Ever wonder what happens after that final bow on the last night? Dismantlement, that’s what. Dismantlement- from the Latin dis- (removal) + mantel (mantle). I challenge anyone to find a better one-word description. Even before the final bows were taken on stage, crew was tiptoeing ever so quietly backstage, removing curtains from the Diogenes Club walls, readying the packing crates, gathering the tools for the big job ahead. By midnight, that lovely room at 221B Baker Street had vanished. The stage at Theatre on the Square was clear- a blank slate waiting for a new show and a new audience.

I have been asked if it is difficult to strike a set after all the hours spent constructing, painting and dressing that perfect make- believe world. And surprisingly, the answer is no. It does not break my heart to see it reduced to cans of screws and stacks of boxes and flats. What looks so solid and genuine from the audience seats isn’t real, it’s illusion, meant to be viewed for a short time, from a respectable distance, under just the right light. It is, as Stuart Kaminsky so aptly put it, an entertainment.

So when the rugs have been rolled up, the tchatchkes have been carefully packed away, the floorboards pried up and the flats and platforms stacked, I don’t see destruction. I see potential. As I raise my glass in farewell to this show, I am already anticipating the next. Actors will get new scripts and costumes, flats and platforms will get fresh coats of paint and a new arrangement. Audiences will fill the seats, and for a short time, from a respectable distance, under just the right light, another entertainment will begin.