Today, I spent five hours in the library conference room. And while that may not sound like most people’s ideal Sunday, it was actually a really good time. I did not just do this for fun or to see how long I could last in there without going insane, no, I did it for the Ireland Project. Although it seems strange after working on this project for nearly half a year, the Ireland Project is next weekend and this is crunch time.

I have been to a lot of Sunday rehearsals. Like a whole LOT. I’ve been to Sunday rehearsals where I wasn’t even in the show. I have been trapped in Estherwood for nearly eight hours. And usually, it kind of sucks. But today, with the sunlight gently filtering through the library conference room’s windows and a light breeze coming in from the open door and a group of my peers who I am so close to they are nearly family around me, it wasn’t so bad. We started off with our typical warm up and that was about all that was really typical about today’s rehearsal.

We spent a fair amount of today’s rehearsal working on our opening dance, a fantastical mix of modern, Indian, and Irish inspired choreography. The short dance is a startling and beautiful beginning to the piece, which is expected to run about an hour in total. Every time I see that dance (I saw it quite a few times today…) I am inspired to give the performance my all, to devote myself to the wonder that we can create. An added bonus of the dance is that you get to see almost all of the members of the Ireland Project up and dancing about, including the boys. (Zach Oscar gets really into it.)

Another aspect of our project that we spent a large amount of time on is the tableaus, which are group poses that are formed between each scene. As we constructed the images, I thought back to the beginning of the year, when we seemed like clumsy children, unable to create anything worth looking at with our physicality. Now, we are physicality masters, if I do say so myself, including lifts and all sorts of weird positions into our piece, completely trusting our fellow players and giving everything we’ve got to the presentation, instead of judging ourselves and others or sniggering.

The best thing about today was finally seeing this piece, that everyone in the Ireland Project and in the Masters community has given so much to, coming together, breathing for the first time. Seeing a distant, devised theater fantasy become part of the concrete world. I remember when the script was a distant daydream, now it has been almost half a year and we have interviewed people, transcribed, bickered, been to Ireland and back, become so close, written a script… and in less than a week it will all be over. It is both sad and inexplicably joyous. We have all poured our hearts and souls into this project…. I hope everyone will come to see the magic we have created, enjoy the fruit or our labor, next Saturday at 2:00 in the theater.We will be…. The Ireland Project.