When the show is over,
What, then, shall remain?
What shall remain,
When the players have exited stage left?

And what of those actors,
Knowing that one day soon,
They will forget the warmth of the spotlight?
No longer will they remember
Their lines and cues and blocking,
For which they once so labored.

Why then, do they walk across the stage at all?
Would it not be simpler to sit, happily
Watching from a balcony seat,
Uncaring, and free, and so awfully docile.

Why do they do it, then,
Knowing that, one day, they will be replaced?
Their looks will fade, they know.
They will age, and the role they once held
Will be filled by another.

The applause, and even it's echoes, shall fade,
And the roses, too, will wither and die.
So why then, do they even bother?
The life of an actor is very seldom easy,
Nor lucrative, nor glamorous.

So why then, do these actors play?
When the curtain has long been drawn,
Will they look back and wish
They’d just sat back and watched the show?

No.

They will think of their time upon that stage
And they will stare off into space, smiling
(As those artist types very often do.)
They will know their names have been long forgotten
By the audiences that had once stood and clapped.

And yet, they will smile.

They will smile because they do not truly forget.
Neither audience nor player shall forget. Not really.

Those people sitting in the balcony will forget
The actors, yes, but not the show.
They will never forget how they felt at it’s close,
As they stood there, thinking and clapping.
They will never forget what that play meant,
And how it mattered in their lives.
They forget the parts, but will remember their sum.

And those parts do not forget, either.
They remember the faces and the applause.
They know they will be replaced, of course,
And know also that it would be unfair not to be.
They are content to be a part of a whole,
Because, really, nothing is ever accomplished alone.

And so they are satisfied that, once upon a time,
They made some people think,
And maybe, on occasion, to act, as well.
(But not upon the wooden stage.)

That is why, my friend, the actor
(Even though the show is done and the curtain is closing now)
Still smiles.