Wondrous Strange (eBook)

What do you mean, ‘,promoted'?' Kelley Winslow felt her pulse quicken.

It was the fifth week of rehearsals for the Avalon Grande's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Never mind that the Avalon Players - a third-tier repertory company so far off Broadway it might as well have been in Hoboken - had only hired Kelley as an understudy, which really meant glorified stagehand. It was her first real job as an actress after a disastrous stint in theater school, and, at only seventeen, Kelley had been grateful for the rsum builder. But today, three steps into the theater, Mindi the stage manager had waylaid her.

Kelley was carrying a box of props she'd gone to fetch from the company van parked outside, and she had a pair of fairy wings strapped to her shoulders - the only way she could carry them without crushing the wire frames. 'Mindi?' she asked again. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean, don't bother taking off the wings, kid.' Mindi took the box of props from her hands. 'Our darling Diva deWinter just busted her ankle. She is out of commission, and that means you, little understudy, will be stepping into the lead role of Titania, the fairy queen, for the run of this show.'

Kelley was speechless. She'd dreamed of this - although however many times she'd sat through rehearsals, watching Barbara deWinter overact and undercharm her way through her scenes, she'd never wished anything bad upon her. But Kelley guiltily felt a rising sense of glee. This is it. This is my big break!

'Hey!' Mindi gave her a friendly shove. 'Enough day-dreaming. We open in ten days and Quentin is - well, to put it mildly, our esteemed director is now freaking out. So I suggest you go slip into a rehearsal skirt and haul your understudy butt onstage so that the Mighty Q can run you through your scenes. Good luck.'

My scenes. My scenes . . .

Thoughts in a whirl, Kelley almost ran down the actor playing Puck as he swung himself gracefully off the set scaffolding, singing 'Am I blue?' Funny, because he was actually green, a pale iridescent shade head to toe - hair, skin, eyes - right down to his leafy tunic. Kelley had been told by one of the other actors that his name was Bob but that he was something of an extreme Method actor and had demanded he be referred to only by his character name while in costume and makeup - on threat of quitting the production otherwise.

Lunatic actors.

Between him and the equally demanding and very English director Quentin St. John Smyth, Kelley was beginning to think she'd fallen in with a real asylumful at the Avalon Grande. She threw open the doors to the wardrobe storage and fumbled with the rack of rehearsal skirts, slipping one over her jeans and buttoning it as best she could with trembling fingers. '‘,Fairies, skip hence,'' she muttered aloud. 'No -

that's wrong. . . .'

Oh, God - what's my first line? Kelley thought frantically.

'‘,These are the forgeries of jealousy.' Aw, crap!' She was blanking. 'That's not even the right speech!' Her heart pounded in her chest, and she leaned her head on the door frame.

This is what you've wanted your whole life, she told herself sternly. All those years of putting on one-woman shows for the household pets, and all the months of begging Aunt Emma to let her move to Manhattan to try to make a go of it. This is it. Get out there and show them what you've got!

Feeling marginally more confident, Kelley took a deep breath and dashed down the hallway and through the backstage area - at the exact moment that 'Puck' launched a handful of glitter into the air. Kelley gasped, startled, as the cloud of sparkles settled on...