Can't Wait by Maggie Schlundt

Can’t Wait: a personal essay offering a tour of Armstrong hall and glimpses of my experience with Cornell College theatre....

Listen to the never quiet. Sounds of all species, of all origins, curl into the corners, slide across the marble floors, clean the cool glass, they make the air vibrate, hum, echoing the operatic warm up, the screaming actors performing the end of act 2 scene 3, the trill of the sewing machines threading through yards of olive brocade, the bang! hammers and buzz! saws, the directors’ wise frustrated voices. Frantic creation. Veiled change.

Let’s step outside. We’ll begin where I began: homesick, desperate for people, for connections, for something anything to occupy my uncomfortable free time. My eyes were big, thinly brimmed with salty sparkles that squirted out when I remembered how far away my red door was, how long it would be until I felt the short silky hairs behind my dog’s ears, how bad I was at phone calls. I stared at these glass walls and, in the sun’s callous glare, couldn’t see inside. I stood outside the cube, trapped, unwelcomed. I misinterpreted. On the left, a door, an intentional crack, a slot. Grab the cool metal handle- the one shaken by my timid hand before I went to sign up for my first audition, the one yanked by my yarn mitten as I rushed to escape Iowa winter’s annual holiday torture, the one that felt the sweat on my shameful palm as I entered the building hungover, trying to remember and trying to forget last night, the one I gripped pridefully after being cast, the one I was sometimes reluctant to pull, and sometimes too eager. Slip inside and shiver. It’s always too cold. Until it’s too hot. Wear layers.

I met two best friends on these slippery marble steps, I still talk to one of them. Up is music down is theatre, remember when I thought I could do both? Go down. Not too fast though, concussions happen. Enter the Black Box, but take off your shoes first- we have to respect the space, can’t have scuffing. The poor floor has been abused, pounded and scratched. Every year, someone pops open a paint can and spreads glossy black thickly over the damage, to start fresh. But the paint peels back no matter how many layers and we remember who what was once. Here is where I let go. Here is where I was inspired. Here is where I lived. Here is where I hung on every word floating from the round mouth of a color blind balding man in a sweater vest. Here is where I ripped my favorite yoga pants. They had a peace sign on them. Here is where we couldn’t stop laughing. Here is where I grew, in a thirty minute acting exercise, from a fetus to a 95 year old. And then I died.

Go down the hall, there’s the stage, the big, imposing, exposing, stage. I was naked in my first production here. I slept with my cast mate. He was charming. He had a girlfriend. I got better. The seats are empty now, but the show will open, the show did open, and there were hundreds of expectant eyes staring, spinning my stomach in spirals, punching it with excitement and nerves, demanding perfection, entertainment.

Go to the dressing room. People might be changing, ignore them, people are always changing here. Wait ‘til she tightens her corset, she’ll have changed, wait ‘til he puts on that wig, he’ll have changed, wait ‘til the show closes and the dressing rooms are empty, wait ‘til the new cast list goes up and they’re not, wait ‘til tonight, wait ‘til next year, wait ‘til we go out, wait ‘til we argue, wait ‘til they’re gone, wait ‘til there’s no time for them, wait ‘til there’s no time for you, wait ‘til we don’t talk anymore, wait ‘til you can’t figure out how, when, things changed, wait ‘til graduation, wait ‘til I miss them, you, wait ‘til I can’t see your face with my eyes closed, wait ‘til I feel unstoppable, wait ‘til we’re all powerless, wait ‘til they don’t tell you how much this hurts, wait ‘til I. can’t wait.

All is familiar. Nothing’s the same. Look in the dressing room mirror, the one I’ve faced so many times. How much have you changed? Remember what was, remember what isn’t. And now. They’re going to cover me up with glossy black.