By the time we gather in Haydu that evening to perform our short plays, I’m running solely on caffeine and adrenaline. I napped this afternoon while the cast worked on their lines, but I kept waking up to jot down more ideas, so it wasn’t exactly restful. I could really use more coffee, but I know my hands will shake if I have any, and then I won’t be able to play the piano. The whole company looks to be in the same exhausted-manic state as me; everywhere I turn, I meet too-wide smiles and glassy, crazed eyes. Even though I feel pretty awful, it’s kind of cool to be as wrung out as the rest of them—it proves I’ve worked as hard as they have. This is exactly the kind of Allerdale experience my family has been talking about my whole life, and now I’m here, right in the middle of everything.
Our group is scheduled to perform last, and I’m pretty sure everyone’s going to be asleep by the time we get up onstage. “Pinch me if I start to snore,” I tell Zoe, who’s sitting next to me dressed in a bedsheet toga. A few seats away, Jessa holds the donkey head from Midsummer on her lap and idly strokes its nose.
“Do I get to choose where I pinch you?” Zoe asks.
Russell sits down in the empty seat on my other side. “You ready for this?” he asks.
“I think so.” I want to express how much it means to me that we got to create this show together—the one truly creative moment of my summer—but I’m too tired to organize those ideas into coherent sentences. So instead I nudge him with my shoulder and say, “Thanks. Seriously.”
“Thank you,” he says back, and I know he gets it.
The lights go down, and Bob bounds onto the stage in a bright yellow bow tie, looking so fresh and rested that it’s hard not to hate him. He explains the rules of the festival to our audience, and then the first group of non-eqs gets up and performs a singsongy, rhyming chant accompanied by a lot of stomping and clapping and body-slapping. I think it’s about a truck stop, but I’m not totally sure. Three apprentices do a play about a stripper who accidentally gets sent back in time to the home of Sylvia Plath. Pandora’s group does a moody piece about a breakup, heavy on keening and garment-rending and light on dialogue. Most of the plays aren’t good, exactly, but they’re all pretty entertaining, and watching them makes me even more frustrated with Se?or Hidalgo. Every single group has come up with something more cohesive in the last twenty-four hours than Alberto has in six weeks.
By the time it’s our turn, I’m so exhausted, I don’t even have the energy to be nervous. We get a huge round of applause as we make our way up to the stage, but I can’t tell if it’s because our cast is popular or because everyone’s glad the night is almost over. I take my place at the piano, and as Zoe, Livvy, Kenji, and Todd group together center stage for our opening number, I feel a surge of love for my cast. Part of me can’t even believe how much we’ve accomplished today.
Our show starts with the lovers singing a parody of “Steppin’ to the Bad Side” as they head off into the magical woods, represented by the fog pouring out of the hazers. Russell does his brief cameo as Puck, poisoning Titania’s and Lysander’s eyes so they’ll fall in love with the first living creatures they see. He also turns Bottom’s head into a donkey head, and Jessa sings a parody of “I Am Changing” as she makes her transformation. The lovers fall for the wrong people and sing our parody of “Love Love You Baby” before eventually sorting themselves out. Bottom gets her normal head back and sings our version of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” to Titania. When I look up from the piano, I see Bob in the front row, laughing so hard, there are tears running down his cheeks.
Our cast finishes up with a parody of “One Night Only,” and then Zoe pulls me out from behind the piano for a full-group bow. I grip her hand on one side and Russell’s on the other as a wave of applause breaks over us, and it’s insanely satisfying to know that I created something everyone loved. I know this is probably the only time in my life I’ll get to bow on the Haydu stage, and I stare out into the audience’s smiling faces and soak it all up. I wish my family were here to see me succeed at something. Uncle Harrison really would’ve appreciated this.
The houselights come up, and the seven of us stumble into the wings, where we crush into a group hug with the donkey head squished in the middle. Jessa’s arm is tight around my shoulders, and even though I know her affection is probably temporary, I hold out hope that we can at least be friendly again, now that she sees I’m actually good at something. Everyone’s talking at the same time, and I close my eyes and stay very quiet, trying to fix this perfect feeling of belonging in my memory.
Bob comes bounding backstage and claps us on the shoulders, and we break apart. “The stars of our evening!” he cries. “That was absolutely brilliant! I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. How did you come up with the idea?”
“It was all Brooklyn,” Zoe says.
I smile and look at the floor. “Russell and I wrote most of it together.”
“Well, it was fantastic. I’d love to see a full-length show in this format one day.”
“Thanks,” Russell says. “We’d be happy to write you one anytime. Have your people call our people.”
Bob laughs. “I will, I will,” he says. “Congratulations to all of you.” As he walks away, he pumps his fist in the air and shouts, “Warriors for art!”
There’s a formal reception set up in a tent outside, and everyone heads in that direction. But when Zoe tries to steer me into the crowd, I resist. “I think I might go back to the room and sleep,” I say.