While Drei and I were chatting on YM a couple of days ago, I was also looking through the archives of my old blog entries, searching for an inspiration for a "flashback entry" (coined from Lara's "Flashback Friday" blog entries. When I reached the Jul 2004 entries, I suddenly realized something.
As of that day, July 28th, it had been exactly 5 years since Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat had first opened at the CSB Theater. It had served as my thesis along with Rain, Anthony, Kathy and Precious. Huwaw. 5 years. It's been that long?
Nostalgia kicked in. Hahaha, and I thought I was stressed back then. If only I knew of the other things to come. And I remembered even juggling an Akafellas concert at the same time. I realized that I only knew a tiny fraction of stage management when I was ASM for that concert, and while I was SM for my own thesis. I can't even believe we had the guts to actually produce the entire musical with such a meager budget (which led to certain debts). But we pulled it off, and even went crazy with a restaging just to pay off the debts, but I was actually amused that everyone was game and willing (or just plain crazy enough) to restage the show.
Despite all the stress and annoyances, I had a blast during my thesis because I found lifelong friends in a whole bunch of them. And to think I told myself back then not to get too attached to the people. Who knew that one of the insecure cast members that had auditioned would end up being cast in a local production of a Tony-award winning musical this year (Nicco)? Hahaha, I had practically ignored him the whole time because I thought he wasn't going to take our production seriously (and he had even seriously joked about just trying out as a tree), but he became one of the closest friends I have. Another cast member (Drei) that we had sort-of prodded into designing half the costumes became one of the guys I can still talk to about anything over coffee until the wee hours of morning, a tradition that we had revived just recently. Conversations between the tall narrator (Mimay, whom I only thought of as a mere Lea Salonga fan with a beautiful voice) evolved from Lea's shows and eventually became heart-to-heart talks (and talks about dreams, hahaha) at Gloria Jeans, Starbucks, Burger King, Ayn's house and even over YM while we're on opposite sides of the world. The cute petite girl (Misch) that I met during another OJT is someone I could hang out with during spur-of-the-moment visits, and is still a constant chatmate and even textmate even though she's always busy working in New York. And the girl who sort of got upset at me back then (Nikki, because I had said that I usually have different sets of cliques depending on what I was involved in) is another close friend that I still frequently see despite her busy flight schedule. Whenever she has a day off, she would suddenly give me a text and a couple of hours later, we would be at some random coffee shop, just talking and laughing the hours away.
I miss the same crowd, and I really do mean all of you. Even though I was sort of aloof during the pre-production phase, I couldn't seem to get enough of all of you right after the show had closed. I remember that sudden get-together at Jollibee a few days after our shows, just because of a random text message (was it from Nicco, who always seemed to have that "San ka/kayo?" text ready to send from his phone? Hahaha) to hang out. Anyway, a pending reunion is on hold for now, as I couldn't seem to find a common schedule and venue for everyone. But it would be great to see everyone all together again.
How the time has changed. Some have moved halfway across the globe, others are finally getting married, and the rest have pursued what they want in life. 5 years. Oh my. The time really flew.
May I return to the beginning
The light is dimming, and the dream is too
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating
Any dream will do...
I miss y'all. Hope to see you guys again soon.
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