I walk in the air, between the rain, through myself and back again. Where? I don't know.

Before this post will make a whole lot of sense, I should explain the layout of the theater. If you don't care about this, skip this paragraph and read on at your own risk. You might get severely lost. Now. When you enter via the main doors, you find yourself in a lobby. On the right side of the lobby, you see the bathrooms, a drinking fountain, and the door to green room, which is almost always locked. The Booth (tech thrones inside) is dead-center, and is also locked. On either side of the booth are the doors into the theater itself. You open the doors and see two long, red-carpeted staircases flanking about 300 of those fold-down theater seats. There's a rather large space at the bottom of the theater (the foot of the stage) which we open for musicals: Tada! the orchestra pit. On either side of the stage are stairs leading onto the stage. We cover these for most performances. On the walls of the theater, on either side, right next to the stage, are the doors leading backstage. They're labeled EXIT, which is why we have had to station an usher at each door after performances. (So far, I've had no luck with my plot to post signs telling people to stay out. Apparently theater rats don't trust anyone to be able to read and follow instructions. Probably for the best.) Once you're onstage (or backstage), having climbed the stairs (or gone through the doors), you can hit the prop and costume shops, which are stage right, or the construction area, which is stage left. In the props area, you have every kind of accouterment you would want to make things and a dangerous loft full of discarded, yet useful, props. (The costume shop is just your typical costume shop.) The construction area has saws and ... er... construction-y things, as well as a very basic metal ladder attached to the wall of the orchestra pit thing which leads--you guessed it-- to the orchestra pit and et cetera. Okay. Whew. That's level one and then some. If you head off-stage to the right, you have stone stairs which lead up to the green room and another props closet. (Oh, and downstairs next to the props shop are two more bathrooms.) Across from the green room is a hallway that's blocked off by two doors. The one to get in is unlocked. The one at the other end ... escape... isn't. (Btw, I'm skipping every area of the theater which has been appropriated by the telecommunications department. That's hardly a part of my story.) I think that's everything... If not, I'll mention it as we go.
So today, everyone showed up for stagecraft and everyone worked. Everyone.. That would be me, Alice, Matt, Justin, and the twins, Ben and Kevin. Cast information: Alice is an actress. She's about my age. She's not technically in this class, but she's known most of the other actors for years, and they're in the class, so here she comes. Matt is an actor. He's in the class. He's the one who talks non-stop and challenges me all the time. I've come to like him, though at first I wanted to smack him all the time. O:-) Justin. Aw, you know about Justin, don't you? He's Justin. ;-) Kevin and Ben are the twins. I like the twins a lot, but you probably already know that. Kevin is my partner in my other drama class. Ben is his brother who likes me because he likes just about everyone. :-)
Since everyone showed up and worked (Ben excluded; he was having a lazy day), we finished almost an hour and a half early. At first I grabbed the fire-engine red paint and doodled on my skirt. (Mike then assigned me the job of mocking up some red paint buckets for the Queen of Heart's guards in Alice.) Then I started painting Justin's jeans. He finally wore paint jeans just so I could paint them. Then Alice (not the play Alice: Alice, really) started in on his other leg. I helped her a bit. So after we finished painting Justin, the guys started playing Zoom. If you know how to play, bully for you. If you don't, it's a theater get-your-adrenaline-and-acting-juices-going game that's a test of reflexes and camaraderie. Zoom. We got bored. Someone (I wish I could remember who) said "Let's play hide and go seek!" And that's what we did.
First round, I hid under the staircase leading up to the green room. There are stacks of chairs under there, and I just crawled behind them and made myself at home. Justin hid on top of his scaffolding. (Go figure.) Alice, who was "it," found him first, and he scampered down and found me within a minute. To his credit, he didn't tell her, so I was found after Ben. I don't know where he was hiding. So no one had been able to find Kevin and Matt. I poked around looking for Matt, because he's extraordinarily small and could fit just about anywhere. I mean, he makes me look enormous, to give you a comparison. Finally I wandered over to the edge of the labyrinth that leads to the orchestra pit. Naturally I'm exaggerating; it's a cement corridor. You look down and there's this ladder underneath you, to the side. You have to swing out and then climb down. I had this feeling... And Alice came and stood beside me. "Think they're down there?" "Probably." "It's dark." "Yup." "Have you ever been down there?" I shook my head silently. "Wow." "Yeah." We backed away from the hole. We met Justin coming from the other direction. "Did you find them?" He asked. "Nope," we replied simultaneously. "We're on our way up to the props loft." He arched an eyebrow at me. "Em? The loft? Why?" I ignored him. Ten minutes later, I bit the bullet and walked back over to the hole. "JUSTIN!" "What?" "Flashlight." He rummaged in his pocket for his keys and handed them to me. I nodded, took the little orange light from him, and clambered down the ladder, Alice in tow. "Kevin," I called, hoping that he'd have pity on me and answer. He didn't. Justin's flashlight, generous gift though it was, was pitifully inadequate against the pitch-blackness of the "under-stage." Alice and I walked to a T in the corridor and there sat Kevin, wearing a demonic grin and using that THING that he and Ben do that makes it look like they're dead. They don't move, don't breathe, don't blink, and they can keep it up forever. Luckily something in my voice clued him in that I was not doing well with the dark, because after a moment he came and stood next to me. "Hey, it's cool. It's cool." "Yeah, well, where's Matt?" "I don't know. I came down alone and I haven't seen anyone." So Alice and I poked around for several minutes and couldn't find him. I headed back out of the under-stage, leaving Alice with the flashlight and Ben with Alice. I went over to the props side of the stage, where I found Justin puttering around. "What happened to you?" He asked. "Nothing. I was in the pit." He eyed me. "You okay?" I nodded. "Sure. I just, um, I don't like the dark much." I grabbed a wet rag and washed my feet, since I'd gone BAREFOOT into the pit so as not to slip on the ladder. Flip-flops. Oi. He tapped his chin. "Well, let's go back down." I shook my head. "No." "Yes." "No." He walked over back to the edge, and, for some stupid reason, I followed him. He scampered down the ladder and stood looking up at me. "Come on, then." "No." "Yes." "Why?" "I want to show you what it looks like down here so you're not afraid anymore." I sighed, and climbed after him. It was a regular party down there. Matt, Ben, Kevin and Alice were clustered around the piano, using Justin's little flashlight to poke at the keys. Justin rummaged around and pulled out a huge fluorescent light which he turned on and started to shine around. Two seconds later, I was sitting on a chair, my legs hugged to my chest. "What?" He said, exasperated. I pointed. Pointed to the dead baby possum sprawled out right where I'd been standing. And just think, I'd been down there barefoot, and so had Alice. No, wait, Alice was STILL barefoot. Everyone sort of looks at each other, and then Justin shrugs, grabs a piece of wood, and shoves it off to the side. Matt thinks something will come along and eat it, and I think we should stay out of the orchestra pit until the smell has cleared. Soon it was time for game two. Matt was it, and everyone scattered. Except Justin, who stood watching us scatter, and me, who wanted a good hiding place. Justin gave me one. You lay down behind the backs of one row of seats. No one can see you unless they run up the aisles... or that's the idea, at least. Alice ran up into the ceiling of the theater. Oh, that's the place I forgot to mention. The ceiling. It's like an attic, but it has place that are like huge holes. You could go right through. Which, er, is why you don't see me under there. In any case, I've been laying on the cement for about ten minutes when I see Matt walk over. I'm staring up, praying that he doesn't look down. He didn't. It took him another ten minutes to find me, and then I had to find Justin. He was in the dead-end hallway across from the green room.
The point of all of this was simply... Well, here you have a group of fairly busy people, ages 18 - 24. We all decided to stay for an hour and a half and play. Just play. How cool is that?
Take it easy.

posted by Emma @ Thursday, October 09, 2003