Encore.

The hardest part is waiting. Everyone has those jitters and no one can quite keep still; yet everybody is still motionless enough to keep an ear out for the first of many people arriving on the other side of the curtain. No-one’s allowed to take a peek at the audience, although I’ve seen a few doing it while the producer isn’t looking.
There are so many people much more nervous than me though. The proof is on everyone’s faces – and in the side stage “chunder bucket”.

There are kids sitting on the risers with scripts in their hands – merely repeating that tricky little sentence of dialogue that gets them every time. At centre stage are the choreographers with the younger kids – showing them just how to turn and silently yelling at little Justin who waited until opening night to tell them he doesn’t know the chorus movement.

I walk out the side door and head towards the dressing rooms, holding my breath as I walk past two very attractive seniors having their last cigarettes for the night. I soon immediately become thankful to the make-up ladies for applying blush, as the blonde one winks at me. I duck my head and keep on moving. “Curtains open in 10 minutes” I hear someone in the background yell.

"The proof is on everyone’s faces – and in the side stage chunder bucket."

The hallway to the change rooms are in a fury – there is a young girl crying in a phone, screaming to her mother that she had had her costume when they had gotten into the car. A boy about twice my size is holding singing warm ups for those soloists who need the last minute tune-up before the big night, yet most of the notes I hear are not ones I would pay to listen to.
There are people rushing past me with shoes half on grabbing their stage props as they go – these guys obviously have mic-checks before the show. I shake my head and give a smile at my friend Denise who, as always, has made another huge hole in her tan stockings, and is busily trying to stop the rip with clear nail polish.

I finally make it to the female dressing room, where the chaos was surprisingly at its minimum. I smell the toasty warmness of the hot chocolate on the bench, and the entire universe can hear the welfare lady urging us to put jackets over our costumes before we all “catch pneumonia”.
I can see good luck cards and bouquets of roses all over the place, mainly from eager parents wishing their child good luck.
It all reminds me of my kindergarten jazz recital – the first time any of us had been on stage. I can still remember the sea of families grinning up at us, proud that their child doesn’t have to watch the instructor doing the movement below the stage.

Then there’s that voice again that brings me back into the present: “Curtain opens in two minutes people! If you’re not down there now then you’re not on stage!”
My long Victorian skirt swishes along the floor as I collect the final prop from my bag – a lacy cardboard fan – and race back up to the stage. I can hear the orchestra start their overture that makes the crowd more anxious to get the show started. I take the hand held microphone from the tech team and walk to the middle of the stage. The stage lights dim immediately as the audience applauses the band, and the dancers take their places behind me. I take a breath and get ready to sing my heart out and steal the show.

The curtain opens, and the heat of the spotlight on my face is amazing, and the watchful gazes from the audience is so intensifying, that the moment is truly perfected when I open my fan and see the words written in the scrawl of that blonde senior boy;
"Break A Leg"


[This was a descriptive piece I wrote for English]