I don't know how many closing nights I have experienced in my life and career. It feels like hundreds maybe thousands. The actual count is not important, even one is too many to forget the profound emotion one feels at the time. I am just settling in to a comfort level with these British audiences, just beginning to feel like I can lead them in the dance. At the moment I know them, I have to tell them goodbye. That's not right, there is no way that feels satisfying.

Tonight was a tough show to get through. It wasn't a very big house but they were a very good audience. Even through teary eyes I could see them standing on their feet at the end. I'm told that British audiences don't do that, and I almost wish they hadn't. How much harder it is to leave when you are receiving such appreciation. I thought for a moment if I could just keep going and never leave the stage the show would never have to end. Is there such a thing as a theatrical filibuster? But it couldn't work. Eventually it was much to traumatic and emotionally draining to stay on stage a minute longer.

In a curtain speech I tried to explain to the audience how hard it will be to leave my friends, Julia, Ruthie and Nathan. The audience can't understand how close I am to these three. Strangers weeks ago, now friends I trust with my show completely. They held the net tight so I could attempt the tricks high above the crowd and have no fear of falling. If the truth be known, I was doing the show for them each night. The audience was just the excuse to start. This show has always drawn to it a unique group of wonderfully talented people. I can't think of a person who was just doing a job, everyone became emotionally involved with the show on some level. Marina the usher brought me flowers from all the ushering staff tonight, with a card signed by each one of them. Marina specifically said that I was to share the flowers with her favorite "person" Squeaky.

I know the drill. On Tuesday around 7:30 I will look at my watch and realize I am not where I want to be. Where ever I am and whatever I am doing, no matter what it is, I will feel like I'm in the wrong place. I'll want to hear that music and feel that rush of uncertainty. I will try to bargain with the theatre gods to give me one more moment on the boards, for just one more night. I will probably be back in Los Angeles before that feeling goes away. The wonderful and frustrating thing is that it will never go away completely. It will all come rushing back at a time and place I am not prepared for. Maybe it will be a smell, a color, a kid that reminds me of Oliver, or just the call of a Seagull. It will remind me of the great time I had in London, it will remind me of that thrilling opening night, my wonderful friends but sadly will not prepare me for the next closing night. Those will never be easy.
As you were,
Jay