Performing is great. But I’ll take rehearsal any day.

                                                    © 20th Century Fox Broadcasting Company

I was a theater and choir nerd in high school.

My wife Denise cringes when we watch “Glee.”

Denise: “Is there any truth to this show? Please tell me this is over the top.”

Me: “It is shockingly close to true. It was really like that. You know, except for the fact they have cooler costumes, killer sets, and can actually sing.

Other than that – yeah, that’s what high school theater and choir was like for me.”

Denise: “Oh my.”

I bring this up because I have found myself thinking about theater lately.

Not because of “Glee,” but because of work.

We just deployed Synthesis 1.4 in beta at our first customer site. (Synthesis is our social intranet platform for architects and engineers.)

This is our fourth release of Synthesis this year, but we all feel like this one is the game changer.

Releasing the product today after three months of intense focus was a huge high. The team has been cranking for weeks and our hard work paid off. High-fives all around. Great work team!

But I can’t help feeling the way I used to in high school after opening night.

In a word, melancholy.

In retrospect, the thing I liked most about theater was the rehearsals.  You start with a script and an empty stage. Your final performance is still a fuzzy sketch in the back of the director’s mind. The team comes together over several months and day by day you discover what “the play or show wants to be.” It emerges. Your job is to help uncover it.

In “On Writing,” Stephen King likened this process to excavating a fossil. You see a small piece of bone sticking out of the ground. You don’t know if it is a tooth or a T-Rex femur. You start to remove dirt around the bone, careful not to damage it. After several minutes, or hours, or days you get your answer.

Now perhaps I’m overdoing it.

But when I think back to my high school plays I remember the people. I remember the process of discovery and creating something great together. I barely remember the performances.

So one day, twenty years from now, when nobody cares about social intranets anymore, I’ll remember days like today.

Thanks Brian C, Susan, Chad, Brian W, and Paul.

CP