Page 53 of Dungeons and Drama

“Okay, that was better, townspeople.” I wave to a cluster of six students. “But you’re still too far upstage when young Shrek comes up to you. I need you to gethereby the time Henry has finished the next part of the narration.” I walk to the center of the stage and tap on the location with my foot. “Can we run that from the top one more time? And when he roars at you, really let go and screech with fright. I want to bring some humor to this scene so you can be a bit silly with it.”

I nod encouragingly and Meera—the youngest of the group—does a little jump of excitement that brings a smile to my face. I’m really loving the underclassmen who signed up to help with this showcase. I don’t know them well yet, butthey’re so enthusiastic and almost wide-eyed on the stage. A few of them have never done anything like this before.

I gesture to Henry to start his narration from the top. Seeing their excitement only pushes me harder to make this performance perfect. They need the musical as much as the upperclassmen do. I can already see Meera being the perfect lead her senior year. Since she’s on the shorter side, I bet she could pull off playing Annie.

After they finish a second run-through, Hoshiko steps up with the sixteen students who are playing fairy-tale characters. “We just finished reviewing the choreography for ‘Story of My Life.’ ”

“Perfect!” I say to everyone onstage. “Take a break. And great work.” I wave the newest group up. “Okay, I’m excited! Let’s see what we have.”

Hoshiko comes to my side as I’m cueing up the instrumental version of the song on my phone. Many wisps of hair have come out of her braids to frame her face in a frizzy halo, and that’s all I need to know she’s stressed. She’s used to working with trained dancers at her studio, and our group is the exact opposite.

“It’s, uh, not quite there yet,” she whispers. “I tried putting in a few shuffle steps to liven it up, but Eileen and Jack kept literally falling into each other.”

“Thank you anyway,” I reply. “You’re an angel.”

We step back and my eyes widen as I watch it unfold. Thankfully, I’ve got Jeremy playing Pinocchio and he’s terrific. But I can’t hear half the characters when they sing their lines about how hard it is to be a fairy-tale creature, and afew practically stand behind someone else so I can’t see them either.

I keep a mental tally of all the things we need to work on, but I start losing track. And then there’s the costumes. I figured one of the good things about doing this song is that we could rely on miscellaneous Halloween costumes to fill in for the Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, and others. For some roles we can get away with part of a costume—a pair of fairy wings for the Tooth Fairy, and pink shirts and pig ears for the Three Little Pigs, that sort of thing. But who knows if everyone will be able to source their own. I was joking at the Holiday House with Nathan, but I seriously wish I could go back and strip those mannequins. All those beautiful costumes in the wind and rain. What a tragedy.

The group ends up successfully moving into a line(ish) at the front of the stage for the final bars of the song. And we do have a few really beautiful singers in the group, despite some projection issues. I nod. This is workable. Meaning it’ll takework,but it’ll be impressive if we can clean it up.

Paul steps into my peripheral vision, but I don’t pull my attention away to acknowledge him. If I know Paul, he has an opinion about the performance, but there’s no time for that.

The song ends and I clap loudly despite the dejected looks and grimaces on the faces of many of the actors.

“That was a great start,” I tell them.

“You either don’t know the meaning of great or you’re anamazingactress,” Papa Ogre—that is, Terrance—mutters from a seat in the audience.

I spin to him and narrow my eyes. “We have rehearsals for a reason. And weallneed help with things.” I turn back and take in the entire group. “We still have a week and a half of rehearsal and we can get a lot done in that time. For now, the big thing I want everyone to remember is to project when they sing. We need the administration to be blown away. Pretend you’re singing to your hard-of-hearing grandma sitting in that back row.” I point to the very back of the auditorium. “If needed, we can simplify the choreography even more. But you need to memorize your lyrics and play it up. Be fun! Be dramatic! You’re pissed-off fairy-tale characters—it’s okay to be over the top for this!”

I sing the chorus, doing extra dramatic sulking as I do. There’s a few chuckles in the group. A small part of me misses this part of theater—being onstage, learning lines and perfecting characters. But being the director, watching and helping with it all, is exhilarating. I love it. And it makes me want to bring back the musical all the more.

Hoshiko points to her phone with raised eyebrows.

“Okay, we’re out of time. Thanks, everyone. Keep practicing and we’ll work on it next week!”

They head off, waving and thanking me. It’s hard to pull myself from the auditorium. I’d stay here all night rehearsing if we were allowed.

“It’s progress,” Hoshiko says. But I can hear the question mark in her voice.

“It absolutely is. We’ll get there. You already helped them so much today. Thank you again.”

She shrugs and swings her book bag onto her shoulder. “I did what I could.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I hug her.

“Are you sure I can’t give you a ride to the store?” she asks. “It’s not fair that you got to ride with Nathan last night but you can’t ride with me.”

I texted her as soon as I got home last night to update her on things with Nathan, and she promptly sent me a playlist of love songs that I’m supposed to send him for our next late-night drive. I’m sonotdoing that.

“I bet they’ll let us drive together soon—they’re clearly getting sick of driving me around everyplace.”

She pouts. “I’ll see you at the store in a few minutes.”

I wave goodbye and turn, only to find that Paul hasn’t left with the others. I almost groan aloud.

“What’s up?” I ask as I gather my things.

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