I thought about it as we walked down the street, Cary adjusting the bag on his shoulder, and I somehow knew that he would give me enough time and space to answer this question, one I’d never had to put into words, exactly.

Unbidden, a flood of images and memories flashed through my head. The first cast meeting of every show—everyone sitting around with their new scripts, more high energy than usual. The way you could practically feel the excitement for the adventure that was just about to start and relief that the auditions were over, the play had been cast, and we could finally begin. Everyone laughing, knowing that over the next two months we’d be seeing a lot of each other.

Sitting in the back of the theater, wrapped in my big cardigan, watching a rehearsal for A Doll’s House as Stevie and Erik went over a scene again and again, tweaking it slightly, trying to make it perfect—trying to do something that felt true.

Standing backstage before the play started, how dark it always was back there—the glow tape never seemed to be quite bright enough—heart hammering, sensing the audience waiting on the other side of the curtain, the rustling of the programs, and the way I could always tell my dad was there from the way he’d clear his throat.

The ghost light at the edge of the stage, always, like it was keeping watch.

The rustle of long skirts and the clicking of the heels of character shoes, trying to keep quiet if you had to cross around backstage, the way everyone was transformed in our first dress rehearsal, a little more of the magic unfolding.

The feeling that came in rehearsals when everything started to click, started to work. The first run-through when we were off book, not even allowed to hold scripts in our back pockets, always about to break into laughter, and the terrified looks we’d all give each other, the feeling that we were all in it together.

The way Teri and Stevie and I would run lines in the greenroom—how we knew everyone else’s by the time we got to dress, and how the three of us could do the whole play in twenty minutes flat, then run it again.

The sound of the orchestra tuning up before the musical.

The monologue I got to give at the very end of Noises Off, when my character had finally had enough and was letting everyone know it—listening to the audience laughter build and build, riding the wave of it.

The superstitions, the rituals. Warm-ups and routines that we all had to do, and in a particular order, every time. What a to-do to die today at a minute or two to two; a thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do.