Theater Supersition

“Theater Superstition”

 Note:  In the Philippines "alay" means "offering" or "sarcrifice".

“See it’s simple Trini.  All you have to do is cut Ken’s annoying tail and the whole play would move smoothly.” Eric said using a hushed conniving tone…and he didn’t exactly say “annoying”. I just chose to censor that. If I didn’t know what he was talking about I would have thought his sentence was funny or totally weird. By tail, he meant Ken’s irksome little excess hair that started to grow into a little pony tail. It was starting to bother me too. It was just funny to hear Eric getting all choked up about it.

“Why? What do you have against his hairstyle?” I asked a smile playing in the corners of my lips. As an afterthought I added. “And what the heck does that have anything to do with the play?”

It was our second semester of our Second year in our course, AB Communication. Every ABComm student knows that, once the smell of Finals comes around it can only mean one thing for us Second years- our Theater Production. Every year the Sophomores would prepare a play for their Finals in the Theater class. It was a big deal because a.) it was all graded, b.) our teacher, Miss Marie (said as Moh-ree)  is totally watching us all like a hawk throughout the production and one moment of epic fail would have us under the attention of some serious scolding, b.) every batch of AB Comm sophies before us did this and will be judging our production, meaning they’ve been through this stuff and would definitely want us to fail and suffer more than they did.

There were at least 72 Sophomores and not everyone gets to be actors and actresses. We were all given certain jobs and were separated into departments. My friends and I thought Miss Marie was pretty spot on when she assigned us jobs. I got assigned as Costume Staff, which to me seemed pretty ideal because I get to work with costumes which is my thing and because I’m a staff I don’t really have to stress as much as the mangers. Boy was I wrong.

“You have to do it Trini.” Eric said. There was a slight twitch in his lip that looked like he was about to laugh but his voice was so monotone that it was hard to tell if he was joking. “He ate the alay.”

Okay. So aside from the traditional “bullying” we’d be getting from the ABComm Seniors and Juniors throughout the making of the production we also have to worry about a ghost that lived in the auditorium. As much as I’m as freaked out about ghosts as my dorm room mate Rose, I still thought it was pretty funny that all the departments thought it was a big deal to leave some food lying around as a sacrifice to the ghost so that it would let us use the auditorium. Gilbert, the resident Sound manager, warned us about it because the last time he forgot to leave a brownie in the Sound booth he found some cords messed up the next day. Our director, Sarah, thought it best to be cautious and told all the managers to offer some food-even just a lame brownie, and leave it by the cupboard the props team was using backstage.

“He ate the alay?” I said letting a small laugh out.

Eric looked annoyed and pouted. “Yes. He chugged down the beeping Zesto  and the Sugo nuts they left back stage.”

“Have you told Zuma about it? It is his job to provide for you guys, why ask me?” I said referencing the Props Manager. Eric was part of the props team and was currently carrying plyers and a some silver wire.

“Zuma’s out with Jazz and Jezz buying more wallpaper…I told him to buy more food but that’s beside the point. You have to cut Sam’s beeping pony tail.”

If I was an anime character I’d have had one of those big sweat drops by now. Eric was dead serious.

“Er…why exactly?”