Seven Years, Five Shows
Seven years ago, I walked into the stage entrance of Radio City Music Hall for the first rehearsal of the first show I had ever won - or played - in New York City. I approached the security guard at the desk with a smile:
“Hello, I’m here for the rehearsal on the 9th floor.”
“The line is outside, wait there until your supervisor gets you.”
Six musicians enter the door and don’t come out. I go back.
“Excuse me, I’m a musician and I’m here for the rehearsal on the 9th floor.”
“Merch and maintenance wait outside.”
“I’m a musician, this is my instrument.”
“Ok, fine.”
Seven years later, that guard greets me warmly, knows my name, and has my ID ready for me when I say “Good Morning” on the first day. A little patience, a tiny smile, and some time can do a lot in this world.
In the five years that I won a chair, and in the two that I subbed, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular has so many things that are the same from year to year: the people that you only seem to play with on the band car; the peculiar smell of hay, dander, and popcorn that you can’t really smell anywhere else; the fast page turns of a book that always feels like a challenge. It also always feels the same at the end of the run: “I am exhausted, but I can play anything, and maybe the skills I honed these last two months will bring success and new job offers as word gets out that I just climbed a mountain!”
Seven years later, I still feel the same.
Seven years later, I’m not that wide-eyed musician who will wait in a line because I don’t want to rock the boat. I’m a little lighter, a lot stronger, and now I know that whatever smiles you give to the security guard can’t be the ones you give to the musicians in the sub-basement, some of whom are on their 4th show of the day and maybe the 1,000th show of their life. I know which locker rooms to stay away from, how to pass the time between shows, and how much water to drink before a 90-minute show without an intermission. I also know that not every show is going to be the best show, and you might feel horrible at the beginning and the end of it, but you keep going back because that’s what you do, not because there’s something better when it’s over. Above all, Radio City is a test of living in the now, and enjoying what you have before it’s gone more quickly than the time is passing.
And yes, I still have hope that this will be the year that my career finally takes off, where I can have a little more control over my schedule and a small break from hustling for work. But I’m a lot smarter than I was seven years ago: it probably won’t be, and I have plans for that.