“It’s the next Hamilton,” Harlow oozed at Sierra, as though she didn’t know.
“—the highly anticipated musical about Abigail Adams’s role shaping our nation. But first...” Nicholas quieted them down again. “In the spirit of crawling before you can walk, let’s tour this place. Crawl out to the lobby and I’ll meet you there.”
They all rose to their feet and walked to the aisles, but Nicholas interrupted again. “I thought you guys were actors?” He smiled. “Let’s see your best crawl.” With that everyone dropped to all fours and made their way out. Some—like Alex, who shot by doing a quick crabwalk—more agile than others. Sierra instantly regretted wearing a jean skirt. She just hadn’t anticipated much physicality today. Mind racing for a way to avoid flashing her peers, she got it: mimicking the swim stroke instead, she coursed ahead of the pack and was first out the door.
* * *
Afternoon sun blinding her, Sierra stood at the edge of the crowded football field, hand shielding her eyes in search of friendly faces. Her luck had run out. She had successfully made it through the game where the entire extended apprentice class (over one hundred in all, including her acting peers plus the directing, writing, backstage and front-of-house apprentices) organized themselves alphabetically by state (she was one of three people from Oregon, which seemed like solid representation) and a tug-of-war pitting Shakespeare tragedy lovers against comedy fans that had left her with rope burn.
Now Professor Tom Bradford, serious, joyless and wearing a tie, everything Nicholas Blunt was not, had ordered them all to pair up. It seemed a mathematical impossibility that Sierra should end up the odd one out. She had lost Harlow on the way over. Weren’t there an even number of them? Yet everyone had instantly attached themselves like at every party she had ever gone to.
Snaking her way through the duos, she stopped near the southwest corner of the field, one last full slow spin before giving up. But when she completed this rotation, like a planet locked in its axis, she suddenly found the sun.
His name was Robert, according to his preprinted name tag.
“Thank you,” she said in relief. He had walked up while her back was turned. Professor Bradford barked something in the background.
“Ohhh no, what’s goin’ on here? This on the schedule?” Robert said to her, glancing over her head to assess the situation. Tall with dirty blond hair, he had a drawl she didn’t expect. Some sort of tattoo peeked out below his T-shirt sleeve. She would’ve pegged him for set construction, anything demanding a requisite level of brawn, had she not remembered seeing him at the back of the auditorium when she “swam” out to the lobby. Plus, beneath his name it read “Acting.”
“Yes,” she answered, appreciating that he seemed nervous too. “It was under the euphemism ‘All Apprentice Meet-Up.’”
He smiled, opened his mouth to speak, but Professor Bradford’s voice boomed:
“Siiilence! Is golden! Look into your partner’s eyes and tell them your story, why you’re here, without a single word. Using ONLY movements! NO voices! Your partner will copy your actions. Take your time, allow them to keep pace, to understand your journey.”
A hush quickly fell. Sierra gestured for Robert to go first. She had led a simplistic version of this mirror image game at the kids’ theater project she launched last year with a couple drama-major friends, but doing this with peers set her nerves trembling.
Robert closed his eyes, opened them again, shook out his limbs and, as though remembering something, held up his index finger to wait. He peeled the name tag from his shirt, tore off the part that said Robert, crumpled it and tossed it over his shoulder, sticking back on the part with just his last name: Summit.
Was she supposed to follow? It felt bold and dramatic, so probably. She pulled hers off too, and he smiled, so she smiled.
4
WE’RE SUPPOSED TO LIKE IMPROV
Ethan hadn’t meant for her to shred her name tag too (and before he had even read it; now he only had her last name: Suarez). It just frustrated him that his tag had his given name—Robert—and not the name he wanted to go by here—Ethan, his middle name—which he had clearly designated on his apprentice application as the name he preferred. It would be his stage name, mark the start of this new life. When they were allowed to talk again, he would explain this to this girl staring at him with kind eyes. Maybe he could make a joke about her “commitment” to the role in destroying her own name tag.
He ran his hand through his hair, tried to figure out what was worth sharing about himself. Oh, wait, but now she was running her hand through her hair—long and shiny, reflective, hickory hued. The gesture looked better when she did it. Her hands hid in her pockets now. Because he had put his hands back in his pockets, without realizing.
Tell her his story. He placed his hand on the top of his head, as though there was a wide-brimmed hat there, made a motion of taking it off, bowing in greeting. She did the same. He held his hand out horizontally, pointing to the bottom center of his palm—his best approximation of Texas—and then put his hand to his chest. This is where I’m from for better or worse. He had slowed his actions and she followed closely enough that it seemed they were, in fact, making these movements at the same time.
He swept his arm out, looking into the field now, then shook his head, shrugged in self-doubt. She did this along with him and he felt understood—which was the purpose of the exercise, but still, it rocked him.
And here was something else: it was a strange thing, Ethan discovered, to gaze steadily into someone’s eyes, in complete silence, for this duration of time. To stare into these eyes, which were lighter than her hair—hazel, maybe?—for this long, it seemed impossible to not feel something. Maybe that made him a bad actor? Or maybe that made him a method actor? Method, sure, that sounded better. Or maybe it wasn’t about him and was more about her. Which was something he thought he shouldn’t think about because then he would forget to actually move. He forced his eyes away for a moment, to reset his “motivation,” and found that the others seemed less mired in these concerns.
Over her right shoulder, several pairs were leading their partners through what appeared to be cardio work: running, jumping, spinning and finally bowing. Ethan was out of his league here.
Soft fingertips tapped his forearm, bringing him back: she looked at him gently, like waking him from a dream, as Bradford barked at them all to switch roles.
Ethan smiled, relinquishing control. Accepting it, she waved her greeting and showed where she was from on the map of her hand. (It looked to be roughly the Pacific Northwest.) She gestured across the field as he had before but then knelt on the turf, arms over her head like those photos of schoolkids during air-raid drills in the 1950s. After a beat, she sat upright again and shook her head, as though laughing at her fears. He did the same, and felt flattered and entranced by how her story echoed his.