. . . then there is that timeless moment in a play

Ten minutes after the first act begins, when it all settles down,

You believe it, it's right, it's really so, and you care.

But from there on you're lost. He's got to know.

She's got to make him see it your way. You ache.

By the end of the second act you ache all over inside

With believing, loving, despairing. What can you do?

Bite your knuckles, say nothing, applaud like everyone else.

Of course at a college play you know everyone in the cast, they're the people you see around the campus every day dressed up, acting.

You'll see them back at the dorm, in the classroom tomorrow..

You'll see them tonight, too, back-stage, taking off the make-up, still living in the play, slowly like coming out of a dream -you don't quite tell them, but they know, for a while you forgot, you believed, you ached.

Then in the play there is that moment when you see

It's all wonderfully (it comes in the third act)

Finally, logically right, a good reason for a good curtain . . .

When you think back into it to remember, never to forget never

Just the way she . . . how with such timing he . . . the way

The stage crew got around that listen Jack I had everything

Taken care of but . . . having coffee and sandwiches after.

And long after. You remember the third act long after.

There's no one to tell that to. No one.

You try to talk about it to someone who wasn't there, but

What is the good of that ever, you can't light the lights,

You can't get the curtain up again on the night that night was.

That's why some of us make theater our lives ,

Wait, work for it, try for the moment again, that feeling,

To be the one to make people out front ache.

To be the people out front. That's theater.