Becoming Starkid

Rehearsal

CHAPTER TWO:

                  I followed Lauren through the door. There were college students sprawled all across the theatre, milling about in a very casual way. It didn’t look at all like there was going to be show in mere few hours, or as if there was any rehearsal happening at all.

“Sorry I’m late! I’m here now. Not that it looks like it matters.” Lauren shouted.

 “Yeah can you guess who’s late? Darren!  This is really unexpected coming from him he is usually so punctual,” said a small man with a heavily sarcastic tone. Lauren laughed and introduced me,

“Hey this is Andy, she’s new and a theatre major. I thought I would show her Basement Arts in all of its glory. Andy, this is, well everybody, they can introduce themselves. You can just hang out here” She then went over to talk to some of the cast. People started to give me looks, not unfriendly, just a little skeptical. I would be too if a random stranger barged in on one of my final rehearsals. I knew what I needed to do. I quickly scanned the room and spotted three men sitting at a table right in front of the stage with papers spread out around them. I marched right up to their table.

“Hi,” I said. They looked up at me, “My name’s Andy.” The short one sitting in the middle responded,

 “Hey. I’m Nick, and this is my brother Matt, and that’s Brian.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” I responded using my most winning smile, “Sooooo,” I continued, “This is play about Harry Potter? That’s kind of daunting.”

 “What do you mean?” said the man identified as Matt.

“Well, I guess, it’s just that, People take their Harry Potter serious, you would have to handle it carefully, but if you do, well, there are a lot of Potterheads out there.”

 “That’s exactly what we thought. And it’s only 1:00, the show starts at 8, and people are already starting line up outside,” Matt said with a smirk.

“Then you’ve must’ve done something right.” I thought about our conversation, trying to read these people. I tend to go through this process in my head every time I need to prove something, like now. First I make gut assumptions about what type of person they are, its not a foolproof plan but it usually works. Then I decide how I should act, should I be aggressive? Shy? Sweet? Flirty? Complimentary? Honest? Today I decided to be honest. This is usually my least favorite option but it seemed as if these people wanted the truth. So why not go for it. But I’m sure if that was right choice yet, I continue,

“So you guys are the directors?” I ask. Brian says,

“Yeah Matt is, and we all wrote it. So you are new? Where did you transfer from?”

“Umm well I didn’t exactly transfer, exactly. I graduated.” The look on their face made me explain further. “ Well you see this is my first day of college. My credits for my high school diploma were sped up and they said I could start here now. So here I am.”

“Wow.” Then I heard a huge commotion at the doors and a man came stumbling in carrying a guitar, and had a mop of curly, dark hair hanging in front of his eyes.

“DARREN!” everybody screamed.

“I’m here, I’m here, let’s go guys,” he said. Nick looks at me,

“Well I guess we can start now. You’re Theatre major, right? How about you stay here, take notes?”

“Sure, that sounds great.” I hadn’t quite won them over yet, but I had the chance. So I sat back to enjoy the show.

And for the next three hours, I was captivated.

“So, any thoughts?” Matt asked me. “I know it could be tightened up a bit, but…”

“No. Keep it loose. Yeah the writing was superb, and it was obviously hilarious, the music was excellent too. But, the looseness, the improv, the imperfection, is what made it magic.” The looks on their faces showed me, I got them.

“So you’ll make it to the show tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”