After a process of nearly 20 months thinking, writing, working and dreaming, the day arrives that’s been engraved in the back of our skulls since late September 2015: the premiere of ‘On Moonlight and Rain’ at deSingel.

The build-up towards the moment is hectic. We have a final run through in costume during the afternoon. The visual team is nervous, as so much can go wrong with the scale models and the direction of the camera. Up to 20 minutes before showtime, there’s trouble with the camera: a huge MNL logo (“manual”) is top left on the screen, sucking away any magic we have on screen. We don’t have a remote control to put it away and it’s driving everybody nuts. Fortunately, Jeroen finds a solution just in time. Bob Verhelst arrives, he puts envelopes on every seat, containing customized messages for every member of the audience: one sentence drawn from the lyrics. Up to ten minutes before showtime, we’re still picking out light colors for the different universes we’ll show in the songs.

And then the people come in the Theatre Studio. All the energy and thought put in this show over the past 20 months gets condensed into one single hour. It’s show time. The jelly fish, of course, are the real stars of the show. They’re magic.