It started in September. School had started a few weeks ago and we were finally about to have our first rehearsals for the new stage play, we’d be playing in spring the next year. I had spent my summer barely doing anything, mainly missing theater. But finally I had my stage back and was sitting on one of the over hundred chairs waiting for our director to announce the parts. I had taken so much effort in the year before and I had tried so hard to finally get one of the leads. I have never had one in my nearly seven years of acting.
Back then I have always felt the need to be different from everyone else, so I dyed my hair ginger. I listened to punk-rock music and my wardrobe mainly consisted of black, grey and white. I always wore at least 5 bracelets and converse, cause that was just my thing.
In theater we’d be playing a version of the ancient Greek play Antigone. Over the holidays I had taken massive amounts of research on it. I knew everything and could have given massive presentations about it without any notes. But I just sat on my chair in the front row, the since last year shrunken rest of the ensemble next to and behind me. The scripts lying on stage in a messy pile in front of me. The back of the front page was what I finally wanted to see. All the parts were on it, just like always. Usually we would have just taken the scripts as soon as we got to the rehearsal, but this time our director made a massive secret of it.
“Is everyone finally there?” He asked twenty minutes after the time we were supposed to start as the last two girls entered the room. The year before we usually always started an hour late.
“Well, you all know I haven’t been that happy with the discipline last year. I hope that will change this year, especially the talking.” He shouted the last words, to be louder than a small group of people sitting around a table already making me start lose hope for this play.
“Also, if you are late often or miss rehearsals for no good reason too often, you have to expect to get kicked out. I don’t want to run after you all the time anymore and you’re all old enough to decide if you really want to be in theater. And if you’re just here for hanging out with the others, you can leave.” It may sounded harsh of our director to say that, but I thought it was just fair. I have always been on time, barely ever missed rehearsals and never talked, at least not loud. And now that my friends have left, I didn’t have anyone to talk to anymore.
“Go on, get the scripts, I know you finally want to.” Our director said and I sprinted the couple feet to the messy pile of papers and grabbed one. Taking a deep breath, I opened it and started to look for my name from the foot of the list. My eyes climbed up slowly and I started to think our director must’ve forgotten about me, when I reached the top of the list.
Antigone - Mouna
I blinked a couple of times. No, there has to be a typo in that. I maybe had the most discipline of all of us, but I wasn’t nearly as good as many of them. At least I always thought so.
“Wait, what? Mouna?” I heard a girl behind me say “You’ll kill Antigone, literally.”
That comment made me laugh. Obviously I would kill her, she committed suicide. But killing the part as in being amazing, I still wasn’t so sure about that.
My opinion about that changed with each rehearsal though. Reading the script, I was this awesome person that always said the right thing without being boring. And actually getting to rehearse it made me get positive. The time until the premiere went by like just weeks, even though it was eight months. Dancing, singing, costumes, make up and stage design turned out perfect, now it was just up to us to make it all even better.
Finally the big day came. I was standing behind the curtain, peeking though the small slit between it and the wall to look at all the people in the audience. It always made me mad to see people I knew in the audience and my family and friends were all there. But it was just the way it has always been. Make yourself crazy before you go on stage. That gives you adrenaline, which makes you be better. The nervousness disappeared after the first two sentences you had to say. But being nervous was normal, even massive stars had that.
Though when I saw a group of young people sitting down next to my family I felt like I was about to faint. I wanted to run away and not go on stage at all, instead I just froze and kept looking over to the five siblings. I knew them. Way to well. And they were known way too well, in my opinion. But no one knew anything about celebrities around here. Well, the people I considered as famous. The two blonde boys of the group were talking to each other. Definitely the two most famous out of them all, thanks to some certain TV shows. Their blonde sister, wearing a tutu and the brunette boys had another conversation.
My insides felt like they were turning, I started to feel sick. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten the cookies a couple of minutes ago. I always felt sick when I did just before going on stage. But this situation made it even worse. And I didn’t even want to go to anyone and tell them about our famous guests. They’d probably just laugh at me for knowing them. I was already the youngest and the outcast. I didn’t need to listen to stupid comments about me watching one of those stupid new Disney shows regularly and actually really enjoying it. The lights in the auditorium slowly went off and I felt like exploding from nervousness. The curtains opened. I went away from my place and looked at my first scene once more in the script. People walked past me, talked, sang. Only half a page left until I’d have to go on stage. I took a deep breath. You can do it Mouna. Wait, no, Antigone, you can save your brother. And with that I took the few steps outside in the spotlight.
