The set is struck, the Jake twins have parted ways and Dolly’s not coming down those stairs again anytime soon

It was a fun show, but I’m greatly looking forward to washing and putting away all my knee braces and compression sleeves and getting a haircut and going back to the gym without worrying that I’ll get a show-compromising injury. LET THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE-ING BEGIN!

I’m at the gym minding my own business

and desperately trying to reclaim even the tiniest shadow of my former (relatively) youthful (relative) pulchritude but there’s a glaring specimen of Unfair Physical Perfection wandering all over the gym as if to ensure that everyone notices his hyper-Adonic contours and perfectly polished cheekbones and covet his genetics and his ... um ... other things. And here I am in my Shakespeare T-shirt that says “This shit writes itself” and he inevitably has a B.A in Bard and a PhD in Pentameter and is mortally offended by my literary flippancy EVEN THOUGH THIS VERY MORNING I MADE A BURNHAM-WOOD-TO-DUNSINANE REFERENCE as we moved a bunch of fake potted trees at our 9 to 5 strike but he seems to have left the gym while I just had my caps lock on and he’s probably going to go pull some kind of manufactured-drama Ophelia stunt to express his disdain and disgust with me but in the mean time since he’s gone some sense of non-outlier self-esteem equilibrium has been restored among the mere mortals and steel plates and cable machines and relentlessly forgettable ‘90s B-side grunge-wannabe noise on the loudspeakers and I’m returning to my regularly scheduled Back And Shoulders Day programming. With 20 more lbs on my shoulder presses!

Oh—and not only did Ophelia Guy have the well-honed genetics of a You’re Never Gonna Have This Physique Model but he also had really cool shoes. He’s such a Portia.

The 9 to 5 set, props, costumes, lights and fucking miles of spike tape are struck

And I’m already forgetting my lines. I can’t tag our resident dead guy in this commemorative selfie because he doesn’t have a name in the show. Let’s just call him Brian. Brian Tofive.

The last Elf bow has been bowed and Elf the Musical is now but a cotton-headed dream

We struck the set tonight as our final goodbye to our bejinglebelled adventures, and I have to say that the $6.99 work gloves I bought this morning at Walmart instead of having my oil changed there because nobody ever came to the check-in desk to see why about 10 of us were standing around waiting was the best $6.99 I’ve spent on myself in a very long time; I came home from strike with a satisfied exhaustion and no splinters or cuts on my elfin-soft hands.

Now on to my next theater adventure!

"Power play" is a hockey word. Look it up.

Last year today I was singing a power-play arrangement of “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth” sporting authentic hockey gear and two magic-of-theater missing teeth in front of the power-play Orchestra Iowa in my beloved (and, obvs, power-play) Paramount Theatre.

Today today I’ll be tap-dancing with a merry band of bejinglebelled elves in the last of an eminently delightful five-week run of Elf the Musical at the always-eminently-delightful Theatre Cedar Rapids.

The only arguable difference here is I’ll be wearing brand-new work gloves to strike our set tonight.