A much better past couple of days than the previous ones have been.

My switched-lunch problem was at least partially solved--no Daf still, but Melly's in my new lunch (she got switched in, too, a while before; I hadn't known that), as is Megan--and my Leo Club problem's mostly solved, too. We've got some real projects now, and they look to be a great time, too. The Hooligans are thrilled. ...And the other thing is, Leo Clubs aren't necessarily supposed to be full-scale, head-on, march-out-and-save-society organizations. Our advisor ended up reminding me at the meeting, with a slight amount of concern in his voice, that Leo Clubs were at least equally about having fun.

...And I can accept that. What with my three APs, administrative difficulties (study-hall-and-AP-English-wise), lack of a driver's license, and what is soon to be an insane school play schedule...fun I could use, right about now. In college, when I have a license, when I'm in with a few more of my save-the-world kind, I can do that (well, Ananda will make me amend that with a maybe...I guess time is a bit scarce there, too). Or maybe even later this year, like after May, when APs are done with and homework isn't quite the insanity it's sure to be in a few short weeks.

Anyway, the success at the play tryouts that Melly, Bunny, and I had today makes it easy for me to be happy. It was a short, easy tryout--everybody read something of their choice, then the script part they wanted. Melly's reading of the part of Abby (we're doing Arsenic and Old Lace) was especially brill--it was all Bunny and I could do to keep from bursting out laughing. We were biting our lips, looking at the ceiling, trying to tune her out...and nothing worked. Sometimes we'd just break out giggling, as quietly as we could. I don't know what it was about the way she read it, but it was just so wonderful--if she doesn't get Abby or Martha (they're two roles that go together; they're essentially the same, from what I can tell), I'll want to know the reason why. I don't just say that as her friend. Hers was easily the best script reading I heard.

The best book reading may have been Bunny's. She picked a monologue from a drama book (her family's pretty theater-oriented; I bet they've owned it for a while, though it looks pretty modern)--this first-person monologue about an ancient Roman private eye. She was the first reader to cross the stage as she talked--well, I'd call it a swagger, really!--and her voice is just...she did it very well. She didn't look up much, but she almost didn't need to. Everything else said it all.

My personal reading was a piece out of The Two Towers, predictably enough--the Merry-and-Pippin dialogue toward the beginning of the chapter "The Palantír". Not all of it, like I'd originally planned--that would have taken a little too long. ...I chose it not because of my love for Lord of the Rings so much as because that's what I read best aloud. I'd read it aloud so many times already, just to myself, back when I hurt my knee and couldn't leave my room, and sometimes late at night or early in the morning--perfecting the expressions, though I couldn't quite get the voices (especially Pippin's--I get Merry's all right, but Pippin's still eludes me a bit), playing the scene over and over in my own mental-movie version. Of everything in the entire book, I think that little exchange has to be my favorite, and I've still yet to figure out why.

So I waited until Holly and Melinda had gone. Most of the candidates had left, some of them to try out for the choir's song-and-dance ensemble. Then I took the stage. ...Well, such as it was. Not the auditorium one, but the mini-stage in another room, where all the non-musical productions are put on. I looked around the room. All friendly faces. I knew them all; they all knew me. Melly, Bunny, Jamie, and a couple others, plus the director. I told the room what I was reading and launched in.

I knew differentiating between Merry and Pippin was going to be tricky; I'd planned to look in different directions for each other, like they were looking at each other--but that was more sporadic than I'd planned. The good part was, I only really had to look a couple of times. I could have gotten through without looking at all, I think--I've read it so many times that yesterday I recited pretty much the entire dialogue, and not just my clipped-for-tryouts version, on the late bus home, to practice for today. That meant I could look up--and move around a bit. I walked a bit, but mostly stayed in the same little area--trying to look tired and sensible for Merry, impatient and twitching for Pippin as he twisted in the bracken. Mostly I concentrated on re-enacting the tones of voice exactly as I'd always planned them, down to the last nuance.

I didn't get it to the last nuance, and I accented a word out of place at one point, but Bunny's response as soon as I'd finished was a prettier compliment than I'd ever expected--especially since I'd expected silence, as part of the tryout traditions. "Oh-h! Read more!"

Reading for Elaine (the female lead) went all right. Not as well as the Merry-and-Pippin-ness I'd "busted out", as I expressed it to Bethie (and, I think, Ananda), but I did it my way, and it was different enough from the way the other candidates had done it to make my version unique.

How well the director liked it, I guess I'll see. Tomorrow the cast list comes out--and I think my name will be on it, but I don't know where. ...Could he cast me as Elaine, when I've never gotten a significant role in a play in my life?

Well, scratch that. I got a very decent part in a fifth-grade church play, and played Jonathan (yes, the Biblical David's best friend--they had quite a job concealing my longish hair), and got to sing alto for the first time in my life in a duet with the boy playing David. That was cool. ...But that was only three lines and a song. That's what sets this apart from anything I've done--this has no music, no dance. ...That means I've got a shot: I've always read fine at tryouts and then screwed up during the singing (my voice has an, uh, amusing tendency to disappear for high notes at tryouts). This time all I had to do was read. And I daresay I did that pretty well.

Melly, Bunny, and I, of course, have a total mental cast list going with them as Abby and Martha and me as Elaine. ...And I shouldn't get my hopes up, really. Easily a dozen girls tried out, and there're only three main spots, plus two other female roles.

...But the others stayed where they were when they read. And they didn't look up.

I guess we'll see.

-Laurel