Today was nearly perfect.

This morning, we opened our first children's show of the 2008-09 season, Miss Nelson is Missing!, a musical, based on the popular book.  We were supposed to preview last Tuesday night and open Wednesday morning but, well, there was this hurricane, see, and it messed with our plans just a little. 

First, I just want to let everybody out there know that we are a-ok after the storm.  We stayed in Houston until they could assess the damage, and when they told us it could be between one and two weeks before our power came back (and we would have to find some magical means to keeping Robbie's milk cold) we headed north to family in Oklahoma for a few days until the power came back in our apartment and my workplace. 

That said, much of the area is still a mess.  I heard today that the major supplier of Houston's power has only managed to get electricity back to 53% of their subscribers today.  About half the street lights in town are still either out or blinking red, causing people's commutes to work to double and, in some cases, triple.  Also, schools have been out all week long, and some aren't sure if they'll be opening on Monday or not yet.  And, of course, there are still thousands upon thousands of people whose homes are still without electricity and/or running water.  Houston's a big city.

As far as cleanup goes, I know there are electricians and tree-removal crews from literally all over the country and Canada down here to help out.  At one point, I heard that 9,000 workers had left their homes to come and help put ours back together.  So things are moving as quickly as possible, but there's still much to be done.

And many things south and east of Houston are damaged beyond repair.  Homes, businesses, you name it.  Gone.

All right, back to our story.  On Tuesday, the building where I work has power again.  By late Wednesday, our mainstage theater does, too.  Apparently, the church that houses our children's theater has had power since just after the storm left, so our spaces are pretty much "good to go" by this weekend.  The city-wide curfew is still set at 8:00 p.m. through Friday, and our children's show was cheated out of a tech week, so the decision is made that both shows will open today (Saturday).

As soon as this decision is made, emails go out to pretty much everyone who's ever been to our shows.  "The show must go on," we proclaim!  "The perfect cure for cabin fever!" we tell parents of children who've been home from school for far too long.  Calls go out to those who'd already had plans for coming this weekend.  Calls come in from folks looking for something to do. 

And we all converge in one place at 10:30 a.m.

In college, there was this little tradition we used to have before every performance.  The cast would come together and say in unison, "Play the play with love!"  This morning, for the first time, we really, really did. 

As theatre artists, we need an audience.  Any way you slice it, our job just isn't done without them.  As human beings, our world had been turned upside down in the past eight days.  This performance was, in a way, a return to normalcy for us.  While we know our city is still under reconstruction for the next week, the show, the audience, the chance to do what we do, reminds us that things are going to return to normal.  We are a cast, we are a team, we are a show, and because of that we will see this through together, come hell or literal high water.  It feels right.

But as we sit around the table backstage before the performance, we realize what this show means to every person who paid to come see us do a silly hour-long musical where most of us pretend to be second-graders.  We're reminded that our lives aren't the only ones affected by the storm in a language that can't quite be communicated through Channel 11's round-the-clock converage of the cleanup effort.  We've had a family half-jokingly ask if we could stretch the show to a 9-hour running time, as this is the first time they've been in air conditioning since the storm hit.  People who were looking forward to this Saturday morning outing two weeks anticipate it even more now.  For many families, this is the first "fun" thing they've been able to think about for awhile.  For kids stuck in houses or apartments because of the debris in their neighborhood, at last, an opportunity to be a kid for awhile!

This city needs a breath of fresh air.  And by God's grace, we are that breath of fresh air for these people, on this day, at this time!

We play the show.  It is fun.  We enjoy playing it, we enjoy playing it with one another, and we enjoy playing it for the audience. We love them.  And they love us.  We are a hit, and it isn't because we are good (though I think we are good).  It is because we are exactly what they needed. 

After our shows, we line up outside the theater and greet the kids, and sign autographs, and shake hands with parents, and answer questions.  And this time, this show, every single "Thank you" going both ways is absolutely, 100% genuine. 

And then we re-set, and we eat lunch (Jason's deli; I had a huge baked potato packed with barbecue beef and cheese), and a new audience arrives, and we do it all again.

And I wish I could have been at our main stage for the opening of All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten tonight, to see it all happen again.