Stage Freeze! (Don't Say "Stage Freeze," Just Do It.)

I feel like crying.

You may ask yourself, Why would Melissa want to cry? I thought she was dead inside? Could she possibly be . . . the P word?!

You wash your mouth out with soap for even thinking that!

Go on.

I'll wait.

Now that you've been punished for your dirty thoughts, I feel like crying because it's over.

This is the set:

And this is my "station" where I spent most of the show:

Inside fact: I spent 90% of the show on stage. And I'm standing for 99% of that time.

I have to admit, when I first was cast in Steel Magnolias, I was extremely nervous. The first rehearsal scared the beejesus out of me. (You try spending every night with 11 divas and then tell me you wouldn't be scared too. For the first month or so, I just sat quietly in the corner and tried not to make anyone mad at me, because nothing is worse than having a diva yell at you for . . . I don't know . . . sitting in her chair, or using her prop, or something even more horrifying, like looking at her wrong.) And I thought maybe I had made a huge mistake and just wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. But then I decided to not be such a jerk and get to know these women. And I'm so glad I did! They are all amazing and I'm intimidated by each of their talent.

I really grew to love these ladies. This is my MWF cast:Yes, that's me in the hideous blond wig, behind me in the blue is Robyn Edwards (M'Lynn), the orange bow is Meredith Gibson (Ouiser), next to her in the middle is Chris Brown (Clairee), the circus performer is Missy Riffle (Truvy), and the purple curlers is Ashley Garner Carlson (Shelby).

This is Addison:Our wonderful stage manager. Yes, a male stage manager for an estrogen-filled show. He is the most amazing person ever. Extremely multi-talented. He sings, he dances, he acts, he paints, he sculpts, he . . . well, you name it he does it.

This is Jamie (and that's Angela Cole Brown next to her, she played Truvy in the TTHS cast): She was our stage manager when Addison couldn't be there. I really loved her, because after our quick change, she would bring our costumes back to the dressing room for us, so we didn't have to go get them after the show was over. I think Addison never did that because he was afraid to touch women's clothing.

This is me and Missy: I can't tell you how completely amazing Missy is. She's the most wonderful, talented, loving, sincere-hearted, capable person I have ever met. (Notice that she's a blond and I'm a redhead, but they decided to make us switch for the show and I was the blond and she looked like Peg Bundy in her red wig. But definitely more classy than Peg.)

The following are pictures from when I "played" with the TTHS cast closing week:

This is Angela Cole Brown with the wig on (Truvy):That's Jillian Tirado (Shelby) in the background, Jane Huefner (M'Lynn) in the blue, and Linda Jean Stephenson (Clairee) seated. That's Addison and Rebecca Hess (Ouiser):Anyway, back to my cast.

On closing night, I took a lot of pictures, so bear with me (okay, you can skip over them. We all know this blog is really for me to remember things anyway).

After the TTHS cast closed their show on Saturday, we had a big party at Chris Brown's house.

She made spudnuts:But mostly we just sat around and talked:Missy and her husband, Scott. Ashley had on these really cute sparkly heels. I want some.

Mike could never understand that whenever I would go out with the cast after a show, I would be out until 1 or 2 in the morning. After the party, I think he understood why. These women are hilarious! It's hard to get up and leave when you know Meredith will be telling another hilarious story any second. Laughter is abundant around her. This is Adrien Swenson:My counterpart (that's why there aren't any pictures of her). Adrien intimidated the hell out of me at first. She is incredibly talented.

I'm really going to miss this so much. Especially the friends I made.

Clairee has a line in the show that says, "If you can't say anything nice about anyone . . . Come sit by me."

True. Too true.