They had three whole days during tech week with their new props, mostly focusing on getting used to where everything needs to be and when while others work out the last of the lighting and sound and choreography.
Paige is sure that between all the directors and managers, they've managed to lose at least fifty clipboards.
Paige is also sure that she's never been more sick of holding a makeup bag, which she'll have almost every show, when she's playing Kayla. Over the course of the week she's been told a million times to leave that small bag on this one small shelf just off left stage, and not to set it on the front of the sink in one of the restroom sinks, but on the back, and then they'd removed the sinks and replaced them with counters, and then wanted Paige to leave it two inches from the top and then they tried to work in an extra line there and Paige had just about died.
It felt good, though, or at least to Paige. They were down to their last week of rehearsals, and sure, pressure was mounting, but all Paige could think was that next Tuesday they'd be performing in front of a live, paying audience. They were almost done. Sure, they'd still be having rehearsals and stuff during the run, but it was sure to be a lot less stressful.
What Paige was really excited about was that all the costumes, hairstyles, makeup - everything was now confirmed. That meant that they were scheduled to head into one of the dance studios that Wednesday for their photoshoot. The room had already been converted into a makeshift photo studio, and they were going to spend most of the day in there taking photos for the last of the press things.
Mr. Harding had informed them all the day before that they were going to be heading in by last names- in alphabetical order, because all the children had wanted to go first, and they were trying to be fair.
Paige was perfectly fine with this, because it still meant she was one of the first few people going. She wore all of her main costumes: her primary Nikki outfit, her Kayla one, and then two of her ensemble ones. They called Annabell in to take a picture with her, then Hayley and Alice too, all the Nikkis in one photo.
In between shots they all jammed out in front of the white screen, and they'd taken pictures of that too. Lara always made the best playlists for their theater class, and she'd been coerced into bringing a bunch of them down to the theater just for the photoshoot.
Nothing got rid of tech week stress better than doing crazy dancing to 13 the musical with equally shameless theater people.
Paige gets booted out into the hall outside a little after that. She immediately claims the closest vacant chair, so that she can just hear the music playing loudly in the dance studio.
It's a relatively painless photoshoot. Everyone's happy, even Lara, who's been missing a few rehearsals and moping around school and the theater after rehearsals. She still joins them in the auditorium at school during lunch, but always crams herself into a corner and rarely contributes to the conversation.
She's causing a fuss now: Paige strains to hear, but she just makes out Lara's raised voice, then Mr. Harding heading for the door. He doesn't quite get there, Lara barging out into the hall clutching one of her character's shirts. She disappears into the restroom and emerges a moment later, disappearing back into the dance studio.
No one explains the incident, but it had gone mostly unnoticed. Paige occupies herself with getting very familiar with her phone, until she's called in with everyone else in the hallway to get the cast photos done. They cram the adults and the teenagers at the sides of the room, taking photos of the kids, and then the teens, and then the adults. Then Paige is being maneuvered next to Annabell, wedged between one of the kids in front of her and one of the adults behind. The camera snaps a few times: they're rearranged slightly.
"Oh my God," Riley moans as she's dragged from next to Annabell and put in a kneeling position next to the kids.
Paige gets moved to the back a few times, in between Adrianna and Lara, and then they arrange everyone by gender, just to make things more complicated.
Finally they're done, and Mr. Harding wastes no time in ushering everyone back into the theater for rehearsal, hanging back to look at the photos with some of the other adults.
After forty-five minutes he appears in the theater, waving his hands wildly. Mr. Harding has tried all sorts of things to try and divert their attention before, so Paige and Annabell continue with their lines.
"If you think-"
"Paige, shhhh, good job," Mr. Harding shouts, coming to a stop in front of the pit.
Paige stops, hand half-raised to push Annabell's shoulder.
"We're done for the day," Mr. Harding calls.
"But it's barely past noon," Annabell says, shooting a furtive glance offstage to check the clock. "It's not even two yet."
"Yes, well, I'm the director and I say you've all been doing a splendid job," Mr. Harding says, grinning widely. "You all know your lines, your cues, your music, and you were all splendid at the shoot today. Therefore, I say it's time for you to go home and have some fun."
Paige sees some of the cast step on stage to watch Mr. Harding. None of them make a move.
"Oh, I'm serious," Mr. Harding exclaims. "You all deserve it. We start previews next week, go spend some time doing whatever you all do in your native habitats."
Everyone's still hesitant. Paige glances around, eying the doors.
"Well, spread the word! Shoo!"
Paige and Annabell shoo down to their dressing rooms, and between them manage to get their fellow teens (even Lara) to go out with them and wreak some havoc.
<==================================>
The first video is released sometime Thursday afternoon.
Paige would have been able to pinpoint exactly when if she'd had a watch on her during rehearsals. Looking back, Paige knows that it went up when Mr. Harding left the theater halfway through one of Nikki's numbers and came back grinning from ear to ear, followed by some vaguely familiar theater staff.
During their break, Paige is lounging in one of the seats near the pit, deep in an argument about the kids and Riley about some musicals.
"But I don't get it," Riley moans. "Matilda sucks."
"It does not," Paige says. "All those kids are brilliantly talented."
"But it makes no sense," Riley says. "I mean, this girl can just randomly decide she can move things with her eyes? What's with that? And don't get me started on-"
"I like it," Alice interrupts. "It's a nice story. And it's good, like it lets kids know that even if their family hates them, they can still find people who care about them. Or something like that."
Riley slides off her seat and kneels on the floor until she's eye level with Alice. "If parents hated their kid, why on earth would they bring them to see Matilda?"
Paige sighs, grabbing the back of Riley's collar and hauling her butt back onto her seat. Alice scowls and sticks out her tongue at Riley.
"Leave the kids alone, Riley," Paige says. "I think it's a perfectly good show. And Matilda knew about her... ability beforehand it would just ruin everything. Besides, how many o would want to be in Matilda?"
The hands of all the kids shoot up.
Riley makes a face that sends Paige and the kids into fits of laughter.
Paige is wiping a tear of mirth from Phoebe's eye when Cameron comes bursting onto the stage, clutching his laptop. Flynn emerges right behind him, followed by Adrianna.
"Show them, show them, show them!" Flynn chants, running into one of the chairs left on the stage. He goes down hard, and Adrianna stops to help him up.
Cameron slides off the stage, heading right for Paige. Zachary comes running from where ever he was in the house. By the time Cameron reaches them, they've been joined by the Annabell and Lara, and most of the adults.
"Look," Cameron says breathlessly, passing his laptop to Paige.
Paige takes it, scooting back slightly in her seat so that everyone can see, and shakes the mouse slightly to wake up the screen. A YouTube page comes up. It's paused, nothing but a blurry image filling the screen.
"Play it, play it, play it," Flynn pants, joining the group.
Paige does, and the image clears up into a very familiar sight.
"That's us," Riley says, as if it's escaped anyone's noticed. "That's us in the rehearsal room!"
They watch, Paige turning up the volume. It's mostly a collage of shots from rehearsals, both on the stage and in the cramped little room. It's interlaced with sections of interviews with the teenagers. Paige sees herself and Annabell flash by, saying something about playing opposite the boys, and that's followed by the shots of Zachary and Flynn doing the duet with Annabell, both boys simultaneously shown on a split screen.
Phoebe leans in closer. "Where are we?" she asks.
Paige exits out of the full screen, mostly to look at the title. "This is just us," Paige tells the girl. "See: Meet the teens of Shadows: a new musical. The description says it's your turn tomorrow."
The end of Paige's sentence is lost in a loud squeal right by her ear. Paige flinches as Riley leans into her, staring at the screen.
"Holy f-"
"Riley," Adrianna warns.
"Look at how many views there are!" Riley says, bouncing in her seat. "That's more than the old-"
"How many?" Sawyer asks, trying to crawl up into Riley's seat to see.
"Eleven thousand, nine hundred, and fifty-eight," Adrianna reads.
A hushed silence falls upon them, just in time to hear the final bit of the video, a fade out of the video on the screen, with Lara singing her number in the background.
"He must have recorded that at the rehearsal with the band, weeks ago," Lara says, breaking the silence.
"Eleven thousand," Zachary breathes from behind Paige. "Holy... Jesus, that's practically more than the population of this town."
"It is," Adrianna says.
"Don't use that name in vain," William says.
Paige glances down at him, smiling, before craning her neck to look at Adrianna. "That's a lot of people," she says.
Adrianna nods, her hand coming up so that she can chew on her thumbnail while she thinks. "Who would know about how many tickets we've sold? Tickets are already for sale, right?"
"Yeah, I bought some yesterday," Zachary says.
Adrianna continues to think, watched by everyone, even the adults. "I wonder-"
"What's this here? What are you all doing?"
Paige looks up, only to see Mr. Harding disappear in a flying hug from Annabell. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Annabell squeals.
Paige thrusts the laptop back at Cameron and clambers over the seats to join in the group tackle, finding herself squished between Alice and Riley.
"Do you know how many people saw that?" Alice asks. "That's a lot of people!"
Mr. Harding laughs. "You saw the video?"
Everyone nods.
"How many tickets were sold for the first preview?" Adrianna asks.
Mr. Harding stops messing up Sawyer's hair to look over at the adults. "Well, let's put it this way," he says. "We pretty much have a full house every day until we open."
Paige sees Adrianna break out into a wide grin and accept Mr. Harding's gesture to join in the hug.
<==================================>
The girls, meaning Paige, Annabell and some of the kids, have spent almost every night that week sleeping over at Riley's, who's the closest one to the theater and also has the biggest bedroom. To Paige's surprise, Lara had been sleeping in the corner of the room next to Paige almost every night that week: the theater's been having camps and sleepovers for years, and Paige can't think of one other occasion over the years when Lara's stayed overnight at any of those events.
It's big fun, though. They play board games for a fair part of the evening and then watch a Disney movie, mostly for the benefit of the kids.
On Thursday night, they were watching an early Halloween movie on the TV.
"Could you get me a soda?" Paige calls as soon as the commercials come on and Riley gets up to get some water from the kitchen.
"Get it yourself, lazy-bum," Riley shouts back, but Paige hears the creaky door of the cabinet with the soda open moments later.
Paige is too busy exchanging a grin with Annabell to notice the commercial change.
The kids see it immediately.
"Annie! Annie, look!" Hayley squeals suddenly, sitting up and pointing at the TV.
Paige turns around in time to see her face disappear: Mr. Harding had been sneaking around with his microphone recording them during rehearsals. Paige could hear a very good recording of one of the teen and kid numbers playing behind the footage.
"Holy cow," Annie breathes, then she's tripping over Lara to get to her phone.
"Wow, that sounds like he put us in a recording studio for that number," Lara says.
"It's that professional recorder of his," Alice chimes in. "Remember, he was playing some stuff on it for us."
A thought occurs to Paige. "Riley!" she screams. "Riley, get in here!"
Paige pretty much upset the whole house: Riley and her parents come running, and they all stand and watch the last few seconds of the commercial.
"Goodness," Riley's mom says once it's over.
Annie's still freaking out on the phone with her parents.
Riley collapses on the beanbag next to Paige. "I forgot your soda," she says.
The kids find this the funniest thing ever.
My eyes burn.
Anywho, thanks as always for the reads and votes :) I greatly appreciate every single one.
P.S. Who saw the Matilda the Musical Thanksgiving performance? I personally liked last year's better, but it was nice to see the new kids with the tables and everything (I'm pretty sure it's the first professionally filmed performance of them). On the other hand though, what even was the When I Grow Up/Naughty reprise????
Prays that they filmed the whole musical haha no.