“Yeah,” I say. “Wait, you’re not in this, are you?”
“Oh God, no,” he says. “Nobody wants to see me perform, trust me. I’m doing the set.”
I’m about to tell him I’m pretty sure nobody wants to see me perform, either, but I swallow the words down. “Cool,” I say. “Do you know anything about the show?”
Russell sits next to me and stretches out his legs. “Nope. I haven’t even met the director or anything. I hope he doesn’t want anything crazy, ’cause my budget’s only fifty dollars.”
“Hey, thanks for helping me with the lighting stuff the other day,” I say. “I would’ve been totally lost without you.”
“No problem. You feeling more comfortable now?”
“Maybe a little.” I haven’t done anything too stupid during a crew call in the last couple of days, but I’m pretty sure that’s because Solomon has stopped giving me jobs that require actual thought. Mostly I’ve been steadying other people’s ladders like a human sandbag. At least the other actors who are on lighting crew first rotation show up every afternoon after their rehearsals, so I’m not the only one who’s completely clueless.
“It takes a while, but you’ll get it,” Russell says.
I’m about to tell him I’ll probably be assigned to another department by the time I feel comfortable, but before I can say anything, the door bangs open, and a guy in his twenties strides in. His square glasses are askew, and his dark hair is sticking up in a giant poof like he’s been running his hands through it over and over. He looks so stressed out that if I saw him on the street, I’d assume he’d been in court all day, trying to get innocent people off death row. He plunks down in one of the folding chairs in a showily exhausted way.
“Gather round,” he calls, his hands making weary sweeps through the air, and everyone sits. “My name is Clark, and I’ll be your director for”—he pulls out a piece of paper and reads off it—“Se?or Hidalgo’s Circus of Wonders.”
Russell shoots me an incredulous look, and I raise an eyebrow back. If the director doesn’t even know what’s supposed to be happening in this room, that doesn’t bode well for the rest of us.
“This play is a work in progress,” Clark continues. “We’re lucky enough to have our playwright, Alberto Mu?oz, here to work with us and develop the play to suit this particular cast. Alberto, raise your hand.” A skinny guy in blindingly white sneakers and slightly too-short jeans raises his hand across the circle, but he keeps his face tipped toward the floor. “Alberto will be here observing as we work together as an ensemble, and then he’ll start developing some pages for the next time we meet.”
“So…there’s no script?” asks a guy with chin-length hair.
“We’re going to develop the script together,” Clark tells him, obviously frustrated.
“But, is there, like, anything? What’s the play about?”
“It’s about a circus of wonders,” Clark snaps. He sounds bizarrely angry about it.
“But what are we working on, exactly, if there’s nothing—”
Clark cuts him off. “I need everyone to go around and say your names and your special skills.”
Nobody seems clear on what a “special skill” entails, but nobody seems to want to ask, either. Natasha says she can sing opera, tap-dance, or do both at the same time. One of the guys can do a back handspring, and another guy can bench-press a hundred and fifty pounds. The guy with the long hair says he can burp the alphabet. Pandora announces that she took a pole-dancing class last year, and I file that information away to tell Zoe later. I have a feeling she’ll appreciate it.
When my turn comes, I say, “I’m Brooklyn, and I can play the piano.”
Clark nods and makes a note on his pad. “Anything else?”
If the last couple of days have proven anything, it’s that I’m not very special or skilled. I shake my head.
“Fine.” Clark looks at Russell.
“Oh, I’m not in the show,” he says. “I’m Russell. I’m your set designer.”
“But there’s not going to be a set.”
“Well, there could be one, if you want. I could make you one.”
Clark sighs heavily. “Using set pieces is insulting to the audience. If they can’t use their imaginations, they don’t deserve to be in the room. We’ll do it all with lighting.”
The girl sitting on Russell’s other side says, “We really don’t have that much lighting equipment to work with. I can try to—”
“I’m not asking you; I’m telling you,” Clark snaps, and she goes silent. He turns back to Russell. “What are your special skills? I’m sure we can use you for something.”
“Um. I also play the piano? And I’m pretty good at AutoCAD and basketball. I don’t know if those are special skills. It seems like maybe they’re regular skills?”