“I just said hello. I don’t want to say goodbye.” – Lucas Brickman, Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Laughter on the 23rd Floor closed Saturday night.

It’s an odd phenomenon in Bemidji that, not only are Friday and Saturday nights their lowest-attended performances, but closing night always tends to be the least attended. Despite having the smallest and least responsive audience of the run, we milked as much joy as we could out of the show before tearing the set down.

Strike took something like 45 minutes, which astounded me. If you’ve never been involved in striking a set, particularly a realistic interior, you should know that it’s usually a long, tedious, painful process. Hooray for efficiency!

I wasn’t much help during strike, though, due to a self-inflicted wound. After the show, as soon as I got back to the dressing room, a wire coat hanger entered and exited the middle finger on my right hand, turning my knuckle into a little flappy bit. I spent all of strike trying to staunch the bleeding and wondering whether or not I’d need stitches. Clearly, I’ll do anything to get out of strike.

Afterwards, we gathered at the American Legion for one last night of carousing. It was karaoke night, and during a particularly slow and sappy song, Zach decided that during the next slow song, we should all take our chairs (which were on wheels) onto the dance floor.

So we did.

During a stranger’s tender rendition of a song I don’t remember, twenty of us rolled our chairs onto the dance floor and engaged in a furniture-bound ballet that felt akin to the teacup ride at Disney World. It was a beautiful moment that I wish we had captured on video. Later, Michael Paul Levin showed us his Vanilla Ice dance moves during someone’s performance of “Ice, Ice, Baby.”

The next morning was move-out day, and the cast gathered for breakfast at Perkins to celebrate and say goodbye. I’m going to miss working on this show, and I hope I work with all of them again.

On the drive out of Bemidji, the local classic rock station was playing the full version of Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” which happened to be exactly what they were playing when I drove into town the first time. My Paul Bunyan experience was bookended by Sting singing, “I want my MTV.” I’m still trying to determine the significance of this.

My return to Minneapolis coincided with my girlfriend Carin’s departure from Minneapolis, unfortunately. She’s directing a show in Alexandria, MN, so while I resume my day job, it’s her turn to do summer stock in rural Minnesota. Since our paths would cross in St. Cloud, we decided to meet for Thai food at the Sawatdee there. It was a cruel tease to have only a couple of hours together before being apart for another ten days.

Of course, two weeks after she gets back to Minneapolis, I’m leaving town for two more weeks with GTC Dramatic Dialogues, which also means I’ll be out of town on her birthday. As I’ve said before, it’s the price we pay for being such jetsetters.

In the meantime, I’m preparing to rehearse with our new GTC moderator: playwright, director, and friend o’mine Chris Kidder! This’ll be fun.