Erin Insists Her Show Must Go On

Even nearly a year and a half since that amazing night when she'd allowed her friend Maya to photograph her in the nude, Erin sometimes felt more like the events of that night were some kind of dream than her real life! Miscommunication had led Erin to expect to be posing fully clothed that night, and at first she was shocked that Maya could think she would even consider posing in the nude! She almost walked out on Maya, but eventually some previously unknown side of herself emerged, resulting in her agreeing to be photographed not just naked, but also naked with a man she'd just met!

Looking back on her photo session after some time had passed, Erin was both amazed and grateful that she'd been able to go so far beyond her previous comfort zone. "Way, way, way beyond it," she thought, "so out of character that even when it was happening it almost felt like it wasn't!"

Thinking about how her life had changed since that night, she often felt like the woman who left after the photo session was a very different person than the one who had walked into the studio just a couple of hours earlier; she couldn't prove doing something so extreme was behind the changes in her, but there was definitely something of a divide between her life before posing nude and after. She didn't end up doing any more nude modeling, despite being asked to several times. Surprising herself, she was a bit interested, but she restricted herself to posing for other students while wearing clothes, never in anything skimpier than a fairly conservative bikini.

The more important changes in Erin had nothing to do with her occasional modeling gig. She was generally more confident, outgoing, and willing to try new things. The semester after her nudes were exhibited, she was far more impressive in auditions and began getting some small parts in the Theatre department's productions; no big roles, but a distinct improvement over her first three semesters.

The following summer she took the advice of her faculty advisor and tried out several jobs to get a better sense of how people different from her lived and acted in real life. She spent a month in each of the three jobs she worked back in her hometown; first as an intern at a law office, then as a cashier in a supermarket, and finally as a waitress in a local strip club.

Neither her Dad nor Jeff, her boyfriend, were wild about her choice of where to do waitressing, but she assured them that her research didn't involve anything more exotic than delivering drinks to the patrons. She didn't mention being asked daily by the owner, "So, when do we get to see you on the stage?" She DEFINITELY didn't tell her Dad that she'd seriously considered giving it a try one quiet Tuesday night! She was surprised at how positively Jeff reacted to hearing that she'd almost allowed herself to be talked into making her debut as a stripper. Far from disapproving of her trying it out, he just asked her to let him be there if she ever decided to actually do anything like that!

Coming back to college in the fall of her junior year, Erin was more excited by the major she'd chosen than any time since the first few weeks of her Freshman year. Her new confidence showed in classes, including an Improv class she had steered clear of until that semester, as well in her now more frequent roles in the Theatre department's fall schedule. By the time the spring semester started she felt like she was ready to take on a major role, possibly even a lead!

A few weeks into the spring semester, Erin was cast in the next production, "Noises Off", a farce about a touring production of a (fictional) farce. The play within a play required her to play two roles, one with a British accent; both roles were prominent, giving her the biggest challenge yet. One of her roles called for her to portray a sexy but ditzy actress, while her other character was described as a sly tax department employee investigating one of the characters.

Between most of the cast playing dual roles, the rapid fire dialog, and the actors coming and going quickly via one of eight doors entering onto the set, there were more than a few screw-ups. Some cast members briefly lost track of which character they were supposed to be, came onstage or left via the wrong door. One low point came when an actor who was meant to confront another with a gun, eventually shooting it, somehow managed to go on stage without the prop! The mortified and unarmed aggressor held his hand out, pretending it was a pistol for a few seconds before the faculty advisor backstage improvised a passable gunshot sound by slapping a piece of wood against the floor.

During their post-performance discussion the faculty advisor, Dr Namen described the gun gaffe as "somewhat painful, but a learning experience." He told the tired cast and crew, "Never forget, in a live production there are no do-overs! Whatever goes wrong, unless someone on stage is in dire need of medical help, ALWAYS carry on and do whatever you can to keep going. Your audience actually wants you to get out of whatever predicament you find yourself in, but if you just stop and freeze you'll lose them, and good luck getting them back!"

Erin was relieved that she hadn't provided any bad examples for discussion, and was delighted to be singled out for managing to not only do a good job with her two characters, but also for not getting sidetracked when the set door she'd just entered through fell down right behind her. It had taken her a long time to be seen as anything more than a dumb blonde, and for the first time she felt like she was moving beyond the stereotype. To the extent that the classic dumb blondes often seemed to be sexier than their supposedly smarter brunette companions, Erin DID fit the mold well; she was almost shockingly attractive, tall and fit with a classic hourglass figure, a pretty face, blue eyes, and light strawberry blonde hair.

In the remainder of the spring semester the Theatre majors were split into several small groups, with each working on a different one act play. The groups all performed their plays two nights near the end of the semester. Seeing the other groups performing, Erin was sure her group was by far the most polished. Though there wasn't any public statement about how the groups were rated, she realized she had been placed in the top fifth of the department's students. She could hardly believe how much her standing in the department had changed; early in her Sophomore year she was sure the faculty members who knew her at all were trying to gently tell her that however pretty she was, she might be better off pursuing a different career!

In the summer before her senior year Erin once again tried several jobs for the variety of experiences. She worked at a day care center, then did a few weeks in a call center, then tried out being a farm laborer, easily the most physically demanding work of her whole summer. She tended bar the last couple of weeks before classes resumed, one week in an upscale pub and one week back at the strip club where she'd waitressed the previous year. The owner never let a night go by without at least briefly reminding her that she'd make a lot more money on the stage than behind the bar. Considering the new dress code for bartenders and waitresses consisted of nothing but bikini bottoms and an outrageously cropped t-shirt, Erin was seriously tempted, but skimpy as her uniform was, it was a whole lot more respectable than how the club's dancers ended up their sets, totally nude!

A few weeks into the fall semester, a notice was posted announcing auditions for the next major production to be put on by the Theatre department, a nearly 2,000 year old play, only recently rediscovered, which had only been performed a handful of times for 21st century audiences.

The notice included a vaguely worded mention of the play being a drama with adult themes, making Erin nervously wonder if she might have been wise to add exotic dancer to her list of summer roles after all! The warnings on the notice gave her pause, but she wasn't about to miss an opportunity. She signed up to at least go to an audition, and received an email the next day with a list of speaking roles, text of a scene, and a brief summary of the play.

Title: "The Mother"

Author: Seneca

Summary:

The play (lost since the 2nd century, A.D.) is centered on the relationships between Julia Livia, Widow of the previous Roman Emperor, Ursinus Gracci, brother and murderer of the late Emperor, and Julia's son, Lucius Publius.

Lucius is the heir to the throne, but was only 8 years old when his father was killed in a coup two years before the events in this play. Ursinus has married Julia, not for love, but to gain power by acting as a Regent, controlling the government in Lucius' name.

Ursinus has isolated Lucius, sending him to a remote villa, supposedly for the boy's protection, but actually intending to have him killed before he reaches adulthood, then claiming the throne for himself.

Julia learns of Ursinus's part in the murder of her first husband and realizes he won't let her son survive. She confronts Ursinus, telling him she knows about his crimes and will expose him.

Ursinus attacks Julia, they wrestle. Ursinus subdues her and is about to kill her with her own dagger. He offers her a deal, one day more of life for Lucius for each day she performs fellatio on him. Humiliated but desperate, she agrees.

Realizing Ursinus was not going to let Lucius live no matter how often she pleasured him, she fights back with the only weapons she has left, even though she expects him to stab her to death before he succumbs.

Monologue by Julia's ghost.

Erin read the summary several times. When she finally set it down she thought, "well they weren't kidding about the play having adult themes. I was thinking it might mean there was violence, and maybe some partial nudity, but I wasn't expecting a simulated blow job!" She was sure that the faculty advisors would stage the action as discreetly as possible, but as she pictured how it could be arranged in the Theatre department's small auditorium there didn't seem to be any way the audience wouldn't see enough to be shocked, even knowing the act was being simulated.

She signed up the next morning. Checking in with her advisor a week later, she asked how the audition scheduling was going. "You want to know how much competition you're going to have," Maria chuckled, "Truthfully, the numbers are down a bit; we're not getting the usual handful of students we normally get from outside of the department who are just giving being in a play a try."

"But the usual people from inside the department?" Erin prodded.

"You want to know who else beside you wants to play Julia. So far it's just a freshman who is not even close to being ready for this, you, and Hannah."

"Oh, I assumed Hannah would be going for it," Erin said casually, but was thinking, "Fuck! Hannah gets the lead in everything she tries for! I'll end up being second concubine from the left or something!"

Seeing Erin's barely hidden disappointment, Maria encouraged her, "you've come a long way in the last year. Don't waste your time worrying about anybody else, just focus on doing the best job you're capable of and you'll be fine!"

Walking back to her dorm, Erin couldn't make herself follow Maria's advice. Though most objective people would say Erin was prettier than Hannah, Hannah had way more experience than every other student in the department. Erin had looked her up online once and saw over a dozen credits for various parts going back to a year on a sitcom when she was only 7 years old! Now that Erin was starting to get noticed and praised for her work in small roles, she was hoping to get leading roles, but so far she had always found herself blocked by Hannah.

Auditions were held the first week of October; Erin's worst fear for how the casting would play out were realized, as Hannah was cast in the lead. Erin consoled herself with the fact that she was cast as one of a small handful of other female characters with more than a couple of lines. Her character was Flavia, a palace slave who warns Julia about the role Ursinus played in killing her first husband, as well as the danger to Lucius. "Not the lead," she thought, "but she does advance the plot, and she gets killed on stage, which I've never had to do before!"

During the second week of rehearsals the faculty advisor directing the play, Dr. Namen, pulled Erin aside, saying, "you're doing well, I know violent death scenes can be hard. But the real reason I wanted to talk with you was to ask if you could be an understudy for Hannah's part. We wanted to see how a few of you were doing before asking, and the faculty committee has agreed that you would be our best choice. I'm guessing you know all the lines, but you'd need to play Julia in a couple of rehearsals. We'll only have four actual performances, so the odds are good that you'll never actually need to step in, but we'd be taking a big risk if we didn't have a backup for Julia! Are you interested?"

Despite her lingering disappointment at not being cast as Julia, Erin agreed to prepare just in case Hannah ended up getting sick during the short run of the play. Over the next few days she tried, with limited success, to not wish some sort of short but debilitating illness on Hannah! Dr. Namen also recruited an understudy for the part of Ursinus, and the two understudies stayed to rehearse after the rest of the cast had knocked off most nights of the week leading up to the opening night. The backup Ursinius, Sean, was one of the few actors in the department noticeably taller than Erin, and was far better looking than Bret, the actor actually cast in the part. It took almost no time for Erin to see why Bret, not Sean, had the role. Bret was short, pudgy and often rude, but unlike Sean he could act!

The rehearsals went fairly smoothly, despite a few wardrobe problems. With the whole second act taking place in a bedchamber in Ursinus's villa, the director had planned on the actors wearing very light tunics, basically two plain rectangles, one in front and one in back, with a drawstring for a collar and a tie holding the two sheets together with small gaps at their sides. Beneath the two-piece tunic, they would wear simple undergarments, just a strip of cloth wrapped around their waists, and a second wrap around the breasts for the female cast members. Dr Namen explained that these garments were more historically correct than the togas usually seen in movies or plays set in ancient Rome, telling the cast that wearing togas in a bedchamber would be like wearing a suit and tie to bed today.

However historically correct the tunics and underwear might have been, during the first rehearsal where the cast tested out the tunics there were vocal complaints from most of the performers who were expected to wear them. They complained that the underwear felt awkward, like they might fall off at any moment, causing Dr Namen to tell them curtly that they needed to wear what he had designed or go without anything under their tunics! His declaration was answered with furious shouts refusing to go ahead with the play if they were going to have to wear his tunics without anything beneath the fairly sheer fabric.

He was forced to relent when Anna, one of the women playing a concubine, demonstrated the problem by reaching under her tunic and tugging off the band of fabric wrapped around her breasts. She let it drop to the floor and went about moving around the stage as she would during the performance, treating the assembled cast and crew to a more detailed look at her boobs than Dr Namen could possibly justify. Blushing deeply, he thought about the trouble he'd get into if he had a cast full of students on display as Anna was, with stage fully lit instead of being less than half that level, as it was then! He gave in, promising to have the fabric of the tunics replaced with something less revealing!

It wasn't until hours after the tunic protest had come and gone that Erin thought about how she'd been practically the only cast member, certainly the only female, who hadn't complained about the nearly see-through costume. It wasn't that she didn't know how exposed she would be if she wore it onstage; she'd tried the outfit both with and without anything underneath just a few minutes before the protest. Looking back on the controversy, she realized that if her castmates hadn't made a fuss about it she would have gone ahead with Dr. Namen's original outfit. She couldn't be sure if her willingness to be seen onstage practically nude was a sign of her being too eager to please the director, or, best case, that her experience posing naked, limited as it was, had made her confident enough to do this hard thing!

With the costume arguments settled, rehearsals proceeded smoothly. A clever crew member did research on how to make convincing stab wounds, bleeding and pooled blood, and found ways to conceal his handiwork from the view of the audience. By the time the one full dress rehearsal came, the cast and crew had gotten past the small goofs and technical glitches of the earlier rehearsals. Though appropriately nervous, everyone involved was pretty confident that they were ready for Wednesday and their first performance.

The first night went even more smoothly than Dr Namen had expected. The reviews in both the college newspaper and the local daily paper were full of praise, along with a carefully worded mention of the simulated oral sex as part of a warning in the local paper that the play's sex and violence might not be appropriate for children.

Erin sent links to the reviews to her parents, prompting a phone call from her Mom no more than 6 minutes after the email showed up in her inbox. Seeing her mother's phone number on her phone's screen, Erin braced herself for a bunch of questions about the sex and violence mentioned in the reviews. She was relieved to hear her Mom say, with obvious pride obviously proud say, "They mention you by name!"

"Yeah," Erin replied, "But I was just one of several cast members who were mentioned as 'capably supporting' the male and female leads. I guess it's better than not being mentioned at all."

"Of course it is," her Mom said, "and didn't you say you were the understudy to that Hannah who's the lead? You might get to do that part yet!"

"Not likely with only three more performances," Erin answered, "and even if I did, there won't be any new coverage in the paper, so..."

"But good experience, right? You're trying to break into a tough business," her Mom interrupted, "You need to take any break you get. Including being ready to step in if an opportunity comes your way."

"You're right," Erin replied, "thanks for the pep talk!"

"I'm just sorry your Dad and I can't make it to any of the three performances left!"

"Really, Mom, my part is pretty small, I don't think it would have been worth your while to make the trip for this one!"

"Well, let us know when you think it WOULD be worth it, we haven't seen you on a stage since high school!"

"I will. Love you, bye!"

"Love you too, bye!"

The remaining three performances seemed to fly by; everyone had their part down pat, and with some coaching from a couple faculty advisors after the first couple of performances made a few adjustments. The mood at the closing night party was jubilant, if a little dejected by the experience coming to an end just as they were getting good at it.

A week after the final performance of "The Mother", Erin received an early morning text from Dr. Namen. She opened one eye and seeing who the text was from set the phone down, her hangover insisting she get at least two more hours of sleep before dealing with any faculty member at 7:30 on a Sunday morning. She only was able to get one more hour of rest before a flurry of texts demanded her attention. Sitting up and focusing on her text app she saw dozens of messages, a couple from Dr Namen but most from classmates she'd worked with on "The Mother."