ROBIN TALLEY is the New York Times bestselling author of the highly acclaimed novels Music from Another World, Pulp, Our Own Private Universe, As I Descended, What We Left Behind and Lies We Tell Ourselves. Her books have won accolades including the Amnesty CILIP Honour and have also been shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal.

She worked in digital communications for LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, educational equity, and other progressive causes for fifteen years before she turned to writing full-time. Robin lives in Washington, DC with her wife and their daughter.

You can find her online at www.robintalley.com or on Twitter @robin_talley.

Also by Robin Talley

Music from Another World

Pulp

As I Descended

Our Own Private Universe

What We Left Behind

Lies We Tell Ourselves

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

Robin Talley

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Robin Talley 2020

Robin Talley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008217259

Version 2020-10-19

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For Darcy.

It’s okay if you don’t love musical theater when you grow up, but

you can never say your moms didn’t try.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Prologue: November

Scene 1—Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

Scene 2—Stage, Beaconville High School Theater

Scene 3—Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

Scene 4—The McIntyre-Perez Living Room

Act 1: February

Scene 1—Beaconville High School Choir Room

Scene 2—Beaconville High School Cafeteria

Scene 3—Hallway, Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing

Scene 4—Beaconville High School Cafeteria

Scene 5—Beaconville High School Choir Room

Scene 6—The McIntyre-Perez House

Scene 7—The McIntyre-Perez Front Porch

Scene 8—Beaconville High School Choir Room

Scene 9—Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing

Scene 10—The McIntyre-Perez House

Intermission

Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

Scene Shop, Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing

Dance Studio, Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing

Back Bay, Boston

Act 2: April

Scene 1—Beaconville High School Theater

Scene 2—Beaconville High School Cafeteria

Scene 3—The McIntyre-Perez house

Scene 4—Black Box Theater, Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing

Scene 5—Dance Studio, Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing

Scene 6—Beaconville High School Gymnasium

Scene 7—Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

Scene 8—Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

Scene 9—Beaconville High School Theater

Scene 10—Beaconville High School Theater

Epilogue: One Year Later

Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

Curtain Call

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

BEACONVILLE HIGH SCHOOL

presents our

spring musical production

Les Misérables

Based on the novel by Victor Hugo

Director Ms. Jennifer Marcus
Music Director Ms. Michelle Qiao
Technical Director Mr. William Green

Conductor Dr. P. J. Benjamin
Stage Manager Melody McIntyre, class of 2021

May 1–9, 2020

Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing

Beaconville High School Theater Rules

Stored on BHS performing arts department shared drive

Created by: Billy Yang, stage manager, class of 2007

Viewable to: All cast, crew, and directors

Editable by: Current SM ONLY

This document was created following our production of the Scottish Play in spring 2007. Henceforth to be referred to as The Production That Must Not Be Named. If we stick to the rules below, hopefully, hopefully, we’ll never have another show like it.

Rule 1:

All standard theater superstitions are to be strictly followed within the performing arts wing. No one can ever whistle, actors may only be told to “break a leg” (never “g**d l**k”), there is to be no giving of flowers to anyone before a performance, etc.

And for God’s sake, no one is EVER to say the real name of the Scottish Play out loud under ANY circumstances. We don’t care if you’re studying Shakespeare for your English APs. We don’t care if you’re trying to come up with a cute ship name for your favorite characters, “Mackenzie” and “Bethany.”

No matter the circumstances, you are NEVER to say M*cb**h out loud. Seriously. We cannot stress the importance of this enough.

Rule 2:

Before rehearsals on a new show begin, all cast and crew must pay tribute to the fire memorial plaque in the theater lobby. What form this tribute takes is up to your team. For our next show, we’ve decided to pay tribute via intense silent prayer to whatever deity each of us may or may not believe in, but anything should do the trick as long as you do it with sufficient gusto.

Rule 3:

A new superstition must be created and strictly adhered to for every play and musical produced on the main stage (see A Brief History of BHS Theater Superstitions). This new superstition will apply to that show and that show only. We highly recommend applying lessons learned from whatever went wrong last time around (which in the case of The Production That Must Not Be Named was everything).

Rule 4:

If any superstition is violated, the offender must perform the appropriate countercurse as soon as possible, or the entire cast and crew will face the consequences.

Rule 5:

The above rules are not to be taken lightly. Trust us, curses aren’t something you want to mess with.

Prologue

November

Scene 1—Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater
MINUTES UNTIL OPENING NIGHT CURTAIN CALL: 75

I tap the button, and below me the entire audience draws in a quick, happy breath.

A pale beam of light just appeared at the top of the scaffolding we built on stage left. I hit that cue at the perfect moment, and now the audience is primed and ready. The light was the signal they needed to get invested in this scene, and now they’ll hang on every word while the actors do their actor thing.

Man, I love my job.

“But soft!” Liam calls from downstage center. Another collective happy breath goes up as the audience recognizes the line. “What light through yonder window breaks?”

“Stand by, sound M.” My voice is steady as I call the cue into the headset. Smooth and professional. I’ve only been stage manager for three months, but I’ve already got the smooth-and-professional headset voice down.

My best friend, Dom, nods silently in the seat next to mine, his finger hovering over the go button.

Below us, Liam launches into his first big speech. Up in the booth, we wait.

It’ll take him a while to get to the cue, so I take a moment to squint down at the stage, making sure his doublet’s still intact. One of the sleeves somehow got snagged during the opening fight scene, which Liam isn’t even in, and Rachel spent the whole Lady Capulet scene frantically attacking his shoulder with a needle backstage. If it gets any worse, we’ll have to tell David to give his speech in the next scene really slowly so the costume team will have time to work on it again. Romeo isn’t supposed to look bedraggled yet.

Liam finally gets to the cue line—“Her eye discourses; I will answer it”—and at the exact moment he says it, I say, “Go!”

Dom presses the key right when he’s supposed to, on the g in go. The sound of a dog barking pipes out onto the stage, and the audience members sit up, startled, just like they’re supposed to. The outside world just intruded on Romeo and Juliet’s private moment, reminding them both of what they’re risking if they get caught. The audience is appropriately unsettled.

I want to grin, but I don’t let myself. Dom hasn’t missed a cue all night, and neither have I. It’s still early, though. We’ve got plenty of time to screw things up.

The great dream of my life is that opening night will come off perfectly, but that never happens. It’s the first rule of theater. Besides, we ran into so many crises during the rehearsal process for this show that I stopped counting. Odds are, something’s bound to go wrong between now and curtain call, and it’ll be something worse than a torn doublet. Stage managers can always sense disaster in the making.

“Hey, Mel?” Gabby’s voice chirps in my ear from backstage, and my usual roster of anxieties surges. Did Tybalt’s sword break again? We already had to fix it twice during tech. Or is one of the nervous ensemble freshmen puking in costume? They all know they’re under strict orders when it comes to puking attire.

But then Gabby says, “Should I stay stage left in case Christina needs to look at my script again, or can I check on the Greek chorus?” and I relax.

“Check on the chorus,” I tell her. “Christina has no business looking at your script during a performance anyway. The actors had to be off-book weeks ago. If she forgets a line tonight, she’s on her own.”

Over the headset, Estaban starts singing “On My Own” from Les Mis in a high-pitched voice, and I struggle again not to laugh. Sure, that’s arguably the best song in definitively the best musical ever written, but I can’t risk getting distracted with gorgeous melodies tonight.

“Oh, Romeo, Romeo!” Christina sings out on the stage below, her face settling into the same over-the-top smile she always wears onstage, whether she’s Juliet or Mrs. Potiphar or a backup Delta Nu. “Wherefore art—”

“My cough drops?” Estaban says into the headset. Gabby and the others laugh from backstage, and next to me, Dom chuckles silently into his hand.

This is the first show where Christina’s gotten a lead, and during rehearsals she quickly became infamous with the crew for demanding that cough drops be placed in her palm whenever she held it out. For the first week Gabby actually did it, unwrapping Ricolas and running up to the stage, until our theater teacher, Ms. Marcus, took us both aside. It was Christina’s responsibility to deal with her own cough drops, she told us. And as assistant stage manager, Gabby’s job was to make sure we put on a good show, not to enable the actors’ laziness.

(Okay, I’m paraphrasing Ms. Marcus rather than directly quoting here, but the point is . . . actors. They’re the worst.)

“Ahem.” A throat clears behind me.

When I turn around, Will—Mr. Green, I mean; that’s what I’m supposed to call him at school—frowns from his perch against the back wall of the booth. He’s our technical director, and he doesn’t approve of non-show chatter on headset. I’m the only one who’s really supposed to talk, except when the other crew members need to acknowledge my cues or tell me about some problem backstage.

It’s hard to resist, though. We’ve all seen this show a hundred times in rehearsals, and besides, we just upgraded our headset system. There are a dozen of us on the intercom tonight—all the crew heads and a few of the assistants, plus Gabby and me, plus Will. Basically, everyone I actually like in this school is connected via microphones attached to our heads right now. The urge to go off-topic is strong in us all.

But Will’s right. We need to stay focused. The Greek chorus is about to enter.

“Stand by, sound N,” I say into the mic, nodding at Will so he’ll know I understand.

Dom hovers his finger over the button and wiggles his eyebrows at me. I bite my lip and glare back. Ever since the invited dress rehearsal, he’s been trying to see if he can trick me into laughing during a standby. No one’s allowed to talk on the headsets when we’re in standby, not even me, but Dom says I’m too much of a stickler for the rules.

I haven’t cracked yet, though, and I’m not going to. Sure, this is my first full show as stage manager—and I’m only a junior, which makes me the youngest SM in the history of the Beaconville High School performing arts department, thank you very much—but rules exist for a reason. In a standby, the crew’s attention should be focused on hitting each cue at precisely the right moment. If one person loses track, the whole show could fall apart.

Besides, professionalism is any good stage manager’s number-one character trait. If I can put on an almost-perfect fall play—and, better yet, a totally perfect musical this spring—I’ll be on track to get into my dream stage management program for college, and that’ll set me up to get hired as a professional SM after graduation. First stop, the Beaconville High School theater tech booth, last stop, Broadway.

But only if I can get this right.

“Henceforth I never will be Romeo!” Liam proclaims, throwing his arms up in one of those patented actor flails that make audiences lose their minds.

“Go,” I say into the mic.

Dom presses the button.

This sound cue is short—just a few seconds of recorded music to cover the Greek chorus’s entrance from the wings. Ms. Marcus wanted to bring out actual musicians, but Dr. Benjamin flat-out refused to deal with all the parent permission forms and extra rehearsal scheduling it would’ve taken to get a few horn players onstage for a tiny fragment of a song.

Rachel—who happens to be my girlfriend, in addition to being the best costume crew head our school’s had in years—was glad Dr. Benjamin won that argument. Otherwise she and her team would’ve been stuck sewing three more costumes for just one scene. She wouldn’t have actually minded the sewing part, but band guys at our school are notoriously terrible at standing still and letting themselves be measured, and they’re always cracking vaguely creepy jokes about woodwinds.

As the music winds down, Alejandra and Malik and the rest of the actors in the so-called Greek chorus file on from stage right. The most complicated set of light cues in the entire show is about to start, and my heart’s already racing. But when the music ends, I tap the button for the first cue, right on schedule.

“See, Mel? You got this,” Dom mutters as light slowly fills the stage. He’s keeping his voice down, but his mic is still on, which means the crew can hear him through the headset. Even when he’s being a nice, reassuring friend, which is most of the time, Dom craves an audience. “Nothing can knock you off your game. You’re the cue-calling master.”

“All hail our fearless leader,” Fatima says from backstage.

The others giggle into their headsets. I smile over at Dom and summon up my most relaxed expression. My friends call it my Stage Manager Calm. A good SM is utterly unfazeable. Or pretends to be, at least.

It was the cast’s idea to stage the second half of the balcony scene this way, with a Greek chorus full of Capulets and Montagues trooping out onstage to watch and silently judge while Romeo and Juliet moon over each other. The idea is that they aren’t really there, they’re just hovering on the edges of our heroes’ thoughts, imaginary stand-ins for the risk they’re taking by even having this conversation. While the young lovers are busy declaring passionate, lifelong devotion based on having flirted for approximately thirty seconds at a party, their families are shaking their heads at their inanity, both metaphorically and literally.

The conceptual flaws here are many—for one thing, the whole point of the balcony scene is that it’s an intimate moment between Romeo and Juliet alone, and for another, a Greek chorus by definition can’t be silent—but it’s not my job to point out things like that. My job is to make sure the audience understands what’s happening onstage. And since it’s really hard for a dozen teenage actors to convey mass imaginary silent judgment, we’re doing it with lights.

We came up with a plan for the scene that I now realize is . . . a little on the complicated side. The brightest pools of light will switch back and forth, often, between Liam and Christina at the balcony and their “families” on the opposite side of the stage. The SM always runs the light board on our fall plays, which means it’s up to me to hit the button at precisely the right moment every time to keep that light dancing from one end of the stage to the other while the actors do their thing. Some of the cues are really close together, so it’s going to be tricky, but if I get it right, the audience should be able to follow along. And if I screw up, they’ll be baffled, trying to figure out why all these extra people are hanging out in Juliet’s backyard during the most iconic two-person scene in dramatic history.

Honestly, though—this is why I love technical theater. The actors can prance around reciting iambic pentameter as much as they want, but even they know they’d be helpless without us. Sure, it’s hard—I’m stuck calling cues for the crew all night, plus keeping up with these complicated lighting changes on my own, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m in charge of everything that’s happening.

It’d be easier if I didn’t also have to follow along with every word of the script as they’re saying it, though. I’m the only person in this building who has to know exactly what’s supposed to be happening onstage at every second, even when the actors screw up.

“What’s going on with Christina’s hair?” Fatima asks over the headsets. Now that the Greek chorus is in place, there isn’t much for the run crew to do while this scene is playing out. I’m the only one who has to worry about much of anything right now. Well, me and the cast, I guess. “Did she put on some industrial-strength gel? I can practically see my reflection in it.”

“Don’t even ask,” Shannon says, the eye roll clear in her voice. “I begged Ms. Marcus to let me order her a wig.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and the spring musical will be Tangled.” Dom laughs. “Except I bet she wouldn’t even let you get wigs for that after Midsummer.”

Shannon laughs too. Ms. Marcus declared an official ban on wigs freshman year after the crew had to spend three hours untangling fairy hair from the bedazzled headdresses the parent committee donated in the last week of Midsummer rehearsals.

“Hey, has anyone noticed Malik’s looking particularly luscious in his doublet this evening?” Estaban sounds extremely chipper, even though he really ought to be focused on polishing Liam’s sword. He’s only two scenes away from stabbing Tybalt. “And, sub-question, does anyone know if there’s an update on the heterosexuality situation over there?”

I fight again to keep from laughing—objectifying cast members during a performance is definitely unprofessional—but no one else bothers.

Will hears the chorus of giggles and catches my eye, slashing a hand across his throat. I nod again, and I’m about to tell the others to cut it out when I hear the crash.

The sound is loud in the ear that’s attached to my headset, but I didn’t hear anything from the house. A couple of people in the front rows of the audience jumped, though, so they must’ve heard it too.

“Is everything secure backstage?” I sit up straight in my seat, trying to place the sound and follow along with the script at the same time. It could’ve been a backdrop coming down from the rigging, but I can’t be sure. “Gabby, can you find out what that noise was?”

“Thank you, finding out . . .” Gabby’s trotting footsteps echo through the headset.

“It was the curse!” Estaban stage-whispers.

Dom and I trade eye rolls. I don’t even bother looking back at Will.

“It wasn’t,” I say, genuinely calm this time. “It can’t be—we’ve followed every rule. It was probably the flat from Act One coming loose.”

More shuffling footsteps echo over the headset before Gabby answers. “Yep, Mel’s right. It was the flat.”

“All right,” I say. “Gabby, can you put Michael and Caroline in charge of fixing it, and Bryce, can you guide them through what they need to do?”

“Definitely,” Bryce says from her perch by the fly system backstage. “Sorry, Mel. I don’t know what happened. It worked fine during tech.”

“I told you, it’s the cuuuuuuurrrse!” Estaban says again. Fatima giggles. “It’ll wreak its vengeance by yanking down all our scenery!”

“I thought it already wreaked its vengeance when the computer ate half my sound files during midterms.” Dom drums his fingers on his chin and winks at me. “Are we positive no one said the real name of the Scottish Play in that production meeting when we kept talking about getting fries at McDonald’s?”

“It’s fine, everyone.” I glare at Dom again. We don’t have time for jokes, or curses either. Not with the fastest light cues in the show only a few lines away. “Just please make sure Michael and Caroline get it cleared out so it’s not a trip hazard.”

“Maybe the curse only hit us mildly this time,” Fatima offers. “It could be saving up the real goods for the musical.”

“Ooh, don’t even go there,” Bryce says.

“I wouldn’t call it mild,” Jasmin adds. “I was within inches of a concussion when I fell off that ladder last week.”

“You mean when you fell on me,” Gabby says. “I came within inches of breaking both wrists.”

“Only because you were standing right—”

“Quiet, please,” I say, and the giggling cuts off immediately. The crew knows I don’t say quiet without good reason. “Stand by, lights fifty-three to sixty-four.”

There’s no point in me calling each individual light cue out loud, since I’m the one running them anyway, but I need the crew to be in standby so I can concentrate. I press the button for the first cue in the series, and the light goes out over the chorus side of the stage just as a new one comes on above the scaffold.

“Juuuuuu-liet!” Beth sings from offstage. The audience laughs. Beth’s always funny, even when she’s hiding in the wing. I stay away from actors as a general rule—us crew types prefer to stick together—but there’s no denying some of them are good at what they do.

I hover my finger over the button for the next cue. Two lines from now, Christina’s going to exit and I’ll need to make sure the audience can see the Greek chorus judging her and Liam even more harshly than they already were. And another round of ominous non-band music needs to play, to emphasize it even more. “Stand by, sound O.”

Dom dutifully holds his finger over the button as Christina steps into the wing.

“Sound, go.”

Dom hits his key and I press my button at exactly the same time. The lights and the sound come on at once, and the mood onstage shifts exactly like it’s supposed to.

Dom holds out his hand without looking up, and we high five with silent smiles.

Liam has a short speech while he’s waiting for Christina to come back on, so I get ready for the next light cue. I can’t see Christina from here, but I’ve been backstage enough in rehearsals that I can easily picture her anxiously tugging on her hair.

I’ve never understood it. Why would anyone want to go out there in front of everyone? Why put yourself through that when you could be back here with us, making the real magic happen?

Don’t get me wrong. I love theater more than life itself. I just don’t get why you’d choose to stand in a spotlight saying the same words over and over with everyone you’ve ever known watching and gleefully hoping to catch a mistake. Sure, people will clap for you in the curtain call, but I’ve been to enough shows to know that audiences will clap for anyone who runs out and bows.

It’s like they all think they’re going to be the Next Big Thing. Sure, our performing arts department is the real deal—some of our shows have won awards, and there’s even a senior at our school, Odile Rose, who’s already semi-famous. She got to skip school for a month and fly off to Iceland to film a three-episode arc on the Game of Thrones prequel.

But it’s not like that’s going to happen for everyone. The high point of most of my classmates’ acting careers will consist of trying and failing to make Shakespearean dialogue sound natural right here in the BHS auditorium.

Up in the booth, though, no one’s looking at us. We have the best seats in the house—at the back, far above the stage, where we can see the movements of every actor, every prop, and every piece of scenery. We can open our wide glass window when we need to hear the sound clearly and close it when we want people to stop bothering us. We’ve got our own secret stash of junk food and soda, and there’s a row of beanbag chairs for when we have to crash after twelve-hour tech days. If it weren’t for us running the lights and sound and sets—not to mention the dozens of crew people who built the awesome plywood castle set everybody’s standing on, sewed Beth into her floppy white headpiece, and shouted lines to Liam every time he forgot them in rehearsal—no one in the audience would understand any of this witty Elizabethan banter.

“I do beseech thee . . .” Christina says, and I sit forward to listen. Beth’s about to interrupt her mid-sentence, which makes cues like this especially tricky for me. The light needs to change at the exact moment Beth comes in. If I get it right, people will laugh. If I screw up, there’ll be awkward silence.

I press the button, and the light shifts just as Beth singsongs her line. “Maaaaa-dam!”

The audience laughs. So far, so good.

But I’m coming up on a bunch of other short, quick cues, all in a row. Christina and Liam are done with their speeches and they’re going back and forth now, almost like normal dialogue. Meanwhile, the Greek chorus is eyeballing them ever more viciously.

My next cue comes on a joke, but it’s, you know, a Shakespeare joke, so once again we kind of have to tell the audience it’s funny. I flex my finger and lean in to hang on Liam’s every word.

“Mel?” Rachel’s voice from backstage is sudden and sharp in my ear.

That’s weird. We’re still in standby for all the light cues. Rachel’s mic should be on mute.

For her to get my attention right now, there must be a serious emergency. But what? Gabby’s right near the wardrobe area. If there was an emergency with a costume, Rachel should’ve quietly gotten her attention, not called out to me. “What is it, Rachel?”

There’s a sharp tap on my shoulder. “Ms. McIntyre!”

It’s Will—uh, Mr. Green—gesturing frantically at the light board. Crap, I nearly missed the cue.

I press the button, half a second too late. A few people laugh half-heartedly as the far side of the stage lights up. Behind us, the house manager steps into the booth and whispers something in Will’s ear.

Well, the show must go on. It’ll be a little while before the next cue, so at least I can find out what’s happening with the costumes.

Dealing with clothes is my least favorite part of theater, after actors. Come to think of it, costumes and actors have a lot in common. They both take up a lot of space, and they both give us constant headaches.

“Okay, your turn, Rachel,” I say.

“Oh, so I get a turn.” There’s sarcasm in her voice, which is weird. She doesn’t sound at all worried about whatever emergency is happening. “Thanks for allowing me to speak.”

Dom shoots me a confused look across the sound board. I shrug, trying to push past my worry. I still have to follow along with the script, but I try to listen to the headset at the same time. “What’s wrong?”

“A lot of things are wrong.” Her words come out clipped. Abrupt. “Which you’d know if you’d ever talk to me when we aren’t in the middle of a show.”

What?

My eyes zoom across the stage to what little I can see of the wings. Beth’s feet are visible under the curtain where she’s hiding to call out her offstage lines, but there’s no sign of Rachel.

That’s when I remember—she texted me right before the show. I forgot all about it the instant the curtain went up, but the memory’s surging back now. The way her texts kept popping up on my screen, one after another.

I didn’t have time to open them then. We were already two minutes late for places by the time I even saw them on my phone.

Dread pools in my stomach, and with it, a new certainty:

This is the disaster I’ve been waiting for.

I look over my shoulder for Will, but he’s stepped out of the booth with the house manager. His headset is down around his neck, and they’re both gesturing to the lobby. A moment later they’re moving down the hall, leaving the booth door open behind them.

“Maaaaaa-dam!” Beth calls out. The audience laughs again.

“Rachel, let’s talk after curtain call.” I try to sound as smooth and professional as always, but there’s a tiny tremor in my voice. I pray the others can’t hear it.

“No, let’s talk now. It’s the one time I can count on you to pay attention.”

Footsteps sound behind us. I turn around, ready to beg Will for help, but it’s not him.

It’s Rachel.

She switches off her mic and steps into the booth. Dom’s eyes widen and he whips around to face the stage, probably trying to turn himself invisible.

It’s not as if either of us can leave. The next light cue is seconds away, and there are more sound cues not long after. Besides, an SM can never abandon the booth during a show, not without an earthquake, zombie apocalypse, or equivalent disaster.

But Rachel doesn’t even seem to register Dom’s presence. She’s staring straight at me, panting. She must’ve run here from backstage.

She’s wearing show blacks like the rest of us—a nondescript black long-sleeved shirt, black leggings, and black sneakers, designed for going unnoticed by the audience in case she needs to step onstage—but unlike most of us on the crew, whose primary goal is to disappear into the background, Rachel always looks stunning. She has piercing blue eyes and long black hair that she wears in a thick braid during shows. It’s currently coiled forward over her shoulder, the tail hovering above her crossed arms like a snake ready to pounce.

Next to her, I look completely inadequate. My skin is white bordering on pasty thanks to spending the past week effectively locked in a windowless tech booth, and my rumpled show blacks are spattered with crumbs from my potato-chip dinner. Not to mention the dark circles under my eyes, the complete lack of makeup, and the messily-pulled-back, not-recently-washed frizz of hair that’s my standard look during performance weekends.

“You’re supposed to be backstage,” I tell Rachel, keenly aware that our friends can hear every word I’m saying. SMs aren’t supposed to switch off their mics during shows.

Should I break that rule now that this—whatever this is—is happening?

“Costumes are fine. Liam’s doublet is fixed.” Rachel stares down at me, and I slowly rise from my seat to face her. It feels like facing a guillotine. “Mel, we have to talk.”

“This isn’t the right—”

“It’ll never be the right time. If I wait until after curtain call, you’ll be consumed with your postshow to-do list, and then you’ll be dead to the world for the rest of the night until you get up at the crack of dawn to come back here and start the whole thing all over again.”

She’s not wrong—show weeks are hell, everyone knows that—but I still don’t understand what’s going on.

Plus, the ear that’s attached to my headset is registering a lot of coughs and cleared throats from the other crew members. Rachel switched off her own mic, but she’s close enough that my headset is transmitting her voice loud and clear.

“Mel,” Dom whispers.

I turn back just in time to hear Christina say, “A thousand times, good night!”

Shit.

I lunge down and press the button just in time.

When I turn around again, Rachel is drumming her fingers on her arm. “Are you ready to talk to me?”

Not really, I want to say. We’re still in standby for the next batch of light cues.

But Rachel knows that. She knows this show backward and forward, just like all of us. And she’s standing here anyway, clearly expecting something from me.

Whatever it is, I should be able to give it to her. Stage managers are experts at multitasking. There’s no reason I can’t put on a perfect show and be a perfect girlfriend at the same time.

Right?

“Mel!” Dom whispers again, louder this time. Shit.

“Stand by, sound, um . . .” I look frantically down at my prompt script, but the words swim.

“P,” Dom mutters, pressing the button before I’ve managed to say go. Another dog bark pipes out, louder than the last one.

“What’s going on, Rachel?” I ask, frustration seeping into my Stage Manager Calm.

“Do you seriously not know?” She stares at me. “Or are you just acting innocent? Jesus, I don’t even know which would be worse.”

Oh, God. I must’ve really screwed up.

Dom’s eyes are locked on the stage, his face impassive. The rest of the crew’s got to be listening, too, but none of them are so much as breathing into their mics anymore.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you about Hannah since yesterday, but you keep ignoring me.” Rachel shakes her head. “And you know what? It isn’t even about her. It’s about how you didn’t listen to me. I told you I didn’t want her there, and you called her anyway. Obviously, what I thought never really mattered.”

“This is because I called Hannah? Don’t be ridiculous, I did that to help you—”

“I told you not to, and you did it anyway. How was that helping?”

“Come on! You needed to get the costumes finished, and you did!”

“We could’ve gotten them finished without her. I told you that, but you didn’t care. All you were thinking about was how much you love being in charge. Like always.”

Someone on the headset sucks in a breath. I shut my eyes and try not to think about how many people just heard what Rachel said.

Yesterday was our invited dress rehearsal. A few of the costumes for the party scene needed last-minute fixes, and some of the girls in the cast wound up having to go on in their jeans while the costume crew sewed frantically backstage.

It was clear they needed more hands, so I called a few people who I knew could sew. One of whom happened to be Hannah, who happens to be my ex.

It wasn’t a big deal. As SM, it’s my job to make sure everything gets done. I wanted opening night to be as perfect as it could possibly be. We all wanted that.

And yeah, I knew Rachel didn’t exactly love the idea, but it’s not as if there was any risk of Hannah and me getting back together. She was on the costume crew freshman year, but now she’s gotten super popular and started going out with some basketball player. Rachel had absolutely nothing to worry about, and I told her that.

Or at least . . . I meant to tell her that. Come to think of it . . . I was really busy practicing the light cues, so maybe I didn’t actually . . .

Hmm.

“I have forgot why I did call thee back.” Christina giggles. Crap—I missed Liam’s lines. I whirl around and press the button, and the light comes up over the Greek chorus so Alejandra and Malik and the others can look alternately amused and/or offended at Romeo and Juliet’s preteen-level flirting.

The cue coming up next is the fastest in the whole show. I have to switch the light back again before Liam says his next line or the audience will lose track of what’s going on. I hover my finger over the key.

“It’s not like I’m surprised.” Rachel drops into the empty chair next to mine. I don’t dare meet her gaze, but I can see her in my peripheral vision, staring down at the stage vacantly. “People warned me. They said you’d rather be everybody’s boss than somebody’s girlfriend. I should’ve known there was a reason you go through exes so fast. Relationships with Melody McIntyre never make it for long.”

Rachel pauses. It’s dead silent. On the headset, and on the stage too.

Damn it! I missed the cue. I have to put the light back on Liam so the audience knows to pay attention, and—

I hit the button just as he finishes saying, “Let me stand here till thou remember it.”

Now the light’s on him, but he’s already done talking. There’s supposed to be another pause in the dialogue while the Greek chorus reacts, but their side of the stage is totally dark.

None of the actors move—no one knows if they’re supposed to—but a few laughs bubble up from the house. Even the audience has noticed that the cues aren’t lining up.

Damn it! I hit the button again and the light shines on the chorus, their expressions looking slightly pained. I press it again as Christina takes a breath and starts her line. She’s out of the moment now, though, and she garbles her words.

And—what the hell is Rachel talking about? I haven’t gone out with that many people.

I try to catch Dom’s eye. He’s still looking straight ahead, like he’s totally absorbed in the play, but there’s a slight red tinge creeping in around the base of his neck.

“I . . .” I swallow. My hands are trembling as hard as my voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do. What’s embarrassing is, I told them they were wrong. Everyone was saying, you know, ‘Oh, be careful with Mel, she’s got somebody new every week,’ but I told them things were different with you and me. Only now it’s—”

“No one would’ve said that!” I’m not following along with the script at all anymore. “I haven’t gone out with anyone all year except for you! And last year it was just, like, three people—or maybe, I don’t know, unless you count prom, but—”

Now Dom’s looking my way. He shakes his head slightly.

“’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone,” Christina calls from the stage. There’s another lightning-fast cue coming up. Another single-line delivery from Liam.

I get ready to press the button. I can’t let Rachel take over my head.

But I can’t just let this go, either.

“There’s nothing between me and Hannah.” I speak quietly, even though it’s pointless. Our mics are designed to be sensitive. The crew can hear me, whether I’m whispering or shouting. “I’ve never cheated on anyone. I would never.”

“It isn’t about that. I told you what I wanted, and you didn’t even bother to tell me you disagreed. You just overruled me, like you always do. Everything has to be your call, regardless of how anybody else feels. God, Mel, I didn’t even know she was coming until she showed up and I stood there stammering like a complete fool.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to—”

“Did you know I had a crush on you all last spring during Joseph?” She’s stumbling over her words now. “When you used to come sew after rehearsals, I kept trying to work up the nerve to tell you.”

No. I hadn’t known.

I’d been putting in time in the costume closet last spring because I needed to learn more about wardrobe if I wanted to get promoted to SM. I was strong on set design and construction, but my costume skills were sorely lacking, and a stage manager needs to be proficient in every department.

But that was when I started liking Rachel, too. She was hilarious, and incredibly talented, and so much fun to hang out with. When we wound up at the same drama camp over the summer, it was easy to slip from flirting over sewing machines into sneaking kisses behind bolts of brocade.

“Mel?” Rachel twists to face me. I fight to keep my eyes on the stage. “Are you even listening?”

Christina finishes her line, and I press the cue for the light to shine on Liam. He just has to deliver a few words, and then I’ll wait a fraction of a second so the audience can feel the full weight of them—it’s another one of those cues where the timing has to be precisely right, or else the meaning of the moment won’t come through—and then . . .

“Well, you don’t seem to care what I’m saying, so whatever.” Rachel’s talking fast now. She almost sounds like she’s choking. “I guess this is it.”

My finger falters. Did Liam finish his line?

I hit the button, too hard, and it clicks twice. The lights flash onto the chorus side of the stage, then back to Liam and Christina again before anyone’s had time to say anything.

More laughs from the audience.

“Damn it!” I say, not even caring who hears as I slam the button down again.

Too late, I realize I shouldn’t have done that. The light board is programmed. Every cue in the show is in the system, in order. It’s supposed to be easy—all I have to do is hit the button when the cue is supposed to go up and the lights will come on, like clockwork.

But now the board is two cues ahead of where it’s supposed to be. Or is it three?

Oh, God.

Onstage, the actors are trying to keep the scene going, but I’ve completely lost track of what’s happening. The worst possible thing that can happen to a stage manager.

The lights are all wrong. The audience won’t have a clue what they’re supposed to be looking at.

Ms. Marcus will demote me for sure. I won’t get to SM the spring musical. I’ll be lucky if she even lets me on the run crew.

“So I guess we’re broken up now.” Rachel’s voice is thick and heavy as she rises from the seat beside me. “That’s what you wanted anyway, right? You’ve probably already got your next hookup planned. Have fun hanging all over whoever it is at the cast party. I just hope they know they’re disposable.”

No, this isn’t what I wanted! And—disposable?

Oh my God.

I’ve had bad breakups before. Isabelle dumped me in the middle of the dance floor at homecoming freshman year. Jess and I shouted at each other over video chat so loudly the night before the Steel Magnolias opening that my dads came running into the room thinking I was being murdered. Tyler and I got in a huge fight when we were painting scenery for the winter showcase and spent the next week getting side-eyed by the rest of the set crew every time we got within thirty feet of each other.

But nothing like this has ever happened. No one’s ever made me feel so . . . small.

“You know what? Screw you, Rachel.” The sound of Gabby’s voice shocks me out of my stupor. She sounds shaky, too—but even more than that, she sounds pissed.

Rachel’s already halfway toward the booth door, but she freezes. Even with her headset down around her neck, she can hear Gabby too.

“Sorry, Mel,” Gabby’s saying in a rush. “I know we aren’t supposed to talk during standby, but it doesn’t matter what happened between you and her—she can’t pull this crap in the middle of a show. Shut up and go away, Rachel, you’re messing things up for everybody. Mel, the actors kept going, so just hit G-O and let’s see where we are.”

My reflexes kick in and I hit the button automatically—and somehow, it works. The lights go up exactly where they’re supposed to, and in exactly the right moment.

I turn around. Rachel’s gone.

“Breathe, Mel.” Dom leans in and looks at the monitor. “You’re on LQ sixty-two, and sixty-three is on the next line. We’re all good. Breathe.”

I nod and exhale, slow and steady.

The rest of the show flows normally. I get the next cue right, and the one after that, too. Will comes back into the booth, whatever crisis was happening in the lobby having apparently been resolved. As far as I can tell he doesn’t know about what happened earlier, but he’ll find out soon enough. There’s no such thing as keeping secrets from the technical director.

The actors run through their lines, and they flub a few words here and there, but I’m the only one who notices. Liam’s doublet stays intact, Malik and Julio get stabbed to death, Liam and Christina make out and kill themselves, and finally it’s curtain call. We get a standing ovation, and everyone on the stage and on the headsets is crying because they’re happy, and I’m just crying because I’m crying.

I screwed up. I screwed up everything. The show, Rachel . . .

And all my friends witnessed my complete failure.

I put the house lights up, and Dom shuts his laptop. He keeps giving me sympathetic looks, silently gesturing for me to come with him to meet the others backstage, but I can’t deal with sympathy. I don’t deserve it. I wave him on without me.

Alone in the booth, I pull off my headset, yank my hair loose from its messy ponytail, and shut my eyes.

Our theater’s cursed. That’s the rumor, anyway. Strange things have been happening here for years. Unexplainable things.

I’ve never been sure I really believed it. I enforce the rules that are supposed to keep us safe, of course—but that’s my job. I’m the stage manager, and this is my theater. Here, I’m the one in control.

After tonight, though, I can’t help wondering if I’ve got that right. Maybe there’s more going on here than I realized.

Maybe I’m not the only one in control.

Beaconville Theater History

Stored on BHS performing arts department shared drive

Created by: Billy Yang, stage manager, class of 2007

Viewable to: All cast, crew, and directors

Editable by: Current SM ONLY

Inferno Horror

Hundreds Injured in Beaconville Theater Fire

Beaconville, Apr. 13, 1906—The Beaconville Theater was the scene of a terrible fire Friday evening. Police confirmed that over two hundred were injured. Fire escapes were not in position at the building, according to police, and most victims were trapped inside when the staircases became jammed.

The fire began during a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The leading lady had just begun to perform a scene at stage left when audience members noticed her staring into a corner of the curtain above the stage. Moments later, the blaze became apparent to the audience, and the actress turned to the crowd and called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, please stay calm.”

She lifted her arms as though to say more, but before the crowd heard anything further, a piece of burning wood fell from above and knocked her to the ground.

The theater burned to the ground overnight, leaving nothing behind but ashes.

—Screenshot from the Library of Congress website. Article originally appeared in the Beaconville Journal

Scene 2—Stage, Beaconville High School Theater
DAYS UNTIL SPRING MUSICAL OPENS: 164

“It was the curse.” From her perch up on the step ladder, Jasmin aims the power drill at the top of the scaffold and unscrews the beam in three easy, practiced motions, passing it down to where Dom’s waiting below. “It’s the only explanation.”

“I don’t know how you can be so sure.” Dom stacks the beam gently on the wheeled dolly. We need to save this wood for a future show. Hopefully the spring musical, if the teachers picked one that’ll give us an excuse to build something cool. “I don’t know how much time you’ve spent on YouTube, but things go wrong in theater a lot. One school did West Side Story and forgot the gun for the finale. Chino had to throw a shoe at Tony.”

“Things go wrong here more than they do anywhere else. Something’s up, and it could ruin the musical.” Fatima carefully wraps a light cable around the fixture on the pipe, then holds out her wrench so Gabby can loosen the C-clamp. The two of them are sitting on the edge of the stage striking the electrics on the pipe we flew in from overhead. It’s the first time Gabby’s gotten to work with actual tools, and she’s grinning like the true theater dork she’s turned out to be.

Gabby’s a freshman, and back in September, she thought she wanted to be an actor. She auditioned for Romeo and Juliet but didn’t get a speaking part, and when Ms. Marcus saw how disappointed she was, she suggested Gabby come on as my assistant stage manager instead. She turned out to be fantastic at it—she’s super organized and responsible, and she’s up for anything, from sweeping the stage to calming Malik down when he freaks out and forgets half the Queen Mab speech. We’ve all been trying to teach her stuff, the way the older crew members taught us when we were freshmen, and today Fatima volunteered to do the lights with her, since that’s a pretty easy job for a newbie.

The whole cast and crew are required to help on strike day, but we give the cast a call time that’s thirty minutes later than ours so we can do all the fun power-tool stuff without them getting in the way. Then we give the actors easy, boring jobs, like folding costumes and counting props.

“Are we positive the musical’s not Phantom?” Dom asks as Jasmin hands him another beam.

“We are.” I wheel in a new dolly from the wings. The one Dom’s loading is almost full. “Whoever at the district office was in charge of getting the performance rights failed utterly, so my money’s on Into the Woods or Sweeney Todd. Ms. Marcus is obsessed with Sondheim.”

“Who isn’t?” Gabby grins up at me.

“Hey.” Fatima elbows her, gently but firmly. “Focus. Lights.”

“Sorry.” Gabby turns hurriedly back to her C-clamp.

“Where’s Ms. Marcus now?” Jasmin asks as she unscrews the last beam.

“In the shop with Mr. Green. She said they’d be back once the cast gets here so they can announce the musical to all of us at once.”

“Perfect.” Jasmin passes the beam to Dom and dusts off her hands. “Because, Mel . . . there’s something we need to talk about first.”

A weird silence falls on the stage. The rest of the crew is still wrapping cords and unscrewing furniture and sorting scraps, but no one reacts to what Jasmin said. I’m the only one who even seems surprised she said it.

Uh-oh. That’s . . . not a good sign. I raise a quizzical eyebrow, but Jasmin holds my gaze without giving anything away.

This doesn’t make sense. Jasmin’s my closest friend, after Dom, and we tell each other everything. We sign up to work as partners on every class project, so she spends a lot of time at my house, and she eats dinner with us so often my dads always joke about putting out a plate for her even when she isn’t there, just in case.

It’s extremely unlike her to talk to the others behind my back.

“Um.” I force a laugh. “This sounds ominous.”

“Yeah . . .” Dom scratches the back of his neck, his eyebrow quirking under his scruffy dirty-blond hair. “Pretty sure you’re only supposed to say we need to talk if you’re breaking up with someone, Jazz.”

But his laugh sounds just as forced as mine, and I strongly suspect he already knows what Jasmin’s going to say. The others, too.

The crew’s been talking about me. That much is clear. This is either an intervention or a mutiny.

Stage Manager Calm. Stage Manager Calm.

“It’s about the superstition for the spring musical.” Jasmin climbs down from the ladder and reaches into the wing for her messenger bag.

“Oh, okay.” I sigh in relief.

We usually pick the superstition for the next show during strike on the show before it. During Joseph strike, we realized nine different people had gotten hit by swinging doors in rehearsals, resulting in at least two near-collisions and one emergency orthodontist appointment, so for R&J, the rule was that everyone on the cast and crew had to knock twice before they could come into the auditorium. It seemed simple enough, until Dad begged me to give him earplugs for the days he came in to help with set construction because all that knocking made his teeth hurt. Dad’s sensitive, auditorily.

Jasmin pulls out her phone, taps the screen a few times, and passes it to me. “We’ve done some analysis, and we have a proposal.”

I take the phone, trying to keep a relaxed smile on my face. Jasmin’s pulled up a note titled “Things That Went Wrong on R&J.” I scroll down the list, but it’s nothing I don’t already know—Liam’s doublet tore, a backdrop fell even though it should’ve been secure in the fly system, a sword kept breaking, the bottle of fake poison kept spilling even though Estaban triple-checked every night that it was sealed, Beth got scarlet fever even though we’d all thought that had been eradicated in the nineteenth century and barely recovered in time for tech, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And, of course, the lights went screwy during the balcony scene on opening night.

I turn my hands down on my knees so my friends won’t notice that reading that last bullet made my palms break out in sweat. I’ve been trying not to think about what happened with Rachel, but it’s been impossible. We both had to show up at the theater for every performance after opening. She’s here today, too, but she’s back in the costume room, sorting clothes and probably thinking about what a horrible person I am.

I can’t remember how long the despair lasted after my last breakup. It’s all a blur, and I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. The only thing I know for sure is that this breakup is significantly worse.

The whole time Rachel and I were going out, I honestly thought I was doing everything right. Until she walked into the booth, held up a metaphorical mirror, and showed me, for the first time in my life, what I’m really like.

Selfish. Bossy. Inconsiderate. . . .

“Thanks, this is really helpful.” I nod toward Jasmin’s phone, trying my hardest to act unfazed. “When you put it all in a list like that, you can see what a miracle it is we made it to strike without anyone dying. Ha. Send the list to me and I’ll put it on the shared drive, okay?”

“That isn’t all.” Jasmin sits down next to me on the stage. Fatima, Estaban, and Bryce glance at each other and come over quietly to sit beside her.

It’s obvious they planned this. The four of them are crew heads, just one tier down from me in the tech hierarchy. They have a lot of power, and the team is used to listening to them.

Dom and Shannon are still hanging back, though, and since they’re also crew heads, that’s comforting.

“We thought back over the last couple of years, and we noticed a correlation.” Estaban points at Jasmin’s phone. “More things tend to go wrong on shows when, uh . . .”

“When you’re not single,” Jasmin finishes for him, still looking right at me.

I wait to see if this is a joke, but no one laughs. Not even Dom.

Jasmin starts ticking things off on her fingers. “All the worst things that’ve happened have been when you were in a relationship, Mel. Like when that red dye bled into all the white costumes in the laundry during Joseph, and the time half the Fiddler cast got mono—”

“It wasn’t half the cast, it was, like, three people!” I gape at her, but she still isn’t laughing. “And—what are you saying, exactly? That I screw up more when I’m dating someone?”

“It’s not about you screwing up.” Jasmin shakes her head. “Everybody screws up. Besides, a lot of the bad stuff didn’t have anything to do with you, not directly. Which means it’s got to be the curse.”

“Wait.” I gaze back and forth between the four of them. They’re all nodding. “You think the theater curse is triggered by me dating someone?”

“We just think it’s a possibility.” Fatima holds out her hands palms up. She’s still holding the wrench. “It’s a theory worth testing. Especially with the musical coming up.”

“It’s a theory that makes no sense at all.” Dom finally comes over to join the rest of us, sitting down on the stage and sighing. At least someone’s speaking up for me. “We already start a new superstition for every show, and we’ve been following them. Ever since she got named SM, Mel’s made everyone who broke a rule do a countercurse within seconds and things still go wrong.”

“So this should be the new superstition for the musical, then. If it doesn’t work, it’ll prove we were wrong.” Jasmin shrugs. She sounds so reasonable I can barely think of a way to argue. “If Mel stays single until the cast party and the show still has a million problems, we’ll know it doesn’t matter if she’s with someone or not. But if it works . . .”

“Then what, we force our stage manager to take a vow of chastity until she graduates?” Dom shakes his head. “How would you like to live under that rule?”

“We’re not the ones whose relationship drama messed up a performance.” Jasmin glances over at Gabby, as if she’s looking for backup. Gabby turns to me, her lips pressed together uncertainly.

“Okay, but Mel is, like, this school’s patron saint of serial monogamy.” Dom holds out his hands and ignores the other crew members’ chuckles, even though it’s clear from the way he’s smirking that he’s proud of that witticism. Though I’m not sure how I feel about that title. “She likes going out with people. Which, let’s be honest, is true for most of us. This doesn’t seem fair.”

“Well,” I start in, “it’s not like I have to be dating someone in order to survive.”

Jasmin gives me a pleading look, the beads in her box braids clicking together as she shakes her head. “I know. Mel, I’m sorry, it’s really nothing personal. It’s just—the musical could be a disaster if we don’t take drastic measures.”

I nod. I get it. I know Jasmin well enough to know she wouldn’t do this if she didn’t think it was important.

“We agonized about whether to even bring this up.” Fatima sits forward anxiously, laying her hand on my forearm.

They’re sincere, that much is evident. They really do think my love life has been screwing us over.

I don’t know . . . maybe they’re right. My relationships during shows have a definite tendency toward drama. This is the first time I’ve broken up with someone during an actual performance, but it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Besides, after what happened with Rachel, I’m willing to try anything. And it’s not as if I want to date anyone—I’m brokenhearted. Plus, if our theater really is cursed, maybe this will solve it. Who knows?

I’d do anything to make the spring musical go perfectly. It’s my junior year, the time when colleges pay the most attention to your extracurricular record, and pulling off a stellar musical would be huge for me. For the rest of the crew, too.

“Wait a second.” Gabby raises her hand. “I don’t get how this works. Is it just that Mel’s not allowed to date anyone? What if she only hooks up with somebody one time? How particular is this rule, exactly?”

Estaban laughs, and some of the freshmen and sophomores do, too, but I can’t help smiling at Gabby’s thoroughness. It’s exactly the kind of question a good stage manager should ask.

“Valid point,” I say. “Are we playing by Disney rules here? Is a kiss enough to activate the curse?”

“Only if it’s the kiss of true love.” Shannon makes her voice high-pitched and squeaky from center stage, where she’s unscrewing the legs from a prop chair. “Is that from Snow White or Sleeping Beauty?”

“Shrek, actually, I think.” I smile at her, and the others laugh. “But yeah, it would probably have to be something more intense to get a curse’s attention.”

“Something like falling in love.” Jasmin nods. “That seems logical. You can flirt with people or whatever, but no getting in deep.”

“Until the musical closes,” Fatima adds. “So for now, just, you know . . .”

“Keep it in your pants?” Estaban suggests, and everyone laughs again.

“No problem.” I smile. If I act like I’m entertained by this whole thing, maybe it’ll start to seem funny. Maybe I’ll forget that I was deeply in love until three days ago. “Once the musical starts, I won’t have time for love anyway.”

“Give yourself a little more credit, Mel.” Shannon laughs. “You fall in love more easily than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Ha,” I say, because the others are laughing.

But . . . is that true?

I shrug it off. It doesn’t matter now. Besides, the others are starting to nod along. Even the junior crew members who’d been quiet until now.

I guess that means they all believe it, and once the whole crew believes something, it has to be true, or the glue that holds us together as a team will fall apart.

All right. So be it. If I fall in love, the musical’s doomed.

“Mel?” Jasmin points to the phone sticking out of my pocket. “Will you put the new superstition on the shared drive?”

I nod, slowly. “Yeah. As soon as Ms. Marcus announces what the musical is. But, um . . . I’d just as soon not tell the actors, if that’s okay.”

Everyone nods immediately.

“Hell, no,” Jasmin says. “The last thing we need is them getting another excuse to think every problem is the crew’s fault. We’ll come up with a decoy superstition for them.”

Dom raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure about this, Mel? You don’t have to—”

I nod. A good leader is decisive, and a good leader listens to her team.

Besides, my heart is currently shattered in a million pieces. There’s no way I could put it back together in time to fall in love before the musical opens.

Dom sighs, then glances at his watch. “Okay. Should we go clean out the booth while we’re waiting for the cast?”

And not have all these eyes on me anymore? Heck yeah.

I stand up. “Let’s go.”

Beaconville Theater History

Stored on BHS performing arts department shared drive

Created by: Billy Yang, stage manager, class of 2007

Viewable to: All cast, crew, and directors

Editable by: Current SM ONLY

New Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing to Open

Students at Beaconville High were thrilled on Wednesday when they were given their first opportunity to tour the new performing arts wing on their campus.

“This is awesome!” senior stage manager Billy Yang told the News reporter who joined their tour. “Look at that fly system! And the booth equipment is a thousand times better than what we’ve been using in the old auditorium. I can’t wait to do our first show here!”

BHS is renowned for its theater program. Student productions have won statewide awards, and some of the program’s alumni have gone on to careers in the performing arts, both as actors and in behind-the-scenes roles.

The new performing arts wing was made possible due to a budget enhancement and gifts from a large number of alumni. It includes a state-of-the-art, 1,200-person-capacity theater; a black box theater for more intimate performances, which will also double as classroom space for the performing arts department; a “scene shop” with tools for constructing sets and props; a dance studio; and a choir room.

Local historians have noted that the new performing arts wing stands directly on the grounds of the former Beaconville Theater, which was destroyed by a tragic fire in 1906 and later was found to have violated building codes. The land had been the property of the city of Beaconville and was vacant before being annexed by the adjacent high school last year.

“We don’t see the location of the new performing arts wing as disrespectful in the least,” school superintendent Evan Newton told the News. “In fact, we’ve set up a memorial to those injured in the 1906 fire. There’s a plaque in the lobby of the new building’s auditorium. It’s very tasteful.”

Students and faculty seem to feel the same way. In memory of the tragic fire, they’ve decided that their inaugural performance in the new auditorium will be the same play the Beaconville Theater company was performing that night—Macbeth.

—From the Beaconville Neighborhood News, January 3, 2007

Scene 3—Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater
DAYS UNTIL SPRING MUSICAL OPENS: 164

Dom and I climb the steps through the theater until we reach the wide, empty tech booth at the back.

The booth is my favorite place in the entire performing arts wing. Maybe the entire world. I’m effectively trapped in here from tech week through closing on every show we do, but that’s okay. This is a sacred space.

Right now, though, all I want is to collapse into a sacred beanbag chair and crack open a sacred Diet Coke—but that’s not an option during strike. We have too much to do. Besides, the actors are due soon, and if we’re not on the stage when they get here, we might miss the announcement of what the musical’s going to be. At this point, I honestly think I’d cry.

“You’re really sure about this?” Dom asks, rooting around in the papers stacked on the desk. “You know, the whole love curse thing?”

I laugh. It sounds funny when he puts it that way. “I mean, I’m not sure about anything, but it’s obvious they are, and that’s what superstitions are really about—team unity.”

“Unity’s great and all, but . . .”

“Besides, being single for a while sounds amazing.” I reach up, fully intending to grab a bottle of spray cleaner from the shelf, but I find myself tipping forward and collapsing into a beanbag instead. “It’s not like anybody’d want to go out with me after what Rachel said anyway.”

I shut my eyes. I hadn’t meant to say that last part.

“Mel.” There’s a crush of polystyrene to my left. I open my eyes to see Dom in the beanbag chair next to mine. “No one believes that stuff. I like Rachel, or at least I used to, but what she said that night? It was total crap. No one really thinks you’re like that.”

“Dom. You just called me the patron saint of serial monogamy.”

“I was being ironic.” He sighs. “Look, for what it’s worth, I heard Rachel feels really bad about what happened. Estaban said she was crying in the costume closet when he went in to grab gaff tape.”

“Great.” I scrub my face with my hands. “It’s just—why do all my relationships have to end in giant disasters? Epic scenes, my own crew rising up against me . . . what am I doing wrong?”

Dom stretches his arms over his head, chuckling. “Well, speaking from personal experience . . .”

I roll my eyes. “Please don’t.”

“I’m just saying, they don’t all end that way. When we broke up during Fiddler rehearsals, it was really chill.”

“I know, but A, that was ninth grade, and B, you were the exception, not the rule. Most of my breakups don’t result in me getting a new best friend, they result in major suffering. Look . . .” I meet his eyes so he’ll see I’m serious. “For real. I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“Yeah, there is. You got named SM and became an obsessive-yet-beloved dictator, exactly like every other SM before you.”

“You’re the worst best friend ever.”

“Hey, I try. Also . . . okay, look, there’s something I’ve got to tell you, and it isn’t exactly going to change your perspective on that front, so . . .”

I sit up abruptly, which is hard to do in a beanbag. “Is it about this love curse thing?”

“Uh . . .” He shakes his head. “From your point of view, it’s probably worse.”

I look over my shoulder. “Is someone else coming in here to dump me?”

“There’s just something I’ve been thinking lately.” He scratches the back of his neck.

I honestly have no idea where Dom’s going with this, but he’s making me super nervous. “Spit it out.”

“Well . . . when it comes time for the spring musical . . .” He turns to stare down at the patches on his jeans. His next words come in a rush. “IthinkIwannaaudition.”

It takes me several seconds to decipher that. When I finally piece it together, I can only pray I heard it wrong. “What?”

He glances up, smiling sheepishly.

“Dom.” I glare. He looks off to one side with a distinct combination of guilt and excitement on his face. The last time I saw him make that expression was right after he told me he was going to homecoming with my ex-girlfriend. “You want to be an actor?”

“I . . .”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Um . . . I’m sorry, Mel. I—”

“We’re crew! We don’t act!”

He doesn’t answer.

“I can’t believe this!” Show after show, Dom and I have worked together, plotting the sound effects and analyzing the set designs. His presence in the booth next to me was the only thing holding me together during tech on R&J when everything kept breaking. Now all of a sudden he wants to go onstage? “Dominic Connor! That’s a line we don’t cross!”

“I think I . . . kind of want to cross it, though?” He shrugs, still with that wide, faux-apologetic grin. “If I can get a halfway decent part, it’ll beef up my extracurriculars for college applications now that I’m not playing volleyball.”

“Being a crew head looks great on applications!” I keep waiting for him to hear how ridiculous he sounds, but his goofy grin refuses to fade. “Besides, don’t you want to do sound for the musical? There’ll be so many voices to mix, plus the orchestra, and there will be effects too—it’s going to be really hard, and you get to be in charge of all of it. Colleges will be super impressed.”

“I don’t know. . . .” He shrugs again. “Mr. Green said I might want to think about auditioning this time, and I thought I’d just . . . give it a try.”

“Will told you to audition?” I cover my face with my hands and groan. What’s happening to the world? “He’s the ultimate crew guy! He wouldn’t want you to join the dark side any more than I do!”

Dom laughs. “This is real life, not Jedi training.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Come on, we know plenty of actors who are cool.” Dom starts ticking them off on his hand. “Malik, and Alejandra, and Sebastian, and—”

“I’m not saying all actors suck, just the vast majority.”

“Way to be dramatic.” He laughs again.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You aren’t one of them. You’re a geek, like me. You know everything there is to know about sound technology.”

“Plenty of actors are geeks. And I only learned to do sound so I could edit videos for the Badgers.”

Dom started a band in middle school with Malik and two other guys called the Honey Badger Liberation League. Malik was the lead vocalist, and Dom played drums and did all the organizational stuff. I guess officially they’re still together, but it’s been months since they’ve practiced. They mostly did classic rock covers—Prince and R.E.M. and U2 and even older songs. Sometimes they played on teen band nights at the community center, but mostly they posted stuff on YouTube. They still have a small but very dedicated following of girls who post comments on all their videos with a lot of exclamation points and emojis.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” I tell him. From the determined set of Dom’s lips, I’m starting to suspect I won’t win this argument, but I’m not giving up that easily. “If you wanted, you could try a different department, like lights or sets.”

“I already tried all the departments. You and Mr. Green made me, remember?”

“Oh. Right.”

Dom had been a starter on the volleyball team when he broke his ankle halfway through the season freshman year. He was my lab partner in bio and I knew he was depressed about not being able to play anymore, so I recruited him to help paint sets for Midsummer. Not too long after that we started going out, and soon he was hanging around backstage often enough that Will asked him to help with lights, then sound. He helped some with costumes, too, and he wound up being the only guy on the hair and makeup crew for Fiddler that spring. He got really good at pinning on everyone’s hats so they wouldn’t fall during the bottle dance scene.

“Come on, being a crew head on a musical is what we’ve always wanted!” I lean forward earnestly. “You can’t change sides on me like this!”

“Look, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. I might not even get cast.”

“You’ll get cast.” I probably shouldn’t say that, since I’m supposed to be objective about auditions, but it’s the truth. Dom’s been singing backup to Malik in their band for years, plus he did church choir as a kid. He’s no Jonathan Groff, but he can carry a tune. Ms. Marcus will probably put him in the featured ensemble and give him a funny part with a few solo lines.

He must sense that I’m on the verge of giving up, because Dom climbs to his feet, cheerfully humming “Those Canaan Days.”

I smile a little in spite of myself. “Joseph was last year’s show.” “They won’t really make us learn all-new songs, though, will they?”

“Oh my God. Tell me you’re not—”

“Relax. I’m kidding.”

“Oh Romeo, Romeo!” The shout carries up all the way to the booth. It’s Julio, doing an exaggerated trill on every word. “Wherefore art thou Ro—”

“Right here, baby!” someone else yells—it sounds like Andrew Hernandez—and then there’s the unmistakable thump of bodies falling onto the stage. Without bothering to get up, I surmise that Andrew just jumped on Julio, pretended to kiss him, and knocked them both flat.

The actors have arrived.

“If someone gets a concussion during strike, do you still have to write an incident report?” Dom asks.

“I always have to write an incident report.” I sigh and climb up after him, leaning down to peer through the window. Julio and Andrew are still lying in a pile at center stage, right in the middle of the circle of power tools the crew was using a few minutes earlier. Looks like no one’s injured. Yet.

“I sense a techie watching us!” Andrew calls. “Or a vampire. I can never remember how to tell the difference!”

I raise my eyebrows at Dom. “Tell me again why you want to be one of them?”

“Hello, everyone!” Ms. Marcus calls from the wing. That’s enough to make me forget all about the actors.

The musical! They’re about to announce the musical!

Dom and I trade glances. Seconds later we’re racing out of the booth and down the steps. He beats me—longer legs—and I’m panting when I reach the stage.

It’s crammed full. The actors take up most of the space, as usual, and a thick cluster of them have gathered upstage right, already buzzing with excited whispers. The crew’s hanging on the periphery, but a quick glance at their faces makes it obvious that my friends are even more excited than the cast.

Musicals are a big deal at our school. At least, for everyone who doesn’t care about baseball season.

And even if I don’t get to be SM again—even if I’ve got a stupid love curse hanging over my head—there’s no denying it. I can’t wait to get started.

A Brief History of BHS Theater Superstitions—Spring Musicals Edition

Stored on BHS performing arts department shared drive

Created by: Riley Feldmann, stage manager, class of 2008

Viewable to: All cast, crew, and directors

Editable by: Current SM ONLY

In the wake of last year’s disastrous performance of the Scottish Play, the Beaconville High School stage manager is hereby responsible for tracking, and enforcing, all superstitions during the rehearsal and performance period for any and all shows, from auditions through strike. All offenses must be dealt with via immediate performance of a countercurse, also to be enforced by the SM.

Newly established superstitions must be added to the list below and preserved for posterity’s sake.

Also see the related doc “A Brief History of BHS Theater Superstitions—Fall Plays Edition.”

Show
Superstition

Cinderella (2008)
All cast members must walk out of the dressing room backward when returning from intermission (matinees excepted).

Shrek (2009)
Anyone caught kissing in the black box must shout “Sorry for the PDA!” up to the rafters.¹

Little Shop of Horrors (2010)
DO NOT TOUCH THE PUPPET AFTER DARK WE REALLY THINK IT MIGHT TRY TO EAT YOU THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

West Side Story (2011)
Immediately before the house doors open on each performance night, Colleen McCormick (ASM) must stand center stage and shout “Buttheads!” as loudly as possible.

Beauty and the Beast (2012)
Bill Jusino (sound crew head) must say “pug snout” to the portrait of Abigail Adams in the hall before every rehearsal.²

Once Upon a Mattress (2013)
All male principals must chant in unison before each rehearsal, “I recognize the textual and subtextual misogyny in this musical and I promise to always strive to do better in my life than these jackass characters.” Members of the ensemble and crew, as well as non-males in any of the above groups, are welcome to join them.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (2014)
The first actor to make the audience laugh in each performance is given an extra flower at the end of the show.³

The Little Mermaid (2015)
All run crew members must wear glitter eye shadow at all times. (This superstition is irrelevant of gender. Mermaids are WAY beyond the binary.)

Sunday in the Park with George (2016)
No one can say the word forget onstage or in the choir room unless reciting it as a line in the script (forgot is allowed, though).

Legally Blonde (2017)
All cast members with naturally blond hair must apologize to the SM during tech for said blondness.

Fiddler on the Roof (2018)
Aquafina bottles are banned from all backstage areas. (Other water brands are technically allowed but we advise taking this as an opportunity to switch to reusable bottles anyway. Climate change is real, people!)

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2019)
Julio Ramirez (actor) isn’t allowed to fist-bump anyone.⁴

Les Misérables (2020)
Melody McIntyre (SM) must not fall in love.

Scene 4—The McIntyre-Perez Living Room
DAYS UNTIL SPRING MUSICAL OPENS: 164

Oh my God. Oh my God.

My heart’s racing so fast I can’t stand still.

“Mel? Are you feeling all right?” Gabby hovers tentatively in the doorway. I gave her a ride back to my house since she lives in the next neighborhood over and her parents are both working late. We’ve done that a few times when we had a rehearsal run long. Her family just moved here and they’re still paranoid about crime rates in the “big city,” even though Beaconville is very much a suburb.

“I feel fantastic,” I tell her just as Pops sticks his head in from the kitchen.

“She’s home!” he calls around the corner. “And Gabby’s here too!”

“Hi, Mr. Perez,” Gabby says in her most polite voice. “Hi, Mr. McIntyre.”

“Hello to you both!” Dad comes out of his office, brushing off his jeans. He owns a contracting company and wears jeans every day, but he’s weirdly fastidious about them. “Gabby, it’s so nice to see you again. And please, call us Sean and Charlie. More importantly, congrats on the show, we saw it every night and—”

“Dad, Pops, you won’t believe what the musical is.” I’m still bouncing on my toes. “Guess. Come on, guess.”

“Ooh, do you think it’s Rent?” Pops asks Dad in a stage whisper.

“Mayyyybe,” Dad stage-whispers back. “Remember how that used to be her favorite show?”

“Remember how she sang it in her crib during naptime?”

“She did?” Gabby smiles. “Which songs?”

“‘Take Me or Leave Me,’ mostly,” Pops says. “She liked it because it has the word baby in it.”

“I forgot about that.” Dad snaps his fingers and catches Pops’s eye. “She cried unless we played the soundtrack every night during dinner, remember?”

“No, you two.” I glance at Gabby. “Please don’t be cheesy right now.”

But Pops is already snapping his fingers, too.

The next thing I know, they’re singing. Dad takes Maureen’s part and Pops takes Joanne’s, and they’re trying to outdo each other on the high notes.

My parents are so embarrassing.

To make things even worse, Gabby’s laughing. She joins in when they get to the chorus, singing along, except she won’t say damn (Gabby doesn’t believe in cursing) so she changes it to dang, and now I’m laughing too, which just isn’t fair. They shouldn’t make me laugh at a time like this. I haven’t even told them what the musical is yet!

“All right.” Pops finally switches to normal speech. “We should probably stop torturing Mel or she’ll never let us talk to her about those colleges.”

“You could have also never started torturing me in the first place,” I point out.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Dad grins. “So, what’s the musical?”

I geared up the video on my phone before I got out of the car so I’d be prepared for this moment. I clear my throat and, when both my parents are standing at attention, I hit play.

The music surges out. “Dun DUN!!!! BAH-pah-bah!”

They both recognize the opening notes to the overture right away and start to laugh. Gabby pretends to conduct the orchestra, sweeping her hands out dramatically with every note, and I seriously consider doing an interpretive dance but decide against it.

“Les Mis!” Dad grins. “Will must have finally given in.”

“Or Ms. Marcus overruled him.” Pops starts air drumming along as the music builds, clashing his pretend cymbals. My dads are the heads of the performing arts department parent committee, but they were already friends with Will before I was born. That’s why I call him by his first name. He used to babysit me, and even now that he’s been my teacher for two and a half years, it still feels wrong to call him “Mr. Green.” He comes over and makes dinner for us all a few times a month, which is good because he’s a much better cook than either of my dads.

“Ooh, you know who should play Éponine?” Dad says to Pops, totally ignoring the degree to which I’m about to burst into pieces from delight. We’re only about to put on the greatest musical of all time, and I’m not getting over that thrill anytime soon. “Odile Rose.”

“You think her schedule will allow it?” Pops raises his eyebrows. “One of the parents in the Facebook group said she might have to miss graduation if she gets that movie role.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Dad says. “Especially after she already had to miss doing the fall play her senior year.”

“Dad, Pops, please stop obsessing,” I say, but they aren’t even looking at me. “We didn’t need her in R&J. Christina did fine.”

Odile’s schedule is so weird, the joke is that she just happens to go to school with us here in Massachusetts for part of the year. Her parents set up some kind of special arrangement with the district where she’s allowed to miss school for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. And if the rumors that circulated during the last week of rehearsal are correct, she’s also being considered for a role in a Martin Scorsese movie. It makes most of us on the crew roll our eyes, but the truth is Odile’s going to walk every red carpet in Hollywood someday, and we all know it.

Up-and-coming teen ingenue Odile Rose is what the Variety article I read called her. As though everything about that phrase isn’t a built-in cliché.

At school, though, Odile never says a word to anyone. She stars in our shows whenever she happens to be in town, but it’s obvious she thinks she’s better than all us high school peons. She’s a year ahead of me, so I’ve never really spent much time around her, but I’ve heard plenty of stories from the upperclassmen. Apparently she just sits in class every day, staring blankly at the whiteboard with her perfect hair and vacant eyes. In rehearsals last year, she said her lines when she was supposed to and spent every other minute sitting off in a corner with David Patel and Sebastian Santos, the best two actors in our school other than her. (They also happen to be the only two high school students she’s ever deigned to interact with.)

“Do you remember her in that Super Bowl commercial?” Pops asks Dad. “She made me cry.”

“You cry over everything,” I remind him. “No offense.”

“Ooh, I remember that,” Gabby says, which is unfair, because this is the second time tonight she’s taken their side. “She was incredible.”

“See!” Pops points to Gabby in triumph. “Validation. Thank you. Gabby, I now officially like you better than my own daughter.”

“Oh my God, Pops. Seriously.”

“Did you not see the ad, Mel?” Dad reaches for his phone. “Here, I’ll pull it up.”

“I’ve seen it.” I edge away. I have no idea why everyone’s so obsessed with Odile. Sure, she can sing and stuff, but I hate how everyone acts as though that makes her God’s gift to the universe. I know performing’s a skill, but the work I do is hard too, and no one ever fawns over the tech crew. “We don’t need Odile. All she does is make the other actors nervous, and that’s a nightmare for us to deal with. Besides, it’s not like she’s that much better than everybody else.”

Dad and Pops exchange a look. Even Gabby casts me a doubtful glance.

“Anyway, I haven’t told you the best part yet.” I wait until they’re all looking at me expectantly. “I get to be SM again!”

“Woo-hoo!” Pops shouts. Dad lets out a low whistle.

I beam up at them. I’m no less excited than I was when Ms. Marcus first told me the news. I’ve had wild, crazy fantasies about the day I’d get to stage manage Les Mis, but I thought it would be years from now.

My obsession with the show started in sixth grade, when I found the cast recording in a pile of Will’s old CDs. Since then, I’ve read the original 1,500-page novel and seen every adaptation I could find. A couple of years ago, my dads took me to see the musical in New York as a surprise birthday present, and I thought my heart was going to explode from glee before the prologue even started.

Stage-managing this show will be the high point of my school theater career. I can already picture myself talking about it in Backstage interviews years from now—how I got my start calling the cues for one of the most complicated musicals known to theater before my seventeenth birthday.

“Congratulations, honey,” Dad says. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but you certainly deserve it after how hard you’ve worked.”

“And Gabby said she’d be ASM again,” I add, not wanting her to feel left out.

“You sure you want to do that?” Pops asks her. “If you thought our daughter was a fierce taskmaster on R&J, I can assure you she’ll be even worse now that she’s working on a show she actually likes.”

“Don’t worry, Les Mis is my favorite too,” Gabby says. “I saw it on tour three times. I even dressed up as Enjolras for Halloween.”

Pops grins. “I retract my concern. You’re clearly very well suited to partner up on this.”

“Plus, Will said we get to build a turntable.” I wait for Dad to get excited about that part too, but his smile’s fading. I don’t know what his problem is. The original Broadway set for Les Mis was built on a turntable—a floor that spins, basically, for quick, dramatic set changes. It was so iconic they copied it for Hamilton. “And he’s bringing in a professional sound mixer.”

“We’re incredibly excited for you, sweetie,” Pops says.

“Although one of us isn’t exactly looking forward to how much work installing that turntable’s going to be.” Dad juts his chin toward my phone, which is still playing the last few notes of the overture. “But I’ll worry about that later. For now, you know what? I’m making that my new ringtone.”

“What, you’re just going to be walking around construction sites with dun-DUN blaring out of your pocket?” Pops asks, but Dad’s already started the download.

“Why not? I’ll tell anyone who asks that my daughter’s the stage manager for the world’s most beloved musical, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

“Okay, well.” My ears are probably turning red. “Gabby and I need to go upstairs and start working on the audition forms.”

“Of course,” Dad says. “Make sure you put at the top, ‘And if your name is Odile Rose, don’t bother auditioning, just name your part.’”

“Dad. Look. She’ll probably be off in Antarctica filming another Oscar-winning role by the time we start rehearsals. Besides, Ms. Marcus said it’s really important for me to go into the audition as a professional and not show favoritism to anyone, or—”

“Melody. Look. I’m being facetious.”

“Good,” I say, with a firm nod.

But as Gabby and I start up the stairs, I have a distinctly unprofessional thought:

That all our lives would be a lot simpler if, on audition day, Odile Rose is as far away from the Beaconville High performing arts wing as she can get.

Act 1

February

Spring Musical Audition Form

The Beaconville High School Performing Arts Department is pleased to present Les Misérables. Auditions will be held Monday after school. If you’d like to audition, sign up at the bulletin board outside the choir room no later than noon Monday.

At the audition, you will be asked to sing sixteen bars of a song of your choosing. Please bring sheet music if you would like the pianist to accompany you. If you do not bring sheet music, you may perform a cappella.

Please complete the form below and return it to the stage manager, Melody McIntyre, when you are called in for your audition.

First name:____________ Last name:____________

Grade:_____ Email:_________________

Phone:____________________

Parents’/guardians’ names:____________________

Parents’/guardians’ phones:____________________

Parents’/guardians’ emails:____________________

Allergies:_________________________

Audition song:_________________________

Please list your current weekend and after-school activities:

Please specify any conflicts (travel, major events, etc.) you will have this spring, particularly in April and May, when the rehearsal and performance schedules will be most demanding:

_________________________________________________________________________________

The cast list will go up Wednesday afternoon. Break a leg!

Scene 1—Beaconville High School Choir Room
DAYS UNTIL SPRING MUSICAL OPENS: 87

“There are ninety-two names.” I show Ms. Marcus the photo I took of the sign-up sheet. “Should I start sending them in?”

Ms. Qiao winces, but Ms. Marcus shakes her head, all business. “Let’s give it another few minutes.”

“How many times do you think we’re about to hear ‘On My Own’?” Ms. Qiao taps something into her phone.

I try not to snicker. “On My Own” is Éponine’s big song in the second act of Les Mis, and anyone who’s ever taken a musical theater class knows you’re never supposed to audition with a song from the show you’re hoping to get cast in.

Ms. Qiao’s the choir teacher, so she’s the Les Mis musical director. She’s in charge of making sure everyone knows how to sing their songs. Ms. Marcus is the director director, so she’s in charge of everything else.

Casting the show is up to the two of them. I’m only here to show people in and out and keep things running more or less on time.

We’re holding auditions in the choir room, which feels enormous with just the three of us surrounded by huge, empty risers. Will isn’t coming today, since auditions aren’t a tech thing, and none of my crew friends are around either. Only the stage manager is in this weird in-between place. I’m officially part of the crew, but I spend a ton of time with the actors, too.

Today was an early dismissal day, but even so it’ll take us forever to get through everyone. I should probably text my dads. They get annoyed if I don’t tell them when I’m going to be late for dinner.

But I don’t mind the idea of auditions taking us late into the night. In fact, whatever the opposite of minding is, that’s me right now.

I’m the only student who gets to be in the room for auditions. Ms. Marcus has already reminded me about twenty times that I have to keep everything I see and hear totally confidential, and that I have to be impartial, even when the auditioners are my friends. I promised I’d show her exactly how professional I can be.

“What’s the gender breakdown, Mel?” Ms. Qiao asks. “Just roughly.”

“I’d say about three girls for every boy.”

Ms. Qiao and Ms. Marcus exchange a look, and I know what they’re thinking: it’s going to be really hard to find enough guys with decent singing voices to put on Les Mis.

This happens with every show we do, to some degree. There are always more talented girls than guys, and most shows have more male characters than female characters, because theater’s always been pretty sexist. To get around that, our teachers usually wind up casting a lot of girls in male roles, but that’s hard to do with Les Mis. It would be almost impossible for a girl to sing most of the principal male roles, except maybe Gavroche. The big solos are written for specific voice types.

The main characters are these two guys, Valjean and Javert. Javert is a police officer, and he’s chasing Valjean because Valjean stole a loaf of bread. But it turns out Valjean’s a good guy, and he starts helping out this poor woman named Fantine and her daughter. Then in the second half of the show there’s this mini revolution, because it’s France, and we meet a bunch of new characters like Marius and Éponine, and there are dramatic battles, so we’ll get to build an awesome barricade set.

Mostly, though, people like Les Mis because of the singing. There’s no dialogue in the whole show, just music, and the songs—the solos, obviously, but the big group numbers, too—are gorgeous. Which means you have to cast people who can sing beautifully all night long, or the whole show will fall apart. Valjean especially has to be excellent, since he has, like, eight big solos. But if a girl tried to sing them, she’d hurt her voice for sure.

The women’s parts are a lot smaller. Fantine and Éponine are the only ones who really have a lot to do, and both of them die after just a few songs. The other big female character, Cosette, is kind of boring, and her part can only be sung by a soprano anyway.

As much as I love Les Mis, I know it’s going to be hard to cast. But, well—that’s why I’m not an actor. It’s ridiculous that you’re limited in which characters you can play based on the way your throat is shaped. As a crew member, I can learn any skill I want to, and if I work hard enough, I can do it well.

“Better give them a five-minute warning.” Ms. Marcus sips her tea. I set the timer on my phone and stride out into the hall, my binder tucked under my arm.

“Five minutes to start, everybody!” I yell.

Dozens of nervous faces turn my way. Almost every actor in the school is here, and a lot of the choir people, too. The only ones missing are the actors like Liam, who know they can’t sing and don’t want to embarrass themselves trying.

I don’t let myself make eye contact with any of them, even though I know almost everyone here. Everyone who does shows at our school knows each other, or knows of each other, at least a little bit. But today, it’s my job to be impartial.

Which isn’t easy when I spot Dom by the bathroom door. His face is so green I’m worried he’s about to puke. I want to go tell him that he doesn’t need to be so nervous—that it’s going to be all right. Instead, I carefully lift my gaze to an empty spot on the wall over his head.

When he told our friends he was auditioning, they gave him crap about it for weeks, but none of them seemed as shocked at the news as I was. Jasmin even offered to help him practice. I asked her later if she felt betrayed, but she laughed and said she didn’t see it that way—she saw it as getting a loyal spy who could tell us what the cast really talked about when we weren’t around.

“And anyway, he’ll come back to our side,” she’d added while we waited in line for our cafeteria sweet potato fries. “Once he sees how much actors suck.”

“Try to relax, everyone.” The door at the end of the hall opens and Will steps through. “It’s the school play, not the guillotine.”

A few people laugh, including me, but everyone’s hanging on his every word. Will has that vibe about him—he’s very obviously an authority figure, but he’s the kind of authority figure who everyone likes because he tells non-awkward jokes and has a gold-tipped frohawk. He’s one of the only openly gay teachers at school, too.

“I’ll be spending the rest of the afternoon hiding in the scene shop, but Ms. McIntyre, is there time for me to make a quick announcement first?” he asks. I nod, glad to be consulted. “Great. For those who don’t know me, I teach the stagecraft classes, and I’m also the theater’s technical director. And welcome, everyone, to auditions for our spring musical, Les Misérables.”

Before he’s even finished saying the title, Malik’s already stomping his feet. Some of the other actors break out into whoops and cheers, too. I clap harder than any of them, then stop myself—is clapping unprofessional?

“This show will be expensive to put on.” Will rubs his hands together, his eyes gleaming, and I already know what he’s going to say next. “So, folks, that means it’s bake sale time.”

A few people groan, but most of us laugh. Will is notorious for his bake-sale obsession.

“Everyone on the cast and crew will need to take part.” Will glances at me, and I nod and pat my binder. “Ms. McIntyre has the sign-up sheets. Does everyone know Ms. McIntyre, by the way?”

I blush and shake my head. Should have thought to introduce myself.

“Well, this is Melody McIntyre.” Will strolls over to stand beside me. “She’s the stage manager, which means everyone on the tech crew answers to her. The actors do too, especially if Ms. Marcus and Ms. Qiao aren’t around. Mel’s the person to talk to if you’re interested in joining the crew, and she’s also the person you should go to with any questions. Unless you need an excellent recipe for cherry soufflé, in which case, I’m your guy.”

There’s more laughter, and I can’t stop myself from grinning. But just then my timer rings, so I duck back into the choir room.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready, Melody.” Ms. Qiao slides gracefully onto the piano bench. “Send in the first sign-up.”

I nod and step back into the hall. Will’s already gone. I overheard him telling my dads you couldn’t pay him enough to sit through Les Mis auditions, but that’s probably because he’s so old he’s forgotten how to have fun.

“Hi, everybody.” I raise my voice so they can all hear me. “We’re going in the order you signed up, so look at the sheet and see where your name falls. Make sure you’re in the hall when I call your name, because if you’re not here, you forfeit your audition. Any questions?”

No one moves. No one even blinks. A freshman sitting across the hall looks like she’s about to cry.

“And relax.” I try to sound reassuring. I’m going to be working with this cast for the next three months, and it’ll be a lot easier if they like me. “The teachers are really nice, and all you have to do is sing sixteen bars. Then you can chill out and eat Cocoa Puffs until the cast list goes up on Wednesday. Wicked easy, right?”

A few people laugh. The anxious freshman across from me cracks a tiny smile.

“Give me your audition form as you’re going in. If you have sheet music, you can take it to Ms. Qiao at the piano when you get inside. Okay, last chance to ask questions.”

No one says anything, and I realize I’m torturing them by talking so much. Crap. I flip over the sign-up sheet. “First up is Imani Miller.”

A freshman—not the one across the hall who looked like she was about to cry, but another girl who looks like she’s also about to cry—steps forward, her legs wobbling. I smile, take her form, and lower my voice.

“Good idea,” I whisper. “Going first, you’ll get it out of the way while everyone else is still stressing.”

She smiles faintly and nods.

I open the door and lead her into the room. The teachers both smile warmly, and Ms. Marcus gives Imani a little wave.

“Break a leg,” I whisper. Then I raise my voice, reading off her audition form. “This is Imani Miller, freshman, and she’ll be singing—‘On My Own.’”

The teachers’ smiles stay as firm as ever as Imani wobbles over to the piano. She hands Ms. Qiao her sheet music, and the two of them talk quietly. Imani manages to compose her face as Ms. Qiao launches into the opening notes.

It’s actually a really good audition. It’s obvious Imani’s been practicing. The teachers clap when she’s done, and Imani smiles, as though she’s finally allowing herself to breathe.

The auditions go faster than I expected after that. Sixteen bars of a song isn’t very long, and most of the actors have come prepared. Three girls in the first half hour sing “On My Own,” but they’re all pretty good, and there are plenty of other songs in the mix, too. Even the girls who aren’t great singers are clearly trying hard, and that counts for a lot.

The guys are more all over the map. Some of them don’t even really sing, they just talk along to the music, which you absolutely can’t get away with doing in Les Mis. Still, a few of them are solid. Julio Ramirez, who was Tybalt in R&J, sings “Gaston” from Beauty and the Beast, and he manages to both sing really well and be darkly funny at the same time. And David Patel, about whom I know nothing except that he’s a good performer and he used to date Odile Rose, sings a song from The Scarlet Pimpernel. He has a strong stage presence from the moment he walks in the door, and his voice is incredibly deep and rich compared to every other guy we’ve heard.

Dom’s up next, and I work hard to keep my face neutral as I take his form. I wouldn’t let him tell me which song he was auditioning with, since I was afraid I’d accidentally give him some sort of hint about what the teachers were looking for. Though, come to think of it, I don’t actually know what the teachers are looking for.

“This is Dominic Connor, junior.” I keep my voice totally flat as I read. “He’s singing ‘Hotel California.’”

“Nice to see you stepping onto the other side of the fence, Dom.” Ms. Marcus smiles. Dom tries to smile back, but his face has turned from green to white.

Once Ms. Qiao starts playing, though, he launches into the song with no hesitation. I expected him to sound fine, but actually, he’s good. Really good. He’s swaying a little because he’s nervous, and his twisty facial expressions are a tiny bit much for the song, but he still sounds better than I’ve ever heard him. His voice is clear and full for the whole sixteen bars. He must’ve been practicing this song for weeks.

How did I not know he’d been working so hard on this? What else has been going on when I wasn’t paying attention?

As I lead him out of the room, I catch the teachers trading a look. Ms. Marcus jots something down on Dom’s audition form, then crosses it out and writes something else.

Could she be thinking about casting him as one of the principals? Dom isn’t an obvious choice for Les Mis—he sang a rock song to audition for a musical from the 1980s, for one thing, plus he’s kind of skinny and quirky for a powerful role like Valjean or Javert—but he’s obviously willing to put in the effort, and we haven’t seen that many other guys yet with strong voices.

The next few auditions pass quickly. Christina’s pretty good, but she’s better at acting than she is at singing. Her friend Leah goes next and she’s a lot better. Malik’s turn comes after that and he’s good, really good, but he’s still not as good as Sebastian Santos was when he used to star in all our musicals. Too bad he’s off at Northwestern now, or we could bring him in as a ringer.

“Let’s take a quick break,” Ms. Marcus says after Andrew Hernandez finishes singing “The Music of the Night.” “Three minutes?”

“Five minutes,” Ms. Qiao says, standing up and flexing her fingers.

When I go out into the hall, Dom is already gone. The people still waiting sit up straight when they see me, but I wave apologetically. “At ease. The teachers are taking a break.”

There’s a chorus of groans, but all I can do is shrug and smile again as I turn toward the sign-up sheet. A tall girl is reaching for it with a pen in her hand, despite the giant sign that says ALL INTERESTED STUDENTS MUST SIGN UP BY NOON and the line I drew after the cutoff with NO MORE SIGN-UPS written under it.

“Hey.” I tap her shoulder. “Auditions are closed.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.” The girl steps back. I recognize her semi-British accent before I recognize her face, but when I do, I nearly trip over my own feet trying to put more space between us.

She looks different than the last time I saw her. But then, she always does, since her hair’s usually got fresh dye for some new role or another. When she first came back from Iceland in December, it was standard Hollywood-issue blond, but when I spotted her walking through the cafeteria by herself a week ago, she’d gone auburn.

Today her hair’s dark brown, with loose curls and messy tangles framing her face. Her white skin is lightly tanned even in February, her eyeliner’s perfectly straight, her belted pink shirtdress probably cost more than Pops’s car, and somehow, she’s prettier than I remember.

She glances at the pen in her hand and lowers it, giving me a sheepish smile. “I can see how this looks. I’d already put my name down, but I was curious about how many others had signed up after me. I like to audition toward the beginning if I can, because . . . oh, I suppose it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m sorry to take up your time, I’m sure you’re very busy.”

I shake my head. I should be the one apologizing. Her name’s been there all afternoon. Odile Rose, written in neat, curving blue ink, right under Nicholas Underwood.

I wonder what the brunette look is for. A Vogue spread? Some kind of celebrity Instagram challenge? Whatever it is, it’s working for her.

I smile back at her. Then I remember that she’s Odile Rose and we don’t need her in this show in the first place, and I let my face go blank.

“Sorry, I saw that you signed up already.” I shrug, doing my best to talk to her the same way I’d talk to any other actor. “My mistake.”

“Oh, no, you’re just doing your job.” She meets my eyes, and, ugh, now I’m blushing. Blushing in front of actors almost definitely qualifies as unprofessional behavior. “Good SMs are always sticklers about the rules. Congratulations on the position, by the way. I knew Ms. Marcus would pick you after you did those incredible sets last year for Joseph.”

My blush deepens. Actors don’t usually notice things like who designed the sets, much less remember them a year later.

But even with Odile’s rotating palette of hair colors, I’d always remember her.

I was still in eighth grade when she did her first musical at BHS, but my dads and I had been coming to see the shows here for years. I was doing middle school shows back then, and I remember how huge the high school stage looked. It’s funny to think about now that I’ve moved scenery across it hundreds of times.

Odile was only a freshman then, but she’d been in Annie on Broadway the year before. Still, I didn’t really get why everyone was so excited about the phenomenon that was Odile until that night when I watched her play Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.

It was the first time—and the last—that a freshman had gotten the lead in a BHS musical, and Odile carried that whole show on her slim shoulders. She’d bleached her hair platinum, and she sang song after song after song—it’s one of those shows where the main character has to sing pretty much all night—and nailed every one. Her big solo at the end of the first act got a standing ovation, and during the curtain call the audience literally screamed when she came out to bow.

What stuck with me about Odile that night, though, wasn’t the way she held the high notes (though wow, did she ever hold those high notes). It was how happy she looked at the end.

During the show, she’d been acting—her character is supposed to look sad or overwhelmed or falsely confident for most of it—but in the curtain call, we got to see the real Odile for the first time. And the real Odile looked absolutely radiant. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on her, even though she’d spent the past two and a half hours dancing under the blazing lights. She was grinning so wide she looked ready to burst into a blaze of light herself.

She just seemed so . . . delighted. As though getting to do what she loved onstage was the biggest thrill imaginable. For a split second, I almost understood the appeal of acting.

Then the actor who’d played the UPS guy took off his shirt and waved it around over his head, and the audience started screaming all over again, and Odile stepped back into the line with the rest of the cast, the bliss on her face already fading into a standard pasted-on curtain-call smile.

And I remembered why acting was the worst job in theater.

“Is it true that you designed the whole set by yourself?” she asks me now. “That’s what Wes told me.”

I scratch the back of my neck. “Er, yeah.”

“It was really beautiful.”

“Oh, um. Thank you.”

“I loved those huge paintings upstage, with the hieroglyphics.” She sounds so earnest I’m not sure how to respond. “I used to sit in the house when I was waiting to go on and just stare at them. The patterns were mesmerizing.”

My mouth drops open. Mesmerizing was exactly what I’d been going for. The panels I’d painted had hung onstage through the whole show, and I’d imagined audience members studying every angle of the patterns during scene changes, but I’d never pictured the actors looking so closely. Especially her.

“Um, well. Thanks. I had a ton of help executing it. I was inspired by a set for Aida from this one theater in Austria, actually, so, um, it wasn’t totally . . .”

I order myself to stop telling Odile all these details she didn’t ask for and probably couldn’t care less about.

Besides, why do I keep stumbling over my own voice? I’m clear and succinct when I talk. When you’re doing a show, there’s no time for unnecessary syllables.

“I love it when there are actual paintings onstage.” Odile doesn’t seem to have noticed how flummoxed I am, but a few of the others have turned around to watch us. I scratch my neck again. I can’t believe she’s still standing here, talking to me about set design. “I did a show once with this amazing painted backdrop of a cityscape, but after previews they switched it out for a projection. I don’t know why—maybe a critic complained? The projection was nice, but there’s something about paint. It’s just part of theater to me. Like the smell of sawdust, you know?”

I nod—I agree with her, vehemently—and try to place which show she’s talking about. We’ve never done a show with a cityscape behind it. Maybe . . .

Ohhh. Wait.

There’s a cityscape in the Broadway set of Annie.

“Projections can be really hard to work with,” I say, because I want her to think I know as much about theater as she does, even though I have a feeling that’s not true. “I saw a show once where this giant blinking message suddenly popped up on the scrim that said ‘Error—Restart.’ The whole audience started laughing right in the middle of this serious scene about cancer.”

Odile winces sympathetically, and she looks like she’s about to say something else when a voice comes in over her shoulder.

“Mel?” Alejandra’s gripping a piece of sheet music in her hand. Odile turns around and brushes her hair behind her ear, a move that looks precisely calculated to show off the pale pink manicure that perfectly matches her dress. Or maybe it’s not calculated at all, and she just naturally exudes glamour.

I need to stop wondering about stuff like that. I despise uncertainty of any kind. “What’s up, Alejandra?”

“Could I ask you a question? About my music for the audition? How do I know exactly when to start singing after the piano—”

Only then does Alejandra notice who I’m talking to. The new hair color must’ve thrown her off, too, but now she steps back, her eyes widening, as though Odile’s a tiger who just escaped her enclosure at the zoo. “Oh! I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Odile! There you are!” Christina’s voice comes out of nowhere. I turn around to see her charging toward us, Leah right on her heels. “We saw that you were auditioning later and we hoped we’d catch you. We’re so glad you’re going to be in town to do the musical with us! Aren’t we, Leah?”

“We are!” Leah chirps, smiling her most fawning smile.

Oh, God. I so don’t have time for sycophantic actors.

But Odile is beaming at the girls, showing precisely the right number of teeth. It’s clear she’s forgotten all about me, so I roll my eyes and turn back to Alejandra, trying to focus on the sheet music she’s holding out.

She’s singing “In My Own Little Corner” from Cinderella. It’s a good song choice. Alejandra was excellent in R&J, and rumor has it she’s been singing brilliantly with her church choir for years, but she’s always been too nervous to sing a solo so she’s never auditioned for a musical before.

“After I introduce you, just take your music up to Ms. Qiao and she’ll help you figure it out,” I tell her. “Don’t worry, she makes it really easy. She’ll probably play one note, and then she’ll let you start and follow your lead.”

“Melody?” Ms. Marcus sticks her head out the door.

Crap! I forgot to set my timer!

“Sorry! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” I jog to the door.

Ms. Marcus laughs. “Relax, you’re not late. But we’re ready, so let’s get this show back on the road.”

I nod and turn to the sign-up sheet, all business. “Henry Qualls, you’re up.”

Henry, a sophomore, sings a song from Hamilton—not very well—and then it’s Alejandra’s turn. The teachers both beam at her while she smiles nervously. And just as I suspected, she sounds fantastic.

I call more names after that, and Ms. Marcus and Ms. Qiao keep smiling as we sit through the same songs over and over again. It’s starting to feel like a never-ending parade of “On My Own,” Disney, and Phantom. Plus, two different girls who try, and fail, to sing “Defying Gravity,” which . . . no. No one should ever try to sing that song without about fifteen years of vocal lessons behind them.

Then there’s a long string of auditions where no one seems to be trying at all. People who sway on their feet so much it’s impossible to focus on their voices, or who sing so quietly we can barely hear them over the piano, or who forget the words (how can anyone forget the words to just sixteen bars of music? Seriously, how?). I’m starting to see why Ms. Qiao and Ms. Marcus weren’t as excited going into auditions as I was.

After the afternoon’s third rendition of “Let It Go,” I’m yawning in my seat when Ms. Marcus taps my elbow with her pencil. I jump up to escort the latest girl out and look down at the sign-up sheet.

“Nicholas Underwood,” I call.

No one answers. A few people start giggling. I try again. “Nicholas Underwood?”

A white guy I vaguely recognize—he’s a fellow junior, and I think we once had English together—lifts his head and slowly climbs to his feet, his phone in his hand. He’s really tall, with a broad chest, and his arms are all muscly. Maybe he plays a fall sport.

He tries to walk past me without looking up from his phone. When I hold out my hand, he finally glances up. “You need something?”

I blink. His tone’s astonishingly rude for a guy who, as far as I know, has never been in a show here. “I need your audition form, Nicholas.”

He passes me the paper and turns down to study his sheet music. “It’s Nick, actually.”

“Okay. I’m Mel. I’m the stage manager.”

He shrugs without looking up, like the fact that I have a name couldn’t possibly be less relevant to his life. How very actorly of him.

“Good luck, Nick!” a senior girl calls from across the hall.

I sigh. “You mean ‘Break a leg.’”

Nick winks at the girl, then turns to me with a smirk. The girl looks contrite, though, and I realize I know her. Her name is Selah, and she’s been in the ensemble for all the shows I’ve worked on. She knows the rules. “Whoops, sorry, Mel. Should I do the countercurse?”

“No, it’s okay since rehearsals haven’t started. Always better to be in the habit, though.”

Selah nods, and I nod back to show her we’re all good. It’s never smart to be casual with theater superstitions, though. It’s like how you shouldn’t drive through a red light even if there aren’t any cars coming. Rules exist for a reason.

I take Nick’s form and lead him into the choir room. From the way Ms. Marcus and Ms. Qiao nod, it’s clear they both recognize him. “This is Nick Underwood, junior, singing ‘How Glory Goes.’”

Nick looks a little confused when I sit down, like it hadn’t occurred to him I’d stay in the room, but I meet his gaze, impassive. He breaks eye contact first, which is pleasantly satisfying, and goes over to Ms. Qiao with his sheet music. I settle into my seat and prepare to tune him out.

But when he starts singing, I sit back up again.

Nick Underwood is good. Really good.

I glance at Ms. Marcus. She’s staring right at Nick, her face blank as usual, but she’s got to be registering this. His singing is up there with the best we’ve heard all day.

Plus, he isn’t swaying around or making weird faces, like most of the other guys have. He’s standing with his feet planted, and his hand gestures and facial expressions actually seem to go with the song—as though he’s really playing the character who’s singing. And since that character is trapped in a cave and about to die, it’s doubly impressive.

When his sixteen bars are done, Ms. Marcus writes something on his audition form and Ms. Qiao looks up from the piano.

“Thank you, Nick,” Ms. Qiao says. “That was a very interesting song choice.”

Nick grins at her. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Ms. Qiao looks like she wants to say something else, but instead she turns my way and nods. I stand up to show Nick out.

He doesn’t look at me as I hold the door for him. He’s already taken out his phone. I sigh and check my list for the next name.

Gulp.

“Odile Rose,” I say, trying to sound as neutral as possible, even though every head in the hallway has already snapped up to watch her walk by.

I can kind of see why. Odile walks with her chin lifted, as if she’s expecting you to watch her make her way down the hall. As if that’s just what happens when you’re her.

The words stick in my throat when I introduce her to the teachers. It feels ridiculous—they already know exactly who she is. “This is Odile Rose, senior, singing ‘I’m Not Afraid of Anything.’”

The teachers smile warmly as Odile takes her music to Ms. Qiao. And when she starts singing a moment later, the whole room changes. As though we’ve all been transported to another space altogether.

Odile’s voice is stunning. That’s all there is to it. The last time I heard her sing was on closing night of Joseph last year, and I remember her being fantastic then, but either she’s gotten better or I’d forgotten what she really sounded like. As though she was born to sing.

Her voice is beyond powerful, and her performance is somehow straightforward and dazzling at the same time. She’s playing her character, but she isn’t showy and dramatic about it the way Nick was. It doesn’t feel like she’s acting at all. She simply is the character, reflecting on her life with this deceptively plain, pretty song.

I feel unbelievably lucky to be getting this private performance. It’s as if the teachers aren’t even here—as though she’s singing just for me. The whole world is the two of us, and the rest of humanity’s tucked off into the wings.

When she finishes, she has that same glow on her face she had years ago, the night I first saw her. The same pure, shining delight.

And I get why she looks so happy. That’s how theater makes me feel, too. When everything goes right—when the sets are stunning, when a perfectly executed sound mix elevates the voices to sparkling, when we haven’t flubbed a single cue—this is what it feels like.

I didn’t know how that felt three years ago when I first saw Odile perform. But she did.

Today she isn’t standing in a pool of perfectly calibrated light, or gazing out from an elaborate set. She isn’t wearing a costume or stage makeup, or singing into a microphone that carries her voice to every corner of the room. Yet somehow, everything about her radiates drama. The best kind of drama.

It’s obvious why she keeps getting bigger and bigger roles. When Odile’s in front of people, her very essence shimmers.

And as her song ends and the last notes of the piano fade, she looks right at me, still smiling. The emotion is so strong, so overwhelming, I have to look away.

I can’t afford to be dumbfounded by the Odile phenomenon. I have work to do.

Besides, she’s probably straight.

“Thank you, Odile.” Ms. Marcus smiles and studies her audition form. “Based on your song choice, I’d guess you’re most interested in playing Fantine. Is that right?”

“That’s right.” Odile beams at Ms. Marcus. I keep my eyes focused carefully over her left shoulder.

Huh. I was sure Odile would want Éponine. It’s the most ingenue-y role in the show.

“And you wrote on here that you don’t have any conflicts in April or May, is that right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Odile bobs her head. It’s interesting to see how different she is with the teachers than with the rest of us. When Christina and Leah came up to her in the hall, she gave them that carefully calculated smile, but here she’s surprisingly relaxed and cheerful.

“It must be a nice break for you to be in town long enough to do the musical.” Ms. Marcus smiles back. “I know you’ve been on the road a lot this year.”

“I can’t wait.” On the last word, Odile’s voice shifts into a high-pitched squeak, and I almost want to laugh. She sounds like anyone else who’s excited about being in the play.

But why would she be excited about this? Odile’s performed on Broadway. Who cares about the Beaconville High spring musical?

But Ms. Marcus is still smiling at her, and as Odile smiles back, a silent understanding seems to pass between them. And I think I sort of get it.

Auditioning for our teachers is probably a lot more fun than auditioning for Martin Scorsese.

I do my best to act nonchalant as I show her out of the room, but my hands falter when I reach down to flip to the next page on the sign-up sheet. I grimace when I hear myself stumble over my words again. “Ah. Um. Tasha Barnett?”

Somehow, we make it through the rest of the afternoon. Some of the singers are good, some are terrible, and a lot are in between. But not a single person is remotely on the same level as Odile.

I call more names, I walk people in and out, and I give everyone exactly the same smile—the one that isn’t supposed to let on what I’m thinking.

But as I show the last actor of the day out the door and Ms. Qiao cracks her knuckles and climbs to her feet behind me, that smile Odile—the real Odile—was wearing when she finished singing for us here in the choir room still lingers in my mind.

And I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to see her smile that way again.

Spring Musical Callbacks

Please note, we’re holding callbacks for the role of Jean Valjean only. The full cast list will be posted Friday, and many students have already been selected for other roles. So don’t worry if you tried out but you don’t see your name on this list!

Students listed below should report to the choir room at

3:00 p.m. Thursday:

Dominic Connor

David Patel

Malik Sexton

Nicholas Underwood

No advance preparation for the callback is necessary. See you Thursday!

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