“I wonder if they need a set designer?” says Zach.
May 18, 7pm
Setting: An old auditorium with burnt sienna upholstered theater seating and a small scared wooden stage that has been painted several different colors over the years, each one worse than the last. Acting hopefuls are scattered throughout the auditorium, some talking in the aisles, some quietly seated. AGNES(a twenty-some burnet who looks like a librarian) and ZACH(an extra-terrestrial disguised as a human) enter through the rear door and take a seat in the right middle. The DIRECTOR(a distinguished looking woman of about 50, carrying a cane) climbs the steps to the stage and raps her cane on the ground.
DIRECTOR(with a slight Slovenian accent): Welcome to the auditions for the original musical, Y’all Do It My Way: A Tale of Teen Angst in the Old West. We are fortunate to have the author, JANE Morgan here with us today.
Scattered applause. AGNES cranes her head but still can’t see JANE. ZACH is looking at a stain on the ceiling.
DIRECTOR: We will start with auditions for the part of Tamela, the female lead.
Mumurs of excitement. The audition starts.
A Week Later
Agnes, Francine, and Zach are sitting at a table in Frache Cup. Zach is drinking coffee, Francine is drinking tea, and Agnes is dunking a cookie in milk.
“I still say that you should have got a better part,” Francine says to Agnes, “you are a fabulous actress and you deserve much better.”
“I got stage fright,” Agnes bites her cookie, “at least I get to do something.”
“Something! Something? That role is perverse!”
“Teen Cowgirl #8?” Agnes looks perplexed.
“Yes! I mean come on! ‘Up above’?”
“Up above . . . “
“And you have to swing your arms in the air,” Francine swings her arms up over her head.
“I don’t get it.”
“What is the line before that?”
“Down below.”
“Sung by teen cowboy number something!” Francine slaps the table, “And the line before that?”
“Changes, oh.”
“Terrible.”
“The weather?”
“Changes, oh, down below and up above.”
“OH!” Agnes looks startled, “I’m singing about puberty?”
“How about you Zach,” Francine sips her tea, “painting any sets?”
“I’m a tap dancing cowboy.”
“What?!”
“It’s true,” interjects Agnes.
“What kind of bloody twisted musical are you two in?”
“I told them I could do some set painting for them, but they really needed male actors and the next thing I knew I was dancing on stage with some woman banging her cane on the ground and yelling, ‘ball and chain’ at me.”
“Ball and chain?”
“Ball and change, probably,” Agnes shrugs, “The director has an accent.”
“Why would she yell ‘ball and change’ at me?”
“Ball like the ball of your foot,” Agnes points at the ball of her foot.
“Why would she say that?” Zach peers at the bottom of Agnes’ foot.
Francine takes a deep breath, slaps the table, then waves her hands in the air, “You know what, I give up.”
Agnes stands up and starts soft-shoeing while chanting, ”ball and change and ball and change and ball and change . . .”
Zach begins chanting and stomping his feet along with her.
A man walking by does a double take and then throws a quarter in Agnes’ cup.
“Ball and change ball and hey! That man just threw a quarter in my milk!” Agnes tips her cup, spilling milk on her shirt.
The next day Agnes convinced Teen Cowboy #5 to change lines with her.
Zach became convinced that “ball and change” really had something to do currency and had the balls of his cowboy boots nickel plated with real nickels.
Francine realized something was really wrong with the chronology of these stories and protested by sleeping in until noon.
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