Writing is more fun than performing, because I get to color with words.

Okay. It's been a few days since my joyful, triumphant feeling of success faded from my class on Tuesday, but I'm going to try to record all this with the same factual enthusiasm I felt. After all, I honestly should have blogged sooner. But, well, I didn't, so here we go.

My "production team" in my Theatre Appreciation class had our dress rehearsal and performance earlier this week. We performed the short play I wrote, which, as I looked back to find the link to that post, I realize I haven't mentioned since that very first read-through. Okay. Let me backtrack even further.

Our team met at least once a week outside class since that first read-through, slowly working on character development and line memorization. I was constantly impressed by how natural the lines I had written were, especially when I thought back on how effortless it all was. The lines I'd written, spoken by these amateur actors, were actually believable! We were witty, and hurt, and compassionate when it made sense. It was an awesome process.

So on Tuesday, at class time, we were totally prepared. We'd had a dress rehearsal the night before with our minimal props and our casual, practical costumes, and our lines were smooth and our acting natural. Still, we were nervous. Some of the plays we'd seen in class had been truly miserable to watch, and others were surprisingly well made. And, of course, our group was slated to go last, after three other performances.

But we got out there, in front of our class of 100 other bored students (and all my roommates, who'd come for moral support/to see what the fuss was all about/to get me to shut up), and we were AWESOME. Every line was delivered with perfect ease and fluidity, and the one mishap we experienced was covered up by some smooth improv on the part of one of the actors. We were brilliant. :D

Following our performance was a Q&A session with our professor/the other students. We were all giddy with the thought that we were actually finished, and it had actually gone well after all our preparation, and then -- another surprise -- the audience weren't bored! They had loved everything about our play! Every actor was complimented, they loved our director's choices, and my script -- they adored my script! I couldn't believe it! They'd actually appreciated our simple, emotional play about four people stuck in an elevator together. We didn't try too hard, but we didn't play down our strengths, either. Our professor was extremely impressed.

Afterward, when class was dismissed and we'd taken a group picture in costume, one of the senior students came over to shake my hand (lol) and say how much he enjoyed it. He asked me about my writing process and told me I should definitely consider taking THEA 350 -- the playwriting course. I couldn't believe it, honestly. I couldn't.

Later, Lauryn told me she just knows I'm "going to be famous one day." I never imagined I'd enjoy playwriting -- novels always seemed like my forte. But what if there's something to this? What if all those years of writing plays at Thanksgiving about pilgrims and forcing my siblings to memorize lines and put on a show before dinner in front of our grandparents were actually leading somewhere? What if this is an open door?