Some time ago, after spending a couple of years not leaving my apartment unless I absolutely had too, I was looking around for something that would get me out and I got re-involved with theater after a number of years away. Usually I am the Technical Director/Lighting Designer for productions. And will often run the lights/sound during the run. This is fun and other then the usual OCD stuff does not cause too much in the way of extra anxiety. Every now and then I cross the footlights and do some acting. I am currently in a production that closes this weekend. The show and I are getting great reviews. Very cool. One very interesting thing about being on stage is for those 90-120 minutes OCD is no where to be found. This is not a function of the usually hiding of the disorder in front of others. It is just not there. You have no idea what a feeling that is. On the down side being in a production means having to do things, often, that I would not normally do. There is often lots of physical contact between actors, the rehearsal process is long and you cannot just not show up if you are having a bad OCD day. So the overall effect is very stressful and I always pay a pretty heavy price after the show closes. I am going to run tech for a show that moves into the theater the same day we move out as sort of a steeping down process. We will see how that works.
Another interesting thing about OCD and theater is there is a much higher then average percentage of folks with OCD in that profession. I suspect that is a function of having acted all our lives to hid or minimize the disorder. We get really good at it. Perhaps there is something to that meme that runs around the OCD community about OCD people being generally more creative, intelligent etc., but for whatever reasons there are a lot of OCD people in theater. Of course in the theater world idiosyncrasies are pretty much the norm…
