So last night I think we had the worst show ever of my play. It's a very anti-Bush political show, so it's hard to continue to do after the election and we're all kind of over it, ya know? But we still enjoy hanging out with each other. Seriously, the cast gets along great, which is good and bad because we've developed a lot of personal jokes and really bonded yadda yadda. But it's not a happy play. It's set in the depression and most of it takes place on Dust Bowl farms.

So in the third scene, there's this big confrontation 'should we just steal from the rich merchants' or 'shouldn't we just wait for the government to help us out' that kind of thing. The men storm out, I follow them to the door, watch them go, then shut the door and come back to the three women and one 12 year old girl left on stage. Except this time, as I'm watching the men go, I hear Reilly kind of .. sob during her line. And I think 'oh, she's putting some more emotion into it today' for like two seconds before I realized that she was trying not to laugh. So I turn back and somehow in the five seconds that I was by the door, everyone on stage is holding back laughter. I look at Mary, the 12 year old, and she's completely sucked her lips into her mouth to try to keep the laughter inside. I look at Erica, who is speaking and think, if the two of us can hold it together everyone else will get back on track. As soon as our eyes met, it was over.

All five of us are on stage fighting to get lines out without giggling. I have no lines left to say, I'm just supposed to sit on stage and be sad and shocked, but I can't because we're all about to burst into laughter. I finally completely turn my back to the audience and everyone else onstage to try and get myself under control and I hear THE AUDIENCE giggling.

It was terrible! We're all thinking 'fuck! oh shit! stop laughing!' At one point I thought we were just going to have to give in to it. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. It's the worst laughter when you know you shouldn't be laughing. It's almost impossible to stop.