Strike - a school article

    
What actor doesn't know about the work day most affectionately called Strike? The one day that every one knows exactly where you are and what your doing. Strike is basically taking everything off the stage, cleaning up the backstage, purging the make-up room and clearing out the horribly stinky lockers. Usually no one likes to do this so we have to tackle people to the ground as they try to head out the door and shove a broom into their hands. Most of the time there is only one working power drill, the rest sputtering on the side lines with the last bit of juice in them and the only real contractor in the whole building is usually stuck with making sure no one hurts themselves or the stage. Everybody fights for the job of kitchen clean-up because of the extra food that you find, but the least favorite job of everyone there is the bathrooms. No one like cleaning the bathroom. At our theatre the bathroom doubles as a lavatory, paint storage and dressing room. Not to mention the large gaping whole in the cement wall that you can see nothing but darkness in. They call it Georges home, the theatres  very own ghost that lives downstairs. While every one bored with sitting backstage for hours at a time like to gather into circles and whisper away with ghost stories, I find my time alone downstairs an enjoyable interval away  from all the hustle and bustle. But at the end of the day, every body walking out of the theatre on tired legs and shutting doors with sore hands, we feel good about our work. We smile to ourselves at the thoughts of goof offs and mess ups of the past day, at the jokes and laughter that helped us through the work and the great time that we will be able to remember for a while to come. Strike is more than about cleaning and work, its about doing it with friends and having a good time.