The Play’s The Thing
The next day I woke far less certain about the future. It was the first day of auditions for Hamlet and I was in no way prepared. Oh sure, I had entire sections of that and at least ten more of the bard’s works memorized. That didn’t bring me, a brand new freshman with the green hardly beginning to wear off, any closer to nabbing the part of Ophelia. It wasn’t accurate to say that I doubted my abilities. I just knew how the theatre worked. Seniority was often everything, so a newbie like myself needed to be extra special outstanding to get her foot through the door.
With those thoughts in mind, I woke a half hour earlier than Justine and ten minutes before my alarm clock even rang. I showered and padded back to the room to dry my hair as quietly as possible, but to my surprise Justine had already dressed and left for class. Somehow she managed to always get ready quickly and still look put together, whereas I spent forever in front of the mirror being indecisive. I finally settled on a polka dotted dress that reminded me of Pretty Woman and my worn out Chucks. It was a bit of an odd combination, but the dress made me feel pretty and the shoes were comfortable – just the two things I needed to make it through the day.
The first class of the day was University 101, a boring intro class that I shared with nearly every other freshman majoring in fine or performing arts. It was a gigantic class, the type held in a huge lecture hall full of students who were either half asleep, fully asleep, chatting or passing notes – all without the professor taking much notice. I slid into a seat next to Justine, who had evidently stopped for breakfast (a bagel in one hand an a mug of coffee in the other), just two minutes before the official start of class. The dry erase board announced that today’s topic was How To Use The Library. Just as the professor cleared his throat in a feeble attempt to gather our attention, Zac came bounding up the isle and into the seat to my left. He flashed me a feeble smile that told me he wasn’t much of a morning person as he flung his backpack over the side of the theater-style seat.
After listening to Dr. Armour drone on about the minutia of the online card catalogue system for what felt like an eternity but was probably only twenty minutes, I felt a poke in the side. That seemed to be Zac’s favorite method of getting my attention already. He slipped a piece of paper onto my desk and I realized it was the drawing he had refuse to let me see the night before. I had to admit, it did look a bit like me – if I were an anime character. I leaned over and drew a smiley face on the open page of his notebook. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zac scribbling something on the page. He slid the notebook toward me and I squinted to read his handwriting:
What play is it?
I scribbled my reply and passed the notebook back to him.
He kept the notebook in front of himself for a little longer the second time, and I could see why when he finally slid it back to me.
Break a leg! Don’t drown yourself, it’s not worth it!
I had to laugh at that, but I tried to quiet myself so as not to draw Dr. Armour’s attention. He had to be the most boring professor I had, but I imagined I would be boring too if I were forced to spend my time teaching freshmen how to breathe and tie their own shoes.
We scribbled notes back and forth for the rest of the class and it helped tremendously in passing the time. By the time the professor dismissed us, we had filled two notebook pages with bad knock-knock jokes and drawings of singing hot dogs and aliens in pajamas.
The rest of the day went by in a veritable blur, like a movie montage in fast forward. I was only able to choke down a few bites of sushi at dinner, but I struggled through it for fear that if I didn’t, Zac would take it upon himself to force feed me. The boy seemed shy at first, but having given him the tiniest opportunity to open up, he showed his truly colors. And his true colors knew no boundaries whatsoever.
I shook my head at the thought of him, and steeled myself to walk through the doors of the theatre. Auditions were held in the smaller workshop theatre, a plain affair with deep stadium seating in the round and a bare stage except for a small grouping of black boxes. When I entered the room, I could see several students already gathered in the floor around the stage. Immediately I recognized Whitley, and she smiled up at me and waved.
“Hey, Toria,” Whitley called out, “I didn’t know you were auditioning! Must be a pretty tough show to come in on, huh?”
I nodded and took a seat next to her in the floor. “It definitely is. We did A Midsummer Night’s Dream in high school and I was lucky enough to get Hermia, but that’s different. There were so many big female parts in that! This one is gonna be really competitive.”
A curvy girl with perfectly styled hair and makeup offered me a small smile. “If you played Hermia, I’m sure you stand a good chance of getting a part here. I’m Cecily, by the way.”
“Cecily’s our star actress,” a voice added over my shoulder. I looked up to see a tall boy with dark curly hair and a very persuasive smile. I thought I heard a bit of venom in his words, but his expression was disarming enough to ignore whatever undertones might have been there. He sat down on the floor next to me, still flashing that winning smile and extended his hand. “I’m Donovan and hopefully I’ll be your Hamlet this semester.”
“My Hamlet?” I replied, incredulous. I was not oblivious to his flirting, but still a bit taken aback by it. I noticed a bottle blonde a few feet away shooting me a bit of a dirty look, but didn’t pay much attention to it. I probably would have been jealous, or at least curious, to see this boy flirt with any of the other girls in the room.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “I meant the general you, of course. But I wouldn’t mind playing Hamlet to your Ophelia, either.”
Whitley leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Watch out for that one. He’s the biggest flirt in the whole department.”
As I was concocting an appropriate reply, Dr. Ansary swished onto the stage in a flurry of lacy layers and bracelets. She handed pink paperback versions of the script to everyone and took our names and other various details down on a list. The latter was largely a formality given that most of us were theatre students whom she was already quite familiar with. Dr. Ansary then rattled off a list of scenes for us to act out. Not surprisingly, I read mostly for smaller parts while the veteran actors tackled on the larger ones.
I watched from the sidelines as Donovan read a variety of scenes as Hamlet; it was obvious that he had reason to think he would be playing that particular part. The other actresses were good – very good. Even the bottle blonde –evidently named Christin – who had given me the eyes held her own onstage. I guess she surprised me a little, because she looked much more like the cheerleader type than the actress type. But I had acted long enough to see plenty of different types of people on stage; it really wasn’t fair of me to judge her or anything else at the auditions – although some were much, much better than others.
After we ran out of assigned scenes to read, Dr. Ansary stood on the stage and stared down at us. She scratched her head, cocking it to the side, and said, “Okay people, one more scene. Donovan and Victoria, read Hamlet and Ophelia. The same bit you read with Whitley and Christin.”
Donovan hopped onto the stage gracefully, then offered me a hand to help me scale the small distance from floor to stage. I opened the script to the passage Dr. Ansary had specified and waited for a signal to begin. Donovan gave me a nod and a cheesy wink and I cleared my throat.
“Good my lord, how does Your Honor for this many a day?”
“I humbly thank you; well, well, well.”
“My lord, I have remembrances of yours…”
The scene seemed to go by in a flash, a flurry of words pouring quite easily out of mine and Donovan’s lips. When we finished, Dr. Ansary was clapping softly and nodding. I hopped down off the stage and awaited her comments, chewing my lip nervously.
“Wonderful. That will be all for tonight. I’ll post the cast list in two days, so come by, check your name off the list and pick up a script then. Thank you all,” she stated, gathering up the scripts and papers scattered around the first row of seats. That was our cue to leave, I suppose. I walked over to where I had thrown my bag down and slung it back over my shoulder. I could feel someone’s presence behind me and I turned around to see Donovan. He was a bit close for comfort and I bristled a little at the feeling of his body so near mine.
“Like I said, I wouldn’t mind playing Hamlet to your Ophelia,” he said, grinning. “That was an awesome audition.”
I took a small step backward, hoping he would take notice. “Thanks. I’ve read the play a million times, so I guess it shows. And I’ve been acting for as long as I could talk. Maybe longer.”
Donovan had not quit grinning for a second of this. Anyone could see his intentions. I wanted to dislike the boy, but I found myself, although not relaxing entirely, warming to the idea of spending time with him. I would have to anyway, if I was going to make it through this production.
“If you get the part, we could get together and run lines,” he spoke. After a beat, he continued, “Or if you don’t get the part. We could still get together and talk about things outside this building. I hear there’s a world out there, but I don’t remember much about it.”
So the boy was a charmer. I could live with that. I returned his smile, though mine was perhaps not so winning, and replied, “Sure, I’d like that. In either circumstance.”
Out the corner of my eye, I saw Whitley approaching and turned to give her a small wave. She changed her course and sidled right up to us, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. Her head practically resting on my shoulder so that we probably looked like some Greek monster, she said, “Well I hope I’m not interrupting a serious love connection here, but I’ve got to get this girl back to the dorm in time for our show.”
“Our show?” I asked, without even enough room to turn my head and direct my questioning look in Whitley’s direction.
“Yeah, CSI is on tonight. Don’t tell me you forgot!” Whitley replied. I wished I could see inside her head and figure out exactly what she was plotting. It was one of my favorite shows, but I couldn’t recall revealing that little fact.
I wiggled out of her grasp slightly so that I could actually look at her and not be stuck staring at Donovan’s incredulous and, if I might admit, rather attractive, face. My confusion had nearly slipped out, but I reined it in and replied, “Oh yeah, you know how bad I am at remembering when my shows are on. Are we watching it in my room or yours?”
“I think we’ll watch it in yours this time,” Whitley replied, pulling me away from Donovan. “See you later, Donny Boy. You know you’re a shoe-in for Hamlet. You did great.”
Once we were through the theatre’s doors and out of earshot, I turned to Whitley and gaped. “What was that all about?”
“Oh, I just took a guess that you like CSI, too. Do you? We can definitely watch it,” she said with a shrug.
Pushing open the lobby doors, I replied, “Okay, that’s more of a how than a why. Why did you try to get me away from him?”
“Like I said, Donny’s the resident flirt. He means well, but he’s a strange cookie,” she replied. After a small pause, she added, “Plus, I wanted to ask you for a favor.”
I knew there was a catch. Isn’t there always a catch?
“Alright, what’s up?”
Whitley pursed her lips. I thought I could almost see a true blush seeping through her makeup. Why she wore so much makeup when she was a natural beauty was something I would never understand. I had noticed that to be a trend among actors, and my heavily lined eyes had no room to judge hers.
“Well, I was thinking… you’re kinda friends with Zac, right?”
I nodded slowly. “You could say that, yeah. I mean, we just met but I have two classes with him and he seems like a nice guy.”
She blushed a distinctly darker shade of pink. “The thing is, I’ve had a thing for his brother since I saw him around last year. I keep dropping hints but he’s like absolutely oblivious. I can’t get through to him.”
“And you suppose I can?” I asked, fishing through my bag for my university ID card as we approached the front doors of Johnson.
Whitley pulled her card out of her jeans pocket and brushed it across the scanner. “I don’t know. I just thought I’d have a little bit of an in with him now, you know? I mean, since you know Zac.”
I chewed gently on my bottom lip, thinking about it. “I dunno, let’s wait and see how this friendshippy thing with Zac works out. I’m not good at having friends.”
Whitley laughed and gave me a gentle nudge. “Please, you’re doing fine. I heard Donovan asking you out.”
“I said friendship. Bad at friendship. Quite good at the kissy-kissy stuff,” I replied. Again I fished through my bag and dug out the key to my room, unlocking it and motioning Whitley inside.
“Well so is Donovan from what I hear,” she said, smirking. “And you know, when his hair was longer last year, he looked a lot like Zac.”
“Hmm, really? I can’t imagine that at all,” I said, tilting my head to the side and trying to imagine it as I took a seat on my bed. They both had a charm, but each was unique. I couldn’t see any similarity at all in how they looked or acted, or how I thought of them.
“Totally,” Whitley replied, sitting in Justine’s desk chair. “And they’re both pretty easy on the eyes, don’t you think?”
“Boy crazy, much?”
“Not really. Well, a little. I just know a cute guy when I see one. Anyway, you can have either of them. I’ll stick with Taylor,” she replied.
I shook my head. “Taylor’s alright, I guess. Kind of beanpole-esque, though. Don’t you think?”
Whitley grinned. “I’d climb that beanpole any day.”