When He Sees Me | Logicality

8. 911! Emergency!

"Oh, thank God," Logan whispered into his mic, as Valerie burst onstage in a perfectly-timed explosion of light. The techies had finally gotten the spotlight in the right place. They'd ran "Beautiful" at least four times, and the entire crew was getting sick of it. The cast probably was, too, but Logan didn't care about them nearly as much. They weren't his people in the same way as the crew. 

The entire backstage seemed to cheer with him, breathing sighs of relief as the rest of the scene rolled out without a hitch.

A voice through Logan's earpiece brought him out of his silent celebration. It was from the orchestra pit, and it didn't concern him very much-- they were bitching about the lighting. Apparently the spotlight was shining into the keyboard player's eyes? He bit off a suggestion that they deal with it, and left the conversation to Virgil, who was not very impressed.

Tuning out just as Virgil was telling the conductor where they could put their baton, Logan watched the rest of the act, feeling strangely content. Not a catastrophe in sight.

Not yet.

Contentment churned to unease right as "intermission" started. The curtain fell, the actors evacuated the stage, and the stagehands set scene for Act II. It was all going a bit too well.

Until it wasn't.

Logan didn't have the privilege of watching the shitstorm in person, but he heard plenty after the fact, and he did, in fact, get to see the panic spread through the stagehands, who also didn't know what the fuck was going on.

Terrance had finally finished Valerie's blazer, for the third time. He gave the blazer to his second assistant, to deliver directly to Valerie, so she could have it for the second act, and make sure everything fit well. The assistant was also instructed to check with the Heathers costumes, to double check and see if they worked together.

However, the assistant ended up taking all four costumes (H. Chandler, H. Duke, H. McNamara, and Veronica's), and put them all on the prop table.

Somehow, no one onstage moving set at the time saw this vile act take place, least of all Logan, who was conferring in the orchestra pit, trying to smooth things over with the band. They were as impressed with Virgil as Virgil was with them, which is to say, not at all.

This meant, however, that the three costumes were left unattended in a public, well-populated area. Sometime between the assistant dropping them off and ten minutes to curtain-up, an undesirable item was placed into the green blazer.

Heather Duke was being played by a lovely young woman named Rebecca, who had the unfortunate fate of dating a certain college quarterback. Now, Zak himself wasn't the problem, it was the fact that he had taken her out of the dating game, which had pissed off a number of people in the theatre program.

Namely her co-star, Ram. 

(The irony of this is that the actor was just as much a douche as the character.)

He had slipped a note into Rebecca's pocket. Very serial-killer, newspaper letters cut out and rearranged to spell out something threatening. It was really quite a lot of work, Logan reflected, as he'd had to have saved his mail for for a couple weeks, at least, to get suitable materials.

When the actors finally found their costumes, and Rebecca put on hers, she had found the note. Understandably, she was very upset.

She told Virgil (this part Logan did sort-of hear through Virgil's mic, and he was very confused the entire time), and Virgil lost his shit. He abandoned his post at the lights and tore towards Ram's dressing room. He hadn't signed the note, but it was pretty obvious.

The director got involved, there was a huge showdown, and Ram was expelled from the production.

The shit week just got shittier.

--

"What the fuck are we supposed to do now?" 

Logan sighed. He was at a table with the director, assistant director, choreographer, and the head of the costume department, Terrance. They were sitting in silence. Two days until the dress rehearsal, barely more than a week until opening night.

The director's question hung in the air, making the air heavy with it. 

"Understudy?" Terrance asked, and the choreographer answered.

"Julian's available, but it'll fuck with the staging, since we're taking him directly from the chorus. If we work overtime, we can probably figure out a replacement choreo. But we'll need the whole cast to relearn whole scenes."

Logan sighed again. "What about the swing?"

"Again, from the chorus. There's no way around this, Logan."

Silence weighed down on the room again. Looking down, Logan found his hands trembling. He clasped them, in an attempt to force them to be still. 

"What if we could come up with another chorus member?" 

It was Terrance. Everyone looked at him, and he expanded on his idea. "It would be easier to train one person than to reteach the whole cast. If we pull someone from another department, someone who's already familiar with the cast and the production..." he trailed off, his point made. The department heads stared at him blankly for a moment.

Then the director turned to Logan. "Who can you spare in your department?"

"Wait," Logan said, disbelief colouring his voice, "I can't just boot people onstage! Many of them don't have the necessary experience, for one. And if they wanted to be part of the cast, they wouldn't be backstage with me. They would have auditioned, and if they weren't cast, they would go to another production."

He leaned back in his chair, fuming. Who could he spare? What sort of question was that? Everyone in the wings was doing a vital job: props, lights, curtains, sets! It was all vital!

Terrance shifted, and Logan knew he was going to speak again. "Where are the audition papers?" he asked, and Logan groaned. The others shot him a look, and he fell into a sullen silence.

The assistant director left, on the hunt for the audition forms. The room was quiet again, but it was an angry quiet. It radiated off of Logan, poisoning the whole room. One by one, the occupants excused themselves for coffee, for air, for a smoke.

--

The audition papers were strewn across the long conference table. People trickled back in, almost reluctantly. Terrance set down a coffee in front of Logan, a sort of caffeinated olive branch. The stage manager pretended not to see it, but he caved pretty quickly as soon as the whole ordeal started. 

The assistant director started reading off names. 

"Avery?"

"Cast."

"Hunter?"

"Cast."

"Kayla?"

"Gone."

"Virgil?"

Logan jumped out of his chair, nearly spilling black coffee all over himself. "No!" he said, stronger than he'd intended.

The director looked at him, an odd look on her face.

"You cannot have my assistant stage manager. He runs the lights better than anyone. There is no time to retrain someone. The lighting finally got figured out, and I'd rather die than perform on opening night with a sub-par assistant."

Shell-shocked, the director nodded. "Okay, Logan," she said, her voice soft. "We'll find someone else."

The rest of the room pretended not to hear Logan mutter, "You fucking better," as they continued to search for a replacement chorus member.