Theatrical Page 4

  “I think we’d better get some teas in, my lovely. Unless you’ve got a bottle of Scotch handy?”

  “I’m already on it.”

  Nina gives me a smile and a nod as I’m led away towards a row of chairs on the far side of the yoga mats.

  “Second thing about stage management? Know everybody – cast, creatives and crew.”

  We have stopped in front of an occupied chair – two, if you count the massive handbag taking up a second. The first is taken by an East Asian guy who is definitely my age; his hair is swept back from his forehead and he’s wearing a long black waistcoat over a red T-shirt and skinny jeans, along with the most enormous white trainers I’ve ever seen. He beams at me with a big smile that’s almost too wide for his face. I give him a pathetic half-wave of hello.

  “George, this is Hope. Hope, I’ll be back with you in a sec. I’d better go and make sure our director and our lead haven’t murdered each other.”

  I think she’s only half-kidding.

  One of us has got to say something, so in the spirit of not being the only person under twenty in the room any more, it might as well be me. I point to the handbag on the chair.

  “Do you know whose bag this is?”

  “Oh, that’s mine,” says George in a broad Newcastle accent, grabbing the handles and swinging it onto his lap, then down to the floor. It makes an alarmingly loud thud when he drops it. “Sorry – I just chucked it anywhere. I brought every bit of make-up I own with me, just in case. I didn’t know whether I’d need it today.” He looks me up and down. “I’m the hair and make-up intern, by the way. And the wardrobe intern too. I think. It’s all a bit muddled, really. George Soo. Like Peggy, only…not.”

  “Huh?” He’s lost me.

  “Peggy. Peggy Sue? Like the musical?”

  I’ve got nothing, and he laughs. It’s a warm, open laugh, and he waves a hand as if to say forget it. “I know. Feeble joke. You were Hope…?”

  “Hope. Yes.” In no way did I almost forget my name there. No way. “Hope, stage management.”

  “Nice to meet you, Hope Stagemanagement.”

  I should have seen that coming.

  He laughs quietly. “Sorry. Bad joke. My family’s Korean, so there’s a whole surname thing. So what’s your actual name, then?”

  “Hope Parker. I’m the stage management intern. Probably.”

  “Probably?”

  “If they don’t immediately chuck me for opening a door straight into Tommy Knight’s face.” I flop down on the seat next to him and pretend not to notice him stifling another laugh. I guess it is almost funny. He looks familiar somehow, in a way I can’t quite place. “Okay, weird question – but have you done anything at the Square Globe?”

  His whole face lights up. “I knew I knew you! Merchant of Venice last year. I helped with make-up when Stevie got the flu!”

  I remember. Stevie called and said a friend of a friend would cover her – and he did. He was good, too. “That’s where I know you from!”

  And that’s all it takes to break the ice – one short, shared production where we didn’t even meet properly, and here we are. Fellow travellers on the Good Ship Theatre.

  Across the room, I spot Amy heading back towards us, her eyes only just visible over the stack of folders she’s carrying.

  All of which have my name on them. Literally.

  I shoot a glance at George’s giant handbag. “Any chance I could maybe borrow that later?” I ask feebly – and he looks up at Amy’s payload and winces.

  “I don’t think they’d fit…” he whispers.

  I think he’s right. This lot’ll barely fit in a suitcase, never mind a handbag.

  I’ve only been here half an hour, but suddenly trying to copy Kemal’s chemistry notes is starting to look a lot more appealing.

  Amy pulls up another chair as George gazes open-mouthed at the pile of ring binders. “I’ve got a few bits and pieces for you, Hope. Now seems as good a time as any to have a quick look through, before we really get stuck in with the rehearsal.” She risks a quick glance over her shoulder towards the kitchen, where there’s still shouting. The door opens a fraction and is slammed shut again – but not before the words “I’m not done with you yet, you selfish little sh—” seep out. When she looks back round, Amy’s smile is rictus-like, and her eyes look like she’s about to kill.

  “As I said in the interview, your role involves a lot of script and rehearsal notes – here, at least – and supporting Rick, Nina and the cast, particularly Tommy. Yes, I know,” she adds, then carries on without even pausing for breath. “In the theatre, it’ll be more of the same. Lots of prompting and cueing. If you’re comfortable with that, we’ll get you running the crew cues and making stage calls. Sound good?” She hands me the first, fullest folder. “There’s your copy of the script. You’ll want to read that through and make whatever notes you need, but you can do that in your own time. For today, we’ll put you on the book – here’s your pencil.”

  My fingers take the pencil of their own accord. I know how this goes: follow the script and prompt anyone who forgets their lines, or goes left when they’re supposed to go right. Keep track of any changes with the pencil.

  Folder after folder comes at me. “Here’s everyone’s Contact pages – have a good look at those. It’ll help you get to know the company. And this is the rehearsal and call schedule until opening night – I’ll be handling most of this so you won’t need it all, but it’s good to have… And here’s a copy of Rick’s prep notes.”

  She piles them into my hands – and I was wrong about the first one being the fullest. The last one, Rick’s notes, is so full that it has a fat elastic band wrapped around it to stop it from exploding outwards.

  “Mmm.” I know that stage management means paperwork – endless fiddly lists and call sheets and needing to make seventy-four copies of everything, blown up to 144 per cent (the magic number that makes book-size pages into A4 pages) – but this is a lot of paperwork. The Square Globe has always been…well, to be perfectly honest, a bit rubbish at this sort of thing, so these folders are a whole new world. The noise I make is small and high-pitched and panicked – and (I hope) easy to miss. However, Amy doesn’t miss anything.

  “You’ll pick it up soon enough, don’t worry. I’ve marked up the lighting and sound cues on your copy already, so you’ve only got line prompts to worry about for the moment.” She flips a couple of pages and points to a pencil squiggle in a margin, then, with one practised motion, Amy slaps the folder shut, twists it round in her hand and shoves it at me, landing it on top of the pile in my lap. Beside me, George is still staring at Mount Ring-binder in shock.

  “Oh my god. I thought the sketchbooks they gave me were bad enough. Is there more?” George whispers, tucking his trainers even more tightly under his chair.

  Amy doesn’t bat an eyelid. I guess this is all just an average day for her, but I’m starting to feel seriously out of my depth – this is not how things happen at the Square Globe. She points to a battered little-old-lady shopping trolley in the far corner of the room, one that’s more hole than filthy tartan fabric. I can almost smell it from here. “I dug that out of the stores for you to carry the files home. You’ll probably want to look through them away from rehearsals, and things tend to wander here. Mostly because Rick keeps picking them up if he forgets his own notes – keep an eye out for that. The trolley’s not glamorous, I know, but it’ll do.”

  I stare at it in horror. I have to use that? How the hell am I going to get it past Mum?

  Meanwhile, Amy carries on as though giving someone a trolley that looks like you stole it from outside a bingo hall then left it in a field for six months is a perfectly normal thing to do. “I’ll talk you through the call schedule tomorrow, but it’s fairly self-explanatory – just the list of everyone who needs to be at each rehearsal. We don’t need all of them every day, but of course when we get to tech week, we’ll start to need more people. Then we’ll have to ha
ve the full company in for the technical and dress rehearsals. The one you’ve got to watch,” she says in a conspiratorial voice, making George lean that little bit closer, “is Tommy. Supporting the cast is part of the job, but I particularly need you to be available for anything he wants help with – errands, that kind of thing. Keep his head in the theatre as much as you can. We can’t afford to let him get distracted. You do understand, don’t you?”

  “What happened to ‘not my monkey’?” I ask.

  “Hope, when it comes to getting Tommy to rehearsals, he very definitely is your monkey.”

  With note-perfect timing, the kitchen door bangs open and Rick storms out. He walks straight over to the table – where Nina has reassembled their collection of notes, scripts, pencils, highlighters and a large tub of menthol chewing gum – without meeting anybody’s eye, then throws himself into his seat and starts chewing furiously; head down, eyes shut. Nina raises an eyebrow at him, then turns to the actors, who have suddenly appeared in their places again.

  “Sorry for the delay, everybody. We’ll start in a moment, if you’re ready.”

  Rick nods to nobody in particular, then without raising his chin from his chest: “Amy?”

  “Yep.” Amy is on her feet and halfway across to him before I can even breathe. She pulls a pencil and battered notebook from one of her bulging pockets. How the hell does she move so fast?

  “Set up a time to get Tommy’s hair taken care of, would you?”

  “What does he need?”

  “Jamie’s hair is – and I quote…” Rick picks up his script and looks directly at his brother, who has just sidled out of the kitchen and is glaring at him. “Short, wavy, blond. Blond, Tommy. You hear that, or did you forget the conversation where everybody agreed a wig wouldn’t work for this one?”

  “I didn’t forget, darling. I just didn’t think blond was my colour.” Even though I’ve heard it so many times – in his films, over the radio, in interviews…just now – it’s still a shock to be in the same room as that voice.

  “Did you actually read the script? I mean, I assume it’s far too much to expect you to have read the book like the rest of us. Your character’s hair is blond, and that’s an end to it.”

  “When –” Amy slides herself between them, pencil poised over her book – “do you need it done?”

  “I don’t know – yesterday?” Rick snaps back – but it’s not aimed at Amy. It passes right through her to Tommy, who bats the barb away with a roll of his eyes.

  “Leave it with me.” Amy’s notebook disappears back into one of her many pockets. “Hope? I think we’d better get that tea for everyone. Have to keep the troops happy.”

  I risk a glance at Rick, who has settled down with his legs stretched straight out in front of him, his chin resting in one hand and a scowl plastered across his face. He taps his upper lip thoughtfully with one finger.

  Happy is not necessarily the first word that springs to mind.

  As though she’s read my thoughts, Amy nudges me. “Tea and biscuits usually goes a long way…” She stops. “Oh, god. Biscuits. I forgot to pick them up on the way. You make a start with the first round of teas, I’ll nip out and get some. There’s a tea list in the folder.”

  Walking over to the kitchen, I casually (at least I hope it’s casual) look over at the guy with the script and the blue eyes again. It’s a copy of The History Boys he’s working on. He’s completely absorbed in the notes he’s making, and spinning his pencil between his fingers. Suddenly, he frowns and shuffles in his seat, his lips moving around words I can’t hear – then he freezes, and I dart through the door into the kitchen before he can notice me watching him.

  In the relative safety beyond the door, waiting for the kettle to boil, I skim through Amy’s tea list. There’s a note at the top about always checking for allergies, intolerances and just plain old fad diets, and to always keep it up-to-date because it saves interrupting the flow of a rehearsal – something I imagine would make Rick even less happy. I read through the list again, and one more time to be sure. I have to get this right. It’s all very well telling myself it’s just a few cups of tea, but right now this is the most important tea I or anyone in the world has ever made.

  I pull two of the Earl’s Theatre mugs out of the cupboard, one for Rick and one for Nina, as director and AD always get the first teas at the Square Globe, and then I spot Rick’s tea note. Three sugars? Three?! No wonder he looks so angry – he’s probably got permanent toothache.

  Three.

  And…I can’t find the sugar.

  I look in the cupboard.

  I look under the sink. Behind the bin. On the window sill.

  I look in the cupboard again. Just in case.

  There is no sugar.

  How can there be no sugar?

  No sugar. Right. Okay.

  Is Rick likely to notice if there isn’t any in his tea?

  Maybe I can make it a bit…milkier? And if I don’t leave the teabag in too long…?

  Rocking back on my heels, I peer around the door. I could always ask someone?

  Still no sign of Amy, and everybody else is completely lost to the rehearsal: absorbed in watching Tommy, his script rolled up and tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, his hands held out in a plea to somebody only he can see. It’s hard to look away – like he’s turned a dial inside himself and made it impossible not to watch him. Nearly impossible, anyway – because however entrancing he might be, I still find myself looking at something else. Someone else. The guy with the blue eyes by the door, who has put down his script and is following Tommy’s every move with diamond-sharp focus.

  But as far as I can tell, I’m the only one not watching Tommy. Even George, sitting on the other side of the room, is entranced.

  The spell is broken as Tommy finishes his line and steps aside, while another actor takes his place. He turns too suddenly in the middle of a speech, crashing into one of the others, and Rick growls.

  “Do you think you could possibly try that again? Perhaps while maintaining some grasp of the space around you, Dom?”

  There’s a bit of shuffling and some flicking of script pages at the table, and they start up again. I can see Tommy’s smirk from here as he leans back against a wall to watch, and I wonder whether it’s meant for his brother or for poor Dom who just got his head bitten off. Beside Rick, Nina glances at her watch and then over her shoulder at the kitchen door – right at me. I do the first thing that comes into my head…and I give her a little wave.

  Nina drops her hands out of Rick’s eyeline and makes a very clear T symbol with her forefingers, followed by a sharp jerk of her head back towards the director.

  Milky, weak and sugarless it is.

  A few minutes later I carry the mugs over to the table, trying not to get in anyone’s way, and slide them in front of Nina. She raises an eyebrow at the off-white colour of Rick’s tea but I shrug and run away as fast as I can, retreating to the relative safety of the kitchen. I’m almost there when I hear a loud snort, followed by a sort of cough behind me. Something mug-like bangs onto a tabletop – and I duck out of sight as fast as my legs will carry me, with only the quickest glance back into the room.

  Which is when I see something out of the corner of my eye.

  Tommy Knight is watching his brother intently from his spot behind the other actors, his doomed black hair falling to his chin. And as he does, he reaches into a plastic bag he’s holding screwed up in one fist, then pops something from it straight into his mouth. Realizing he’s being watched, he looks over at me and grins – opening his lips just enough that I can see what he’s holding between his teeth before he crunches it.

  It’s a sugar cube.

  “How’s it going? Keeping up all right, are you?”

  I’m so focused on my notes, making sure I’ve blocked out all the movements the actors are trying, that I don’t hear Amy walk up – so when her voice comes from behind me, I jump. She peers over my shoulder at the c
atastrophe that is my script folder, running her finger down line after line and glancing at the mocked-up stage area marked out with tape in front of us.

  “The sofa needs to be a little bit more…here.” She reaches around me and scrubs out my wonkily-drawn sofa rectangle and redraws it in almost exactly the same place. She studies it, then nods. “Better.”

  I must look blank, because she taps the sketch with her pencil. “Three millimetres makes a big difference when you scale up to the size of the stage – especially if you’ve got a lighting crew about to go into overtime, and who want to know why the spot isn’t hitting the sofa like it’s supposed to. Get it bang-on now and your life will be easier later. Get it wrong and…” She screws up her face. I don’t actually need her to finish the sentence – I get the idea.

  “The rest of it looks great, though – good job, Hope.” She nods approvingly and vanishes again. I’m not sure how she does it – perhaps that’s the “ninja” part of stage management, moving stealthily and silently and completely hidden until you strike. I hope I get the chance to pick it up because there’s a skill that would come in handy for sneaking into class late without getting detention.

  I risk a glance back over my shoulder, but as far as I can tell, Amy has basically evaporated.

  “Hope?”

  My name.

  That’s my name, isn’t it?

  And that was…that was…

  Rick.

  Rick said my name.

  Rick Hillier said my…

  Everyone is looking at me.

  Everyone.

  “Umm?”

  Rick does not look impressed. He’s looking right at me, leaning back in his seat to see past Nina.

  “Sorry. I missed…”

  “Yes. Yes, well, I think that’s spectacularly apparent.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Whenever you’re ready – and if you don’t have more important things on your mind – could you check whether Jamie moves to kick the chair before or after his line?”