The famed “Hell Week” is every theater geek’s simultaneous favorite holiday and worst nightmare. Typically taking up the entirety of the week before a show's opening night, it is as transformative as it is stressful. For all of you actors and directors out there going through this tumultuous process right now, here’s some reassurance and levity to ease how terrifying this must be. Remember, in the long run, this will all have been worth it! Once the show has closed its last curtain and the last piece of the set has been struck down, you will miss even this exhausting process.

This is also to provide some reading material for you, the wonderful cast, to procrastinate memorizing those lines of yours (yeah, I know what you’re up to).

1. That prop the lead character lost the other day, shoved under a pile of someone’s clothes

Oh, that's where it was! Yesterday, it was the end of the world when this disappeared. It probably did just because someone was playing with it, because it was a real fun prop (remember all those toy pool noodle pitchforks from "Shrek the Musical?") or because it was taken by the super stealthy backstage elf who moves props around when the cast has gone home. Either way, it’s here now! No worries, until tomorrow when the backstage elf chooses its next prey.

2. Some spilled Pepsi on a white costume shirt

Uh oh. This character isn’t going to be happy about this. Remember that time the stage manager made that big announcement about not bringing drinks backstage, especially if it wasn’t a clear liquid? Yeah. Whoever did this obviously didn’t listen or didn’t care? Either way, someone’s gonna get it later.

3. Bobby pins

They’re everywhere. They’re all over the floor. They’re holding up your clothes. They’re on your mic. They’re on the stage. They’re stuck to your shoe. They’re in your hair, even after you’ve washed it three times. It’s like the plague. Though it’s nice to have this useful tool around you, it does make you feel a little bit more secure. Until the very second you actually need a bobby pin, and there are none to be found.

4. Sweat

Don't hug me, I'm sweaty. It’s gross, it’s in the air and it’s not going away. Jeez, you’d think that they’d install some ventilation in the condensed backstage area they’re keeping you in! Every time you think you get a breath of fresh air after a group of people go onstage, an entirely new group of cast members come back into the room after finishing a rousing dance number. The vicious cycle continues.

5. Hairspray

Maybe not even contained in its spray bottle. It’s definitely flying through the air at a constant rate. It’s what we in community theaters everywhere live for, next to mic tape and bobby pins — the liquid glue that holds down fly-away hair and suppresses sweat. Who needs a makeup-setting spray when you can just hairspray down your entire body?

Backstage, there’s always going to be that one person who brings in the super massive, 5,000-ounce, never-ending spray can. The true backstage mom, coming in clutch.

6. An electrical fan, complete with seven cast members blocking its breeze

I get it, it’s hot in here, but if you all spread yourself out and let the fan do its job, it would be at least 10 degrees cooler. No one likes a fan hog! But it’s OK. You’ll give in and push your way to the front of this fan crowd later.

7. Your fellow cast members

The only thing that keeps you sane through all of this. You're all going through the same stressors and slowly losing your sanity together.

In the long run, what really matters through this week is that you’re building lasting friendships with those actors and singers and dancers around you. You’re all working toward a mutual goal: create an entertaining and enjoyable show for an audience. And when you’re up on that stage, trying your best to give the sea of audience members what they want, what truly matters is what surrounds you. The people who put you up on that stage, have helped you get to where you are and share the same platform as you are your cast mates. Or, in more positive terms, your friends. In all the exhausting and sweaty and emotional whirlwinds of Hell Week, don’t forget that you’re not alone. This show could only go on with these people around you.

Break all the legs in your shows, and congratulations on all the progress you’ve made so far on this journey!