The World Is a Stage by Tamara Morgan

Author:Tamara Morgan [Morgan, Tamara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781609289539
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Published: 2012-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Cry Havoc

The tension level in the week leading up to the opening night was always palpable, swirling around them in waves of alternating excitement and anticipation. Everyone was on pins and needles, and tempers flared from the most benign sources.

Not so with Rachel.

As everyone else mumbled last-minute lines under their breath like continual prayers and made frantic calls to the costume department to get alterations made, she walked among them as calm and cool as could be. It rarely endeared her to the other cast members, but that was hardly the point. She fed off other people’s heightened emotions, using their distress to find her own kind of inner balance.

“That makes you an emotional vampire, you know,” Molly said once. “It’s kind of creepy.”

Rachel begged to differ. There was something to be said for being the calm in the midst of the storm, the power in the middle of so much downward spiraling self-control.

“You’re in an awfully good mood,” Mary said warily, coming at Rachel with a mouth full of pins. “Who’s in trouble?”

Rachel laughed and let the seamstress make a few adjustments on a piece of draped gauze. “No trouble. I’m just excited for opening night.”

She was. It wasn’t like the opening of her college shows, when success had always seemed just one good review away, when seeing Dominic—Professor Taylor, as she’d called him in public—had been enough to fill her with excitement that lasted the whole week. Since then, she’d learned the hard way that success as a stage actress didn’t happen with a bang. It was a long, slow, painful journey that required her to continually look out for her own success.

Which was what she’d done, constantly and without fail. Just yesterday her inbox had contained a precious email from the lead critic at the infamous The Shakespeare Review. If she could procure Peter Bloom a pair of tickets to the opening of their next show, he’d fly in from New York to be there. The Peter Bloom, whose articles on the modern variations of Shakespeare were standard textbook reading for every theater student on the planet. Word of their little show was getting around—he’d used the terms “intriguing” and “potentially explosive”.

Having that letter printed out and tucked into her purse gave her strength and hope. Excitement, for the first time in what felt like forever.

And her good mood had nothing to do with the likelihood of running into Michael today. Nothing at all.

“Rachel, could you please step into my office?”

She was glad to see that the same frazzled aura had gotten to Dominic too. He looked as though he’d gratefully step off the edge of the stage into an abyss. His hair shot up in every direction, and he had a pair of women’s glasses, complete with rhinestones, tipped on the edge of his nose. If she examined under his pants, she was sure she’d find mismatched socks and underwear that hadn’t been changed in a week.

Good thing she didn’t care what went on under his pants.

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