From Huron, Ohio, back into the world

HURON, Ohio -- And just like that, it's over.

In the blink of an eye, we rolled through our final show, "Little Mary Sunshine," breezed through final strike in record time (dismantling the entire theater by 3:30 a.m.), and the company went their separate ways.

My final memory of Huron, Ohio, will be standing in the parking lot of our dorms at Shawnee school, watching people hug and wipe away tears because our summer was finished. I doubt any of us imagined that so many people would be crying.

Our last week was a crazy flurry of nights out, sudden friendships forged, and even last-minute attempts at romance. There wasn't a single night that large groups of the company didn't venture out someplace. Most went to Nick's Firehouse, our popular local hole-in-the-wall bar. A few ventured to Sandusky to the upper-scale dance clubs. But most eventually ended up at our Lake Erie beach, staying up until the wee hours of the morning on our final free night.

The underlying statement on our final night at the beach seemed to be "This is the person you never knew I was." Needless to say, it was interesting.

After all of our final goodbyes, things came full circle with the staff members and a few company heading to Bowling Green for load-out. Our seemingly tiny group of less than 20 people somehow managed to finish the job in less than four hours, and we were rewarded with a huge lunch at a local upscale restaurant, Easy Street.

Then the four Southeast boys (me, Marcus Stephens, Mike Schwent and Dave Schneider) napped. For the first time in seven weeks, on a real bed, in a real air-conditioned hotel room, we napped. And it was good.

The next morning our contingent of leftovers said last farewells and headed home to friends and family and living spaces without community showers.

The return home has been surprising. In just a day and a half, I have returned to my regular summer routine. But there's an entire two-month gap in my mind of what has been happening in the rest of the world; wars, viruses, kidnappings that I have yet to catch up on or understand. People are being talked about on television that I have never heard of. I feel like someone plucked from society for a year and suddenly thrown back in.

But the return has been exciting, too. Already I'm anticipating our coming year at Southeast in the Department of Theatre and Dance. We've got a number of exciting shows lined up. Already I'm experiencing theater withdrawal, and can't wait to dive back in.

That is one thing my summer at the Huron Playhouse defined for me. My one true desire in life is theater. The sweat, the drama, the sleepless nights and the insane schedule -- despite their negatives -- all eventually felt right. Whether acting, backstage or scrubbing the director's shoes, it is without a doubt where I feel I belong. You can't trade realizations like that for the world.