It is a given that every Saturday I will wake-up after the deepest sleep imaginable and wonder for a brief moment who I am, and why I feel like I have been hit by a bus. I can only attribute this phenomenon to the fact that I am directing a musical that features a dog, dancing maids and screaming little girls. This is where I now admit my insanity for choosing to direct “Annie” when proposing a show for the community theater I volunteered to direct for. We mainly rehearse on Friday night so after a day filled with needy college students and professors, I then turn around and pretend to know what I am doing for 3 to 4 hours of rehearsal with 30 little kids, 50 adults and before mentioned dog.

Let me let you in on a little clue I have learned – directing is mostly about acting. Meaning, I spend most of my night improvising stage directions and decisions while pretending not to be exasperated by the little girl with the missing tooth who asks a minimum of 3 questions every 5 minutes. I pretend that my entire plan on what we are accomplishing any given night is not altered in the first 5 minutes of getting to the theater, and I then pretend to know that “that” particular catastrophe was bound to happen while I try dot to let the thoughts of “What in Fucking Hell is Going On” read on my face.

Somehow though, when it gets to this moment – the one where I wake-up after sneaking an extra hour of sleep and am sipping on coffee thinking about the night before, I smile. Because despite my plans being shot to hell, despite the 57 questions I pretended to answer and despite the feeling that we will never get this up on stage in a presentable way – I know it will happen. How? Admittedly, I don’t have a clue in hell. I just believe.