Misfit Theater Company 2

24. A Midsummer Night's Dream

The past week flew by, thankfully, because as I've learned, tech week for a play like this is not fun. It's all business. Now I see where Patti gets her intensity about rehearsals.

Nothing else mattered this week except for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Not the reading test for Mr. Taylor, which I probably failed even though Gina quizzed me in homeroom right beforehand. Not the math homework packet that just completely slipped my mind. Not the fact that Thatcher and I barely had the chance to talk except for our daily Good Morning and Good Night texts. Not even meals or sleep mattered. As long as I was at the school, in the theater with my fellow Ensemble thespians, that was all that was important.

Every night this week we stayed late at the school to work on the play and the costumes and the blocking and the lighting and the transitions. The senior members who knew how this played out had the foresight the bring packed dinners and snacks, and by the end of the week, all of us juniors caught on too.

The best part of the whole week was that Patti was able to change her schedule with her agent so that she could stay, so she spent the whole week running around backstage playing the stage manager role and keeping the thespians on tech crew in line.

Between scenes--and probably also to help distract me from Thatcher and Paige's scenes together--Patti ran lines with me and coached me. On Wednesday, Mrs. Permala said my Puck was "much improved." Probably thanks to Patti, but I think it's also a little thanks to me, now that I'm trying not to be such a jealous grouch all the time.

But now the rehearsals are over. Tonight is the real deal. Tonight is the show.

Backstage is a whirlwind of hairspray, makeup, costumes, and last-minute jitters.

"How are my curls?" Layla asks Taylor, genuine fear in her voice.

"Good, good, Layla they're good. How is my hair?"

"It's fine, but I'm on stage later than you so it's more important that mine is good now."

I am a few mirrors down in the green room, tucking up my forest look, which includes leaf hairpieces and brownish-gold cheek highlights, and I laugh to myself at this comment. Typical Layla.

In the mirror's reflection, I see Thatcher sneaking up on me from the boy's side of the green room, so I turn and reach up to his face to pull him down for a kiss.

"I like having my girlfriend back," Thatcher whispers once our lips part.

"Me too. Hey, are you all ready?"

He steps back and does a little spin for me in his costume. He's Lysander, alright. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Are you nervous at all?"

"Nope."

"Really?" I'm suddenly aware of how fast my heart is pounding. "I'm sort of freaking out now that we're talking about it."

He kisses my forehead. "You're going to kill it. Just remember that everyone out there is here to take a break from life for a bit, they aren't casting agents, they aren't judging you to see if you can be an extra on their TV shows. They are just people, and they just want to hear the lines."

"Yeah, you're right, we've had higher stakes before."

He chuckles at this. "Uh, yeah, much higher. That's what I'm nervous about. I'm nervous about what I will have to do once the show is over and once I'm out west."

"True, you and Patti and Moth have bigger performances to worry about."

He sort of half-frowns at this. "It's not that they are bigger. Every single performance is big and important. It's just different out there."