Adrianna remembers a time when she loved the bookstore.
Not that she doesn't now... but the bookstore's been Adrianna's job ever since she graduated from college. She's been coming to this particular store since she was four, and she loves it for its expansive collection of cast recordings and librettos. It's perfect for her, really. Except when she's stuck organizing history books into pristine piles, or dealing with extremely rude and persistent customers, or trying to stop kids from knocking over the tower of heavy biographies she'd just made.
And, of course, when Adrianna's both extend her shift by an hour. That's never fun, especially today. It's something Addie normally took without complaining, but normally Addie didn't have a reading to get to after work.
Thinking about the reading makes Addie stressed. It makes her stressed because, really, every bit of her knows that this was just a filler job until she got her next big role. But she loves the bookstore, and the manager loves her (probably because the manager had been the one stuck with the children's weekend activities years ago, and Addie had been the only kid actually paying attention).
Adrianna hears a cough behind her and rushes to help the customer who has been trying to grab her attention.
I'll miss this place, Addie thinks, looking around as she leads the customer to the cooking books tucked away in the back corner. Lord knows there won't be much time to come back once the show gets started.
That's always been true of everything in Addie's life: when it comes to theater, everything else gets dropped and abandoned. It had been a requirement when she was younger and being cast in a national tour meant leaving behind school and friends and family for a while. She'd made it into her own routine ever since, filling her free time between shows and rehearsals with dance classes just to keep herself fit, and occasionally paying a visit to her old voice instructor (who by now had retired to her house and never minded when Addie dropped by with some gifts). All her other time was spent sleeping or recovering from shows, and that would definitely be the case now that Adrianna was a swing.
Adrianna stops by the arts section to put the librettos back in alphabetical order, thinking about the one other time she'd been a swing. Years later, she was still convinced she'd had a demented crew, because at every rehearsal she'd been made to go through the motions of almost all the characters she played.
Addie still shudders at the thought.
All this leads back to her thinking about how she could possibly break the news to her boss.
Hey, you know that show I've been talking about? Yeah, I'm a swing in that now! So we all knew this was coming... bye!
Adrianna decides to take her break now.
She spends her break mentally rearranging her schedule, which of course leads to the overload of theater going on in her head, which brings her back to how she's supposed to quit her job.
That's pretty much all Addie thinks about until the manager comes to tell her to go home.
Addie does, getting her stuff in order slowly while she thinks. She heads back out to the doors, and sure enough, the manager is still there, observing the cashiers.
"Hey," Addie says. "I'm kind of in a rush, but can I quickly bring something up with you?"
"Sure?"
"Well, I'm thinking I kinda have to leave my job here."
The manager is silent for a moment. "Oh. Okay. We'll talk about this when you come in on Friday."
Addie blinks. "Friday?"
"Weren't you telling us this morning that you had a read through to get to about now?"
Oh, damn.
Addie turns and sprints outside and across the parking lot to her car.
She's still early, by some miracle. She's the only adult in the room when she gets there. A few of the kids are sitting around, almost all of the teenagers are leaning against the wall on their phones, and the parents are already in the chairs off to the side, reading their copies of the script.
It takes another twenty minutes for everyone to filter in, and someone passes a basket of highlighters around the table. Adrianna already has two highlighters in her bag, but neither of them are yellow, and Adrianna has a strange OCD about highlighters so she has to stretch to grab a yellow one from the basket after it's passed by her.
The director, one Shaun Harding who Addie's worked with before, is already standing up and talking before she can work the cap off her highlighter.
"Basically, we're on a tight scheldule," he says, not even bothering with an introduction. "Kids, listen up, this is important. We're set now to officially open in the first or second week of November, but we will be starting previews two week before that. It's the start of September now, so we have six weeks to pull our stuff together, so I need everyone to be on board with what we need you to do. Okay?"
There's a mumble of assent, and Addie takes the pause as an opportunity to open her script and highlight the names of all the characters she's been told she'd covering for.
"We are a bit short on swings, if you haven't noticed," Mr. Harding continues. "This means that the... five? The five swings will have more time to rehearse, but it also means that I need to urge all of you to stay in good health. No fast food, meaning no fried stuff, nothing that will ruin your throat. If you're going to have dairy, take it after the show so your throat has time to clear up. Start making more trips to Whole Foods or Trader Joes. Take your vitamins. If someone near you is sneezing and touches something, do not touch that object and proceed to slather your hand all over your face!"
Addie tries to hide her laugh and fails miserably, but her laugh is drowned out by the kids breaking into hysteric giggles, closely followed by some of the older girls.
Even Mr. Harding cracks a smile. "Okay. But now the serious stuff. Here's assuming we get the full six weeks, even though we're already a few days short. The last week before previews will be dress rehearsals and finalizing everything, and for all the kids we've already got you out of school for that week."
The group of teenage boys sitting next to Addie let out loud whoops, and Addie takes her script and shifts her seat slightly away from them.
"This week we'll have one other read through, then we'll have one session where we just sing through the score. We've called some favors and we've got some friends coming in to provide us with a temporary band that day. Next week we'll be in the bigger rehearsal room and we'll get started on the blocking and some choreography. Sound good so far?"
Everyone nods.
"I want you off book by week three."
Although almost everyone in the room is a seasoned actor (or actress) and should know better, almost everyone lets out a loud groan. Addie slumps down slightly in her seat: she really has to speak to someone about quitting her job now, otherwise she'll never find the time to get all her lines stuck in her head.
"I know, I know. If this were a revival, we'd be supplying you with bootlegs to drill everything in," Mr. Harding jokes.
Addie has yet to figure out where Mr. Harding stands on the debate about bootlegs.
"But... we're a new show. You should have known that when you auditioned. But if you mess up here or there, we'll let it slide. I just want everyone to not be holding scripts. Deal?"
There's no way anyone will say no to that.
Mr. Harding starts talking about how rushed the crew's schedule is, and that's when Addie tunes him out slightly to take a look around the room. This is really her first good look at her cast mates: yes, she'd gone to the 'party' the night before, but she'd just taken her drink and found a quiet corner to sit in. She'd been away at college for years, so Addie's out of touch and mostly unfamiliar with the other adults, and of course she doesn't really know any of the kids that well. Some of the teenagers may have already been in programs at the theater before she'd left, but Addie had been busy running around the theater's offices getting letters of recommendation and trying to sort out college applications... which had really left no time with interaction for anyone.
Addie finishes scanning the room, her eyes settling briefly on the girl sitting directly across from her. The girl's eyes immediately flick down, and Addie tilts her head curiously at the gesture.
She doesn't have time to pick apart the possible reasons for the motion because Mr. Harding is talking about their schedule again.
"We'll spend the third week figuring out most of the blocking, and at the end of the week we'll spend some time in the theater to see how it looks in there," Mr. Harding says. "We'll spend week four on the stage: the sound and light guys will be working stuff out while we're rehearsing, and we'll get started on the mics. We should have some people coming down to interview us that week, people like Hayley, Annabell... Leah, you'll probably be interviewed too."
Mr. Harding pauses to look down at his planner, and Addie takes the opportunity to highlight all of her characters' line in different colors on about five pages.
"Week five... some of you will be off school that week," Mr. Harding says, grinning to himself. "Tech week!"
Addie smiles as groans come from the boys next to her.
"And we'll have a photoshoot as soon as we get the costumes in," Mr. Harding says, and everyone smiles a bit, because the photoshoots tend to be fun. "We'll have everyone in for the cast photos, and production pics. I'll call you up later for that schedule. And then previews start, we'll all have some fun, and things will calm down for a while before Halloween."
And with that Mr. Harding sends Hayley and Annabell over to the pianist to quickly get a rough idea of their songs. Addie takes the chance to check her phone, even though she knows she should be going through her lines.
Her parents have sent a few messages: they've always been incredibly supportive of her career in theatre, seeing as both of them had been traveling with her at one point or another when she'd been on tour. She has two texts from her cousins, congratulating her. And then Addie smiles: her boyfriend's sent her about a hundred and twenty texts in the past half an hour, each of them updating Addie on exactly what he's doing.
One comes in while Addie's reading their conversation.
Unlocking you apartment door now <3
Addie smiles, and sends off a quck text asking him just what he thinks he's doing.
Getting started on dinner. It's never too early for dinner, hon.
Mr. Harding walks behind Addie's chair and raps the top of her head with his script.
"Phones away," he chides. "We're starting now."
And they are: the girl named Hayley is already halfway through her fourth line. Addie slips her phone into her bag, flipping pages in her script.
She listens: first readings can often be a bit dry because no one quite knows what they're doing. Surprisingly, though, everyone does. Hayley's already going all out with her acting, barely pausing to check her script. She's asked to repeat her first two lines, and then she launches them right into the opening number.
Addie should be too old to get jealous, but she is, because she couldn't sightread nearly as well as the children here can when she was their age.
Annabell takes over, following Hayley's example and going all out. Addie's stop reading her script and is just watching her now, watching Annabell become Nikki as Nikki finds a dead girl in the girl's restroom. as Nikki is accused of killing her, as Nikki is thrown back into a past she'd been trying to forget.
One of the boys called Zachary is thrown into the mix, and Addie immediately loves his character: he's already a sweet, gentle person that contrasts wonderfully with a Nikki on the edge.
The girl opposite Addie sings a solo in one of the first few numbers, in a lovely, haunting voice that sends shivers down Addie's spine. The voice reminds Addie of a girl she'd once known, who'd once sung a creepy song to Addie trying to scare her.
As with all the other songs, the room fills with applause when the girl is done. Addie pretends to be looking at Mr. Harding, but really she watches the girl out of the corner of her eye as she slumps down in her seat once she's done, looking like she's trying to disappear.
The boy who plays Alex delivers his last few lines beautifully, before collapsing into and then falling off of his chair when he dies. Then Addie is watching the principal cast finish up the finale, and she frowns, because it doesn't feel like she's been sitting her for the length of a full show.
Mr. Harding claps the loudest, then stands up to address everyone. "For a first try, that was fantastic," he says, smiling. "Well done. I want to run by a few scenes with some of the understudies and swings in, and then I'll let you all go, but first, I want to ask the boys a serious question."
Mr. Hardings looks over the children seated at the far end of the table. "Hayley, come move up here with Annabell, I'll talk to you two and your parents later. Aaron, Christopher... Sawyer," he calls. "All three of you play characters that don't have the greatest deaths in the world. You're all fine with dealing with that for every show we do, right?"
All the boys nod feverishly.
"Okay... okay, good," Mr. Harding says. "We're good to go. Alice, would you mind leading us into the opening number?"
They run through a few more scenes: Addie gets the chance to sing a few lines and do a whole scene as Natalie Worthman. As they wrap up for the day, Addie puts her script away feeling like it's going to be a fun show.
Sure, people die in it, people kill themselves (maybe) in it, but that doesn't mean doing it won't be fun.
Mr. Harding makes sure to shake Addie's hand as she passes by him on her way out. "I'm so glad you auditioned," he tells her. "I was going to call you myself to get you to come down, but I guess I didn't need to. We'll catch up and you can tell me all about college soon, okay."
"Yes, sir," Addie jokes. She waves to some of the kids and their parents as she makes her way down to the car, and then she's driving home and listening to Next to Normal on her stereo a bit louder than she should be.
The lift is down for repairs, so Addie doubles back to leave her script in her car before climbing up the five floors to her apartment. She doesn't really mind at all: it's a trip she frequently makes for exercise anyway.
Addie has to jiggle her key around in the lock to get it to open, and as soon as it does she's engulfed in the smell of her favorite candles on the dining table, Wicked playing in the background, and her boyfriend as he hugs her tightly and fills her nose with the smell of the Italian food he's making that clings to her clothes.
It relieves Addie, knowing that even with a new show and having to quit her job and change her schedule, some things are never going to change.
Before anyone says something, yes Addie happens to be the name of this character. It also happens to be the name that shows up in my bio. For me.
It's not the same Addie.
This Addie is short for Adrianna, and this came about because I once had a girl in my class called Adrianna who everyone called Addie. Addie, while not my first name, is one of my two middle names and is not short for anything. I don't really go by it anymore unless I'm giving it to strangers (or here on Wattpad lol) and I didn't realize those matched until I was halfway through this chapter.
Oops.
Ignore that.
How was it? This is kinda a weird chapter and I'm not really fond of it myself but there a little hints here leading up to something see the hintsssss? Remember the hinnntttsss :P
As always, thank you so much for reading or voting!!! I do welcome negative and positive feedback (negative marginally more, because if I'm doing something wrong I wanna fix it fast) :)
Happy Sunday! (or whatever day it is where you are or when you're reading this)