MOTHER: I know that you’ll succeed, my son, it’s written on your heart / you’ll vanquish fear, your fame will spread, you’ll play a noble part.
-The Glass Flute, Scene i
We listened to Becker’s regulation boots clomp back down the wooden staircase to the main floor. None of us said a word for a few moments, and I think we all felt a bit silly. After all, what had we based our assumptions on? A leather vest in the shop pool, that was all. Becker had been pretty convincing, and now that we knew about the Shane and Amber thing, whether or not it was still going on, it seemed entirely plausible that Jason had skipped out because he couldn’t face the competition. Why not? Jason was a peculiar little man, and several of us had wondered what Amber saw in him. Shane, on the other hand, was a walking, talking version of Michelangelo’s David, and Amber was Venus on the half-shell. They were perfect for each other, and what aesthetics has brought together, let no man (or woman) put asunder.
“I guess he thinks that Jason’s okay,” Amber said in a shaky, relieved little voice.
“Seems he does,” Ruth said. “Whether he’s right or not is another question, though.”
“So Jason didn’t come back to the motel last night?” Bradley asked.
“I don’t know,” Amber said. “He didn’t come back with us, and he said he was planning to come in at six this morning, so we didn’t expect to see him until rehearsal.”
“Us?” said Meredith. “We?”
“Yes, us—we,” Shane said. “We’re all staying in the same place. So big deal. I was too drunk to drive last night and Amber drove my car, okay?” He looked round defiantly. “I know what everybody’s thinking, and I can understand that after what that cop said, but listen. There’s nothing going on between Amber and me. Okay? Okay? We’re just old friends, that’s all. Jason knew that.”
“If he knew that, then why did he disappear?” Meredith said.
“Maybe he got a call to say his mom’s sick or something,” Brad said.
“His Mom lives in Laingford,” Amber said. “I was supposed to meet the McMasters this weekend. We were supposed to have dinner there.”
“You haven’t met his parents yet?” Meredith said. “How long have you been going out with him?”
“Three years. He didn’t get along with them, eh? It was a big thing, us going there.”
“Is that why he was staying at the motel and not with them?” I asked.
“I guess. And Laingford’s a half-hour drive from here.”
“So why don’t we just call them and ask if he’s there? Maybe his Mom is sick,” Brad said.
“He would have left a note, you’d think,” Amber said.
That’s when Juliet came back, bustling in full of business and energy.
“Right, kiddies, that’s sorted out.” She was rubbing her hands, Pilate-like.
“You found him?” Amber said, leaping up.
“Found him? Of course not, child, but the police agree with me that the boy’s probably just gone off in a snit somewhere and he’ll turn up eventually. Not,” she added heavily, “as if I’d ever think of hiring him again after this fiasco, but I really don’t think we need to worry about it any more. We’ve got work to do.”
“We thought we might call his parents,” I said. “See if he’s there.”
“Good idea,” Juliet said. “We probably should have done that in the first place, instead of bothering that disturbingly handsome policeman. Why don’t you call them in the break, dear, and put our minds at rest?”
“We’re taking a wait-and-see attitude with this, then?” I asked, innocently. I had other ideas, but I wasn’t about to discuss them with our fearless leader.
“Exactly, Polly. Now. Have you done the Equity business yet? We should have done that at the beginning, but things were just crazy this morning, so we have an excuse.” She smiled widely and rubbed her hands together again.
The rehearsal day had finally begun.
The Canadian professional theatre business is governed by an organization called the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, or Equity. Virtually every professional theatre company in the country is an Equity company, which means that all the contracts they enter into with actors, dancers, directors and stage management personnel are drawn up according to Equity rules. Equity puts out a handbook of those rules, called “the Purple Book” or “the Red Book” or whatever colour they’ve chosen for the cover of the most recent edition.
You’re not allowed to work for an Equity company unless you’re a member, but you can’t become a member unless you’ve done a certain number of Equity shows. This, of course, doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s why there are a lot of really frustrated actors out there, saying “Hi, my name is Buffy and I’ll be your server for tonight.” To become a member, you have to accumulate Equity credits. To do that, you work as an apprentice, making less than full-member salary in an Equity company. After you collect the requisite number of apprentice credits, you get to become a full member, after paying the registration fee.
Kid’s touring theatre is the most common way to collect credits. That’s where the expression “Paying one’s dues” comes in. Amber, being fresh out of theatre school, was an apprentice. Usually, after a couple of years of touring theatre, an actor becomes a full member and moves on to theatre for grown-ups. In grown-up theatre, there are dressing rooms, a callboard, a wardrobe department, a decent rehearsal period and the chance to get your teeth into a meaty role. Also, in theatre for grown-ups, you don’t have to lug the sets around with you in a van and perform in school gyms.
However, there are times when an interesting kids’ show comes along and an experienced actor will take it on, for the fun of it. That’s what they’ll tell you, anyway. The truth is more likely that they’ve auditioned for Stratford, Shaw, Factory, Passe Muraille, and everything in between from coast to coast and they’re still being Buffy, your server. They’re desperate for work, and if they get a contract under the Theatre for Young Audiences Agreement (which means the hours are brutal, and overtime payments are a figment of your imagination), they’ll jump at it.
Bradley was in that category. His résumé listed a number of fairly prestigious roles in good plays in the 80s. In the nineties, the roles thinned out and became walk-ons in CBC dramas and commercials. He’d done a few summer stock seasons in Newfoundland, playing Officer Krupke in West Side Story and Second Husband in Chicago. His most recent gig was a Toronto Fringe Festival production of an original one-act play by someone called Gregory Pecker. Bradley Hoskins had taken The Glass Flute role at Steamboat Theatre in Kuskawa because he needed the job, no question.
Shane’s situation was a little different. He was a full member of Equity, and his résumé showed that his career was ticking along nicely, thank you very much. He had graduated from the Kingsway Polytechnic Theatre School in the spring of 1997 and immediately landed a summer theatre gig in Gananoque, playing Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables. From there he went on to juvenile leads in a couple of high-profile Toronto productions and had performed a supporting role in a LiveShow mega-musical that had gone on to Broadway. This guy was no waiter. Juliet had told me that she got him to do the Flute because he owed her a favour (whatever that meant) and that he wanted a rest from the grind of big-theatre schedules. I knew what kind of money a LiveShow job paid out. That would explain Shane’s car.
Meredith, unlike the others, was a dyed-in-the-wool touring performer. She’d worked for every children’s touring company in Ontario, several times over. Her résumé revealed that she’d done at least three productions a year for the last decade, and she’d never had more than a month off. She was a trouper in the truest sense of the word. While I admire that kind of tenacity, it makes me nervous. It would mean that she knew more about touring than anybody in the whole wide world, including me, her stage manager. This would make her either a very useful ally in inter-cast disputes, or a royal pain. I suspected the latter.
I got all this information in secret, after the rehearsal day was over, and everybody had gone home. While it wasn’t exactly classified information, it was in a file in Juliet’s office, and I had to hunt around for it. I had help—but more on that later.
The Equity business Juliet was talking about was a formality. Every company was supposed to elect an Equity deputy, who would liase with the stage manager and the administration with regard to working conditions, touring reports and the like. Every time the company put in for overtime on the road, for example, the sheet was supposed to be signed by the deputy and the SM before being submitted. If a cast member had a problem, he or she was supposed to be able to go to the deputy for help. It was a teacher’s pet job, the kind that you got elected to if you happened to step out for a moment to go to the bathroom. Nobody ever volunteered for it.
Meredith volunteered for it.
I had shooed Juliet out of the room (artistic directors aren’t allowed in on Equity meetings), pulled the deputy package out of Jason’s paperwork box under the desk, tossed it on the table and called the meeting to order.
“Let’s get this over with, then,” I’d said. “Time to elect the dep. Who’s in?” I said it in the usual, jokey, don’t-all-shout-at-once kind of way.
“I’d be glad to do it,” Meredith said, evenly. “I’ve been looking at the schedule, and I think there may be a couple of overtime difficulties where we’re supposed to travel over our lunch-break. I’m also worried about the size of the set, not to mention the short rehearsal period.” There was a funny little pause.
“Er, anybody else interested?” I said. Nobody was.
“Right, then. All in favour?”
“Yeah, sure,” Bradley said. “You go, girl.”
“I can’t be deputy if I’m an apprentice, right?” Amber said.
“No, you can’t,” said Meredith. “You couldn’t handle it anyway.”
“It’s not rocket science,” Shane said. “Do it if you want to. I don’t care.” Meredith smiled—a Cheshire cat smile that would have stayed even if her face had disappeared.
“Carried,” I said, without enthusiasm, and pushed the package over to her. She opened it immediately, pulled out the Green Book (its current colour), and wrote her name on the cover. Golly, I thought. I guess I’d better find my copy and reread it. I had a feeling there would be a quiz on it later.