My heart is breaking even writing about it.
So, after rehearsal, rewrite happened (as per usual). Also, free margaritas in the alleyway happened (not usual).
There were no changes in my rolls, so I didn’t really have to do anything during rewrite.
Before you knew it, the show started.
I thought I was gonna be a wreck from moment one, but I was surprisingly calm(ish).
But once act 4 started, when Larry was doing his speech about the map being upside down, I cried – totally sobbed standing up (leaning over) in my bay.
Then, at the end of act 4, I saw the contributors run onstage… And then the staff ran on. I didn’t think I was gonna make it down. But I ran down to the studio anyway. I was a little late, of course. But I ran onstage too. It was magical to get to go town there.
I took a little video of the audience and everyone hugging around me. (Even though they cut the take, the cameras rolled to catch us all hugging and I feel silly taping stuff instead of hugging people… But other people were doing it too.)
I just wanted to take in and remember that moment.
Then I put down my phone and looked around with just my eyes, seeing this whole audience there for us for the last time as Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds (“’cause every little thing is gonna be all right”) played in the background. I wanted to live in that moment forever.
I started crying (of course) and I went around hugging people on set (and then backstage once we were all shooed off the set).
Then I went upstairs ’cause I actually had to do some work. And then I came back downstairs to grab my guests who’d come to the taping. (Naturally, they were people I met through twitter – who else would they be?)
I had exports going as I showed them around the building. They left. We all continued to do a little hugging. And people were taking things home from their offices.
And then we all met up at the final party – where there was mainly laughter and only slight bits of crying.
When The Nightly Show came on the televisions, people cheered so loudly.
It was a beautiful night – people walking around giving gorgeous monologues about what it was like to work together.
I left when the party started to seem like it was really dying down. I took one last look around as I walked out the door. And of course I cried a little on the way home – looking around at New York as I passed through it – thinking of all my memories of moving to the city, and the show, and all that jazz.
And I had one more day of work, which I will talk about tomorrow.