Adopted by Six on Broadway

Ignore Ze Fear and You'll Be Fine

Angie's POV

It's not that I was stressed. Honestly I was pretty calm for my first lead role in a musical ever.

It was that everybody else was stressed. Besides Ollie. Ollie was all "SM calm" as Caleb and I had taken to calling it.

Along with the musical, graduation would be coming in four months, it was late February. We finally found my real birthday, it's in May, in three months.

Bianca had come to help us out backstage, and all three of us were sitting in the Baker's house onstage sharing a huge bag of M & Ms while the crew and frantic cast ran around like their heads were missing. 

"So, anything new with you Bia?" I asked, grabbing a handful of the tiny candies.

"Actually, I'm looking for a manager. You know anyone?" She sipped some her her water.

"You know, I bet Taylor would rep you." I noted, nudging her slightly.

"OMG BIA TAKE IT!" Caleb squealed as quietly as he could. "Taylor Louderman is a queen, and it'll give me a bigger excuse to hang out with you."

"You being my best friend wouldn't warrant that C?" Bianca gave him a look.

"Yup."

"You know C, Taylor could rep you too."

"Nah, I have Alex." Caleb was talking about his older brother who he'd recently been reunited with, who was a manager.

"Suit yourself. But what do you think Bia?" I gave her a pleading look.

"Fine. Call her."

I quickly called Taylor. "Hey Taylor."

"Hi Angie! Oh by the way I have an audition for you coming up after Into the Woods." Taylor was probably smiling, but she was through the phone.

"Oh that's great! You're coming to see the show right?"

"Are you kidding I'm in the lobby right now!" Taylor squealed.

"Oh by the way, you know my friend Bianca?" 

"Oh yeah, the talented girl who was in Ragtime? I remember her from that video you took."

"Yeah, she's actually looking for a manager. I just wanted to ask if you could rep her." I crossed my fingers.

"Of course! Hey put me on speaker, is she there?"

"Yeah. Okay Taylor you're on speaker."

"Hi Bianca! I just wanted to let you know, that you have a manager!"

We squealed and I said bye and hung up on Taylor.

"Taylor Louderman is my manager!" Bianca squealed.

And so, we finished the M & Ms, and Bianca helped us warm up by helpfully doing Little Red's part in Your Fault, while we pretended the Baker was there.

Suddenly Miss Johnson ran in, twenty minutes til places. "OLLIE WE HAVE PROBLEMS!"

"Yes Miss Johnson?"

"Okay, first of all, Dara is losing her voice." Miss Johnson's hair was pulled into an impromptu messy bun, and she was wearing jazz shoes instead of the heels like had seen her in earlier.

Ollie nodded, and reached into the large box beside her and pulled out another box. She rummaged through it. "Okay let's see. Oh here it is!" She spoke into the headset. "Can someone bring me some hot water onstage?"

Soon a crew member who just ran by holding hats and some of Rapunzel's hair came ever so quickly and handed her a thermos and left before I could see who it was.

"Okay, give her this tea, and what was the other problem?"

"Aria just broke her ankle. We don't have an understudy!" Miss Johnson took the tea bag and thermos of water.

Aria was our Little Red.

"Why didn't you cast understudies!"

"Because Ollie! We pulled this together in less than three weeks!"

Ollie looked at us. "Hey you, girl with the braids, you can sing. Are you familiar with Into the Woods?"

Bianca nodded slowly. "Yes.."

"Okay, our Reds gone. You're going on. Do you know the part?"

Caleb jumped in. "Bianca has helped me and Angie rehearse multiple times. She has the show memorized."

"Can you skip? I don't care. You're going on." Ollie looked at Miss Johnson. "Alert the lobby, we have a new Red, get them to change the programs or something. And Angie, take her to wardrobe get her looking like a little girl as fast as possible, and uh Caleb. Yeah, okay I need you to go and grab all the other actors to get miked up." She looked at us. "Why are you standing around go!" She quickly sent us off.

Carefully, but quickly in my kitchen outfit, you know my rags essentially, we ran towards the dressing rooms.

May was directing the costume crew. "Oh this must be Bianca. Ollie never turns off her headset, it's like SM law really. Okay Bianca, we're going to get you into makeup, and your braids are perfect. The cape is long, so since you're taller than Aria it'll be fine. We'll have to find you an appropriate dress." May sat her in a chair and suddenly makeup crew ascended on Bianca, giving her foundation and rosy cheeks and light pink lipstick.

Bianca blinked as she was suddenly thrown from makeup into costumes. 

She was shaking as I could finally see her after the makeup and costume crews backed away. 

Her caramel colored skin was tinted pink in the cheeks, and her braids were pulled tight and gelled. She had a red cape around her shoulders and a red dress.

May was frantically fixing Aria's dress for an ensemble member she had taken Bianca's dress from to renovate. "Okay, it's now a purple dress." May proudly held up the red dress she'd sewn blue onto, to make it look purple. "Okay Bianca, why don't you go warm up." 

Bianca and I went back, and found Caleb. Bianca started shaking. "I'm scared."

Caleb and I looked at each other. We had a two second conversation with our eyes until we started singing Haus of Holbein.

Bianca laughed.

"Places everyone!"