Misfit Theater Company (Wattys Winner 2018)

28. Are We?

--FAIR WARNING: Adult Language Can Be Found In This Chapter--

Patti wasted no time in getting us all together to start working on our one act. Thatcher and I finalized the script Saturday and by Sunday, all four of us found ourselves in Patti's room again, rehearsing. She wanted to get all the blocking done right away, she said, especially with all of the quick costume and character changes that everyone has. "It needs to be perfect. We can't flub up the Bard's work," she said.

She had printed out copies of the script for each of us and gave us all different colored gel pens to mark in our blocking and directorial cues that she, with the help of Thatcher, gave us. As Gregory in the first scene, I was supposed to be roasting Moth's Sampson over and over again. As Lady Capulet, I was supposed to be cold and stuck up. As Tybalt, I was supposed to be bloodthirsty. The directions went on and on for each character, but I wasn't going to complain. Mom is right, I have a little bit of a chance of being chosen to be on A Call from Midnight, but so does everyone else in the class. I don't want to drag my group down and make us look bad just because I suck.

The fight scenes took the most of our time that day and into Monday's class, especially the one between my Tybalt, Patti's Mercutio, and Thatcher's Romeo. Finally yesterday, Wednesday, we perfected all the basic steps for each fight scene.

But all of Patti's directing is nothing compared to the work I've been doing at home. Every night after homework, I've watched the Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet, memorizing how each of my characters say their lines. It's easier for me to memorize them that way than the way Thatcher does it, which is just looking at the lines and saying them over and over again until they flow through him effortlessly. Then, once I had the sound of the lines in my head, I recorded myself reading each of my lines in the way I heard the actors say them, and I play them back through my headphones every chance I get. On the way to school, during study breaks at school, on the way home, while working on other assignments, while getting ready for bed; really, any time I can. I've never studied so hard for anything in my life, including the quiz in science I had on Tuesday and bombed. Oh well.

"Do you think we're ready to start running through the scenes?" Patti asks the group now that it's Thursday and we've been aggressively planning the scenes for the past four days.

"Doesn't hurt to try," Thatcher says.

"Okay, places everyone," she directs us. We're in our usual spot at the back of the stage where the shadows can sort of hide our progress from Layla Monroe's group's nosey gaze.

Thatcher steps forward to the center of our area, and recites the prologue. He and I cast him as the reader, because he'll be the last one to enter the first scene and he's the best one of us at memorizing long lines.

"Yes, great," Patti says. "Okay, now enter Moth and Janie."

Now is my moment to show off what I've been doing all week.

Moth starts with the first line as Sampson: "A dog of the house of Montague moves me to stand."

As Gregory, I roll my eyes and laugh arrogantly at Moth's character. "To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away."

Patti steps into our area, her chest puffed out as she holds an invisible sword at her side.

I wait until she enters to continue my line, now with a little fear in my voice: "Draw thy tool! Here comes one of the House of the Montagues."