Don't Let Him Get You

Chapter 10

After her last class, Kiara rushed to her locker and messaged Ronan about staying a bit longer before following the group to the auditorium where more information would be distributed about the play and the jobs available for everyone. Kiara talked with Dani, joking about how Devon and Austin should play Hamlet and Horatio since they already had the perfect bromance. Devon caught onto their conversation and played along with them. The end result was Austin and Devon walking into the auditorium holding hands and cooing at each other with newfound pet names.

As they walked further into the auditorium, Kiara stumbled slightly when Marissa rushed past her, purposefully bumping shoulders. She looked back with a sneer. "Oops, sorry." They all could tell she was anything but.

"What is her problem?" Alisson held onto Kiara's shoulders, silently asking if she was alright. Kiara nodded and looked after Marissa who stood across the auditorium talking to some other students.

"Let's just go sit down. She's not worth it." Garrett lead them all to some seats near the front. They all sat down, no longer laughing, but now glaring at Marissa. Their staring was interrupted when Mr. DeWalt burst through the door holding a box. He looked at the students gathered and put the box on the table in front of him.

He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Alright. I'm glad to see so many of you interested in helping with the school play. I'll go over what the play is, auditions, and jobs available for those who don't want to perform but want to be behind the scenes." He smiled out at the crowd. "So, the play I chose is Hamlet—I'm sure a lot of you know it already, especially if you are, or were, in my English class. This play is a tragedy, meaning that the main character dies, is exiled, or goes mad in the end; in the case of Hamlet, he dies."

Many of the students looked at Mr. DeWalt with interest while others were hoping he would hurry and give out the details for auditions. As Mr. DeWalt summarized the plot of the play, Kiara looked around at some of the students gathered, seeing that there were actually quite a few people there.

She was brought out of her thoughts when Mr. DeWalt cleared his throat. "Now, auditions are open to anyone. Unfortunately, we only have two main female roles, Ophelia and Gertrude." As he said this, murmurs went around the room, many sounding like complaints from the girls in the room.

"However," he continued with a smile, "I am breaking my usual rule of sticking to the genders in the play and letting girls audition for Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and the Gravedigger. But don't forget that there are also a lot of non-speaking roles to be filled. Auditions will be held next Thursday, giving you just over a week to prepare." He walked towards the students and handed out stapled sheets of paper. All that was heard in the auditorium was the shuffling of paper as everyone passed the stacks along.

Kiara looked down at the thin packet: Audition Information. She quickly flipped through and saw some monologues for the main characters. At the back of the packet was a page with another bolded title: Behind the scenes jobs. She skimmed the jobs and saw that there was quite a lot to be done.

"So, pick any of the monologues for the audition. It doesn't have to be for the role you want. At the audition, tell me what role you are auditioning for, what your second choice is and then we'll go from there. I'll have the sign-up sheet for auditions on the table here, come up after this meeting." He flipped to the back of the package. "At the back is a list of jobs for behind the scenes. I'm sure you can all read and figure out what we need. If, by the end of sign-up, we don't have enough people for certain areas, some of you will have to pull double duty, but I'm sure we'll be fine." He glanced out at the crowd, smiled once more before putting the package down and getting out two long sheets of paper and some pens.