Closing Night
 
Picture it: a dark stage, curtains closed.
   The audience is miraculously silent. None of the usual static that pollutes the final minutes of most productions: impatient whispers, the crinkling of gum wrappers and playbills, the jingling of keys found in the rayon--lined depths of purse and pocket. No, they are spellbound.
   The curtains part once more, slowly. A faint requiem, reminiscently Scottish with fife and drum, crescendos as the ultimate tableau is revealed.
   When Liberty Prep did The Crucible last year, they used the score from The Last of the Mohicans for this scene. Unforgivably cliché.
   Onstage, a series of gallows. Girls in old--age makeup stand behind them, all in lace--trimmed bonnets and nightgowns, hands bound in thick, obvious ropes. One boy is among them in a ruffled cream shirt. His hair is matted down from sweating in a Pilgrim hat half the night.
   "Our Father, who art in heaven," starts the boy, "hallowed be thy name." He stumbles over the next line as he is forced into the hangman's noose, choked by a surge of emotion.
   A hunching girl with wrinkles drawn onto her features with eyeliner takes up the prayer: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done . . ." She, too, is fitted into her noose by a solemn Puritan, whose own buckled 1692--style hat does not hide the shaggy flip of his trendy, professional--snowboarder--style hair.
   "I saw John Proctor with the devil!" The accusations are hissed beneath the Lord's Prayer, and they come from the auditorium seats. Several actors, released from their onstage roles, have been planted to cry out, to make this merciless, sonic chaos: "I saw Goody Nurse with the devil! I saw Goody Corey with the devil!" Their effect is powerful; a few people react with shivers, frowns, even incredulous tears.
   "But deliver us from evil --"
   Before the amen, a lever is pulled. The scaffold gives. The trapdoors open.
   Bodies drop, blinked into darkness. All lights go out. And then the horrific creak of the gallows. The ropes.
   The audience is given a moment of reverence, to reflect, to fold up this evening's performance, tuck it back somewhere into the recesses of their brains in hopes that they will leave here changed, inspired to never join any fundamentalist witch--hanging mobs, so moved were they by an early--November high school production of The Crucible with an artificial sunset and a set of braces on the Reverend Hale's repentant teeth.
   Are you wondering if anyone will think of this show again? Surely they will remember very little, you must think, save for a looping, mocking replay of the moment in act 2 when Elizabeth Proctor stirred the stew and the whole cauldron slipped off its hanger and clanged against the fake hearth.
   Maybe if this were another production. Maybe if this were Liberty Prep. But this is Bosworth. And Bosworth shows are unmatched. They are carved into the soul and taken to the grave. They are never forgotten.
   When the stage lights come on this time, they are bright, prompting the audience to rise and clap.
   Out comes the cast for their bows. The ones with fewest lines are first. They get the warm--up applause. (The parents' applause.)
   The leads demonstrate modesty as they take in their reception. Some of them weep. This is the last night of this production, so the moment is bittersweet.
   "It's like they were onstage with us," the sap who played Ann Putnam will say later. "All those people who really lived through this, who were hanged. I could feel them with us onstage."
   It's not unexpected, this tangle of pride and grief that surges after a show's final curtain call.
   Consider it: You rehearse for weeks, you forgo social outings, homework, free time, you build a pretend world. You mentally prepare and, in some cases, systematically rearrange your psyche to withstand the nerves of performing, the strain of that vulnerability, and then -- ​
   It's over.
   The lines, the themes, the rhythms of moving along the chessboard of the stage . . . The emotions you summon like trained cats, the subtext you invent, the character you've lodged under your skin by the time the curtain goes up on opening night, and then you must let it go. Let it all melt away, let it become obsolete. Let it go and become yourself again.
   Strike it from your heart.
   When the clapping ebbs and people start tugging on jackets and staring longingly at the aisles, the stage manager rushes out from the wings in her electrical--taped--and--Sharpied sneakers. "House lights on." She sends the command along her headset; the senior in the tech booth makes it happen. In her hands she holds a fat bouquet of roses.
   John Proctor (he will never be called that again, not unless he gets cast as Miller's canoodling tragic hero in some future production) calls for the attention of the crowd. "We'd like to invite our director to the stage."
   From the farthest corner of the front row, the director lets the new wave of applause urge her to her feet, joining her cast with feigned reluctance. The bouquet is placed in her arms, floral water dripping onto the floor.
   It's a garish arrangement, the roses wide awake as if they personally want to give their regards.
   "We want to thank you, Pam, for believing in us. For holding our feet to the fire. For pushing us to grow. This show wouldn't be what it is without you." John Proctor, aka Cole Buckingham, the senior who insisted on delivering the tribute, is capable of turning his passions on and off as if his adrenals have valves. He did a good job, most of the cast and crew think. The worry with Cole, always, is that he'll find a way to spotlight himself, but he lets the crowd cheer for Ms. Hanson as long as they want.
   "Thank you," Pam finally says, studying the roses. Her tone might vaguely remind you of an adult thanking a kindergartner for a thoughtful but sloppily drawn birthday card. "And to all the parents in the audience, a most sincere thank-you. I've been so lucky to work with your students. Thank you for letting them be part of this. They care so much about this craft. True dedication. That's what I've come to expect, and they delivered."
   Before the applause can grow anemic, Pam Hanson dismisses the crowd with another thank-you and a simply put "Good night."
   The curtains close.
   Backstage, the cast explodes into chatter, clinging to one another, crying. The director vanishes. The stage manager hustles to speak to the group before they are fully lost to post--show adrenaline.
   "Everyone, listen up! You must change out of your costumes and sign them in with Cynthia before you can greet family and friends! Repeat: You must sign in your costumes before you go to front of house! Also, your to--do lists are posted in the drama room. You must have those lists checked off by me and me alone before you leave! Principals, Jake is waiting in the workshop for your mics. Again, principals, turn in your mics to Jake in the workshop. Any questions?"
   Cole Buckingham asks a banal question, something jackassy, something to provoke, and gets the chuckles he was fishing for. Some cannot handle being out of the limelight for very long, as if they are cold--blooded.
   The cast dashes off to change out of wardrobe. Crew members bring out drills, start disassembling the set. Betty Parris's bedroom. The slanted roof of the Proctor home. The menacing trees where Tituba danced with the Salem girls. Danforth's desk. All dismantled, beam by beam.
   The gallows were made with the wood from Tevye's handcart from last year's production of Fiddler. Lumber is carefully stripped of nails and stacked in the workshop for another purpose someday.
   Props are stored, labeled, placed in bins. The scrim is rolled; dressing rooms are cleaned. There's pizza. There's music. It's been months of funneling their energies into the script, the blocking, the beats, and tonight serves as catharsis.
   Most of the audience has filtered out. Pam, the director, has been cornered by a parent for a lengthy conversation that doesn't seem to have a natural ending point.
   "She's just so talented," the mother is saying. "Beyond high school talent." She is not referring to her own child but to Clarissa George, who played Abigail Williams in this production.
   "She's very good," agrees Pam, unmoved.
   "What do you do with talent like that?" the mother goes on. "Scholarships, hopefully! Juilliard, perhaps? If I were her mother, I'd be flying that girl out to New York, get her in front of some agents, some casting directors."
 But you are not Clarissa's mother, you might feel an urge to reply. And you know your own child is some unremarkable, potato--faced rucksack of a student who served their time in the ensemble along with a gaggle of choir girls looking for something to pad their college applications and fill their time with until spring concerts.
   Now you've sat through six showings of The Crucible at twelve bucks a ticket, all so you could be the good--mother witness to your child's second--act appearance as a member of the jury, a role that you know could have easily been filled by a mannequin in a shawl.
   Perhaps you think this a cruel assessment. Perhaps this is simply a supportive mother. The kind of parent every community hopes for: tireless in her cheerleading, willing to spend countless hours hemming aprons or cutting sheets of tickets, a volunteer who volunteered herself. Everyone hopes for a mother like that in their student's classroom.
   It's also likely that this mother is lonely, repressed, controlling, someone who never did theater when she was in high school and is now hovering over her child's extracurriculars so as not to be eaten up by her own resentment.
   The spotlight always looks so warm. It makes sense that everyone wants a turn to stand in it.

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Excerpted from Made Glorious by Lindsay Eagar
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.