leaving the station

After our final show on Sunday afternoon, I volunteered to stay behind with 7 other guys from the chorus and take down the risers. I had also helped put them up on Wednesday. Part of taking down the risers also required taking down the set pieces that framed the risers on each side and behind the chorus.

The set was meant to evoke the urban jazz world of Billy Strayhorn, the composer with the Duke Ellington orchestra who's music we presented. There was a city skyline behind the chorus, a big art deco style train zooming in from stage left (the "A Train"). And the band was set up stage right with individual band boxes also decorated with the skyline theme, all made from painted playwood.

We pulled all of these down and carried them out to the alley behind the theater and then one of our group went to work breaking them up with a sledge hammer and a skill saw and stacking the broken pieces in the dumpster. By the time the rest of us had dismantled the risers and loaded them on our truck, all the sets were destroyed except for one small piece of the top of the skyline that one guy wanted to take home as a souvenior.

I felt a certain sadness at how quickly all the work that we had been doing since January came to an end. The final notes sung, the musicians paid and gone home. The risers packed away. The set lovingly designed, constructed and painted, vanished. It is the way of all things. I also understand the desire for one of the guys to hold on to a souvenior. The world slips away so quickly. All Aboard!