometimes thank-you-oriented, sometimes congratulatory, and often contain jokes or unique references to the show or the process we've just spent weeks working on together. Opening nights are magical, kind of like Christmas morning: anticipation, excitement, restlessness. When you enter your dressing room, there is usually a stack of cards with a flower nearby or a decadent piece of chocolate propped beside it. Sometimes friends get clever and have a theme, like writing on an actual deck of cards if you are performing in Carmen or giving something Paris-themed if you are in La Bohème. Things can get even more interesting if you find yourself playing a courtesan or prostitute, which was often my case. I’ve been given condoms, paper fans, and women’s feminine soap to mark the celebratory occasion.
The tradition is a loving way of saying something special to a friend you've probably just recently made to honor the space, vibration, and trust you've had with that person on stage. It marks a place in time where you created music together and brought a piece of art, sometimes hundreds of years old, back to life.
I’ve kept all of my cards from past performances, which have been tucked safely in the voice box in my attic. As I moved around to various living quarters for twenty years, they moved along with me. They were nestled in a suitcase or filed away with my tax receipts, and then finally, after my last move in 2018, they ended up in the box.
My break from the stage during the pandemic caused me to start cleaning out things, as many people did. I found myself at the voice box, perusing the contents, and decided to read each note again. I kept them in their envelopes, so when I opened the card, it was like the first time, and the glue was still doing its job. I could feel the jitters of opening night as I unstuck the glue flaps and reflected on each moment with these colleagues. Seeing their names and unique handwriting filled me with tremendous joy and ache.
“Toi, Toi, Toi!!!”
“It’s been a pleasure! Thank you for your support and talent!”
“It has truly been a privilege to perform alongside you. Your energy and power permeate both performer and spectator alike!”
“By now, you know that I am a huge fan of your enormous talent and sense of humanity. Enjoy yourself tonight!”
“In bocca al lupo divine diva!!”
Oh, what great memories we’ve shared!
These were times when we played together in curiosity while our breaths recoiled and heartbeats synced. We were invested, intertwined in a common story, often tragic, sometimes funny, and forever important to us. It is noted that when performers sing together, and people make music or tell stories, they often become synced in breathing and heartbeats, much like lovers do.
As I read them, I was easily taken back to those times when we nailed the performance and the times we had to bail each other out for a forgotten line or missed beat; that shared thrill of live performance, a risk wrapped around each breath. We cared for one another on that holy, sacred plain of the stage, feeling the large emotions together, holding one another as the other fake died in a 20-minute death scene. We took pains to follow detailed instructions on a fight scene lest we actually impale our dear friend. We were present to one another, like gazelles responding unconsciously to the adrenaline that makes them flee en masse.
As I filed through each card, I was met with seven cards that held a great pause because, as life moves on, these dear souls have as well, and now they are no longer with us. Their work and contributions have passed, too. I held their cards longer than most and thought of the work they may have wished to have had more time to complete. And I thought about how we honor these loving souls who shared music and theater with us. It was a time that was too brief. They were thriving and creating until the end and their passing just seemed to go too unnoticed and unmarked.
That is a part of our industry that I dislike the most. While on production, our community is very close. We celebrate holidays together and birthdays and lend a compassionate ear whenever there is a life change. We watch each other’s children, and we get to know each other's spouses. We become family to one another in a very short span of time, and then life moves on. Years pass. And someone dies, and you don’t often get to attend that closing of a chapter. But you still remember how they were your family that Christmas when you thought your heart would break from homesickness. Or you remember how their portrayal of a character made you laugh just when you needed it most.
How I wish I could march down a street New Orleans style, singing their most loved music to thank them more fully for sharing their life and vulnerability of art with me.
And then I think of all the singers before me—all the singers from different eras who also created magnificent evenings of art for people—those forgotten singers. There is a website I've enjoyed that tells the story of some of these singers. I love perusing through it and imagining the backstage laughter, friendships, love trysts, and music-making that happened. The conductors they liked. The directors they hated. The life they lived on and off the stage.
I inherited a record collection, mostly recordings of operas and orchestral performances from the 1940s to the 1970s. I look at these discs and moldy, stale inserts and wonder where all that potential went. How many years did they have on stage? All that shared force is forever treasured in those records, all those stories, lives, and entanglements. They are preserved yet lost. Now, they are just names on a page.
How are we honoring this special connection we make as artists? What can we do to connect later in life as our performing careers get shorter or diminish or we choose to move in another direction?
With as many ways we have to connect today, it seems we do less and less of connecting.
After going through the cards and placing them in a pile, I debated what to do with them. I couldn't bear throwing them away. In their own special little way, they have somehow served as my anchor, a grounded purpose that made my time spent doing this work matter.
Should I toss them? Who will care when I am gone about these words, these cards, these vibrant moments in my memory? Who will find them? Who will eventually have to toss them? Will they know by the way I’ve saved them how much they've meant to me? Should I leave them for my family or spend time showing them to students as I tell these delicious stories of these valiant stage warriors?
I decided I wasn’t ready to part with them and instead wanted to have them with me for the rest of my life so that I could always remember the bravery, love, and risk we shared. I want them to continue to anchor me to my past, to that time I wildly jumped into the unknown, traveled the world, and sang my heart out to thousands of people.
No, I wouldn’t throw that all away.
So, I sat in the attic one day and made a beautiful collage with the cards. I ripped the covers, used the patterns as the background, and ensured that at least my colleagues' signatures were shown. I relished each one, remembering specific faces, moments on stage, and voices held together in tight bel canto harmony.
It now hangs in my loft, where I practice yoga and sit to gather my thoughts and listen for what comes next.
So, if you ever shared the stage with me and happened to write an opening night card, know that it still has life. I cherish that shared energy and appreciate having been with you on the wild, divine ride of making art.
For now, the colleague collage anchors that space, and who knows, maybe one day, someone will appreciate the beauty of those handwritten words that are becoming extinct in our way of communicating. They will take that collage and hang it in their space and, even without knowing a single person or one story from that time, feel its relevance and beauty.
To me, it was holy.
Dedicated to the artistry and memory of:
Jake Gardner
Arthur Woodley
Bill Fabris
Christian Oliver
Andrew Sinclair
Mark Flint
David DiChiera
Thank you for reading and sticking with me these last few months as I’ve shared my stories from the stage via memories saved in a box. If you like what you’ve read, feel free to share.
If you’d like to encourage me to continue my writing, you can also buy me a coffee to support the time it takes to write these. Or, if you’re in Atlanta and want actually to go in person for a cup of coffee, I’d love that too. Reach out on my website. XXOO
I’m glad you’re here.
Leah
absolutely loved this.
Beautiful. And relatable. Thank you!