The theatre was dark except for the equity light at center stage, and the Exit signs that glowed at the four corners of the orchestra and up in the back of the balcony. I flipped the switch on the work lights and the fluorescents above the stage flickered on. I started to unload the chairs from a cart. When they were all offloaded, I struck the cart and returned to set the chairs in a semicircle touching the curtain line. The stage door on the left opened and shushed closed. I turned to see a middle aged man carrying a suit bag over his shoulder.
"Mr. Mento?" I asked.
"Yes," he smiled and approached extending his right hand.
"I'm Jeff Bronson, your stage manager. I'm also here to run the lights. Thanks for the cue sheet you e-mailed." I released his firm clasp and turned back to the stage and the twenty chairs I had set. "You like it this far downstage?"
"Yeah, looks real good." He glanced left and right. "Dressing room open?" He looked at his watch.
"There's a stairway downstage in the right wing. It'll take you under the stage to make-up. Hit the light switch at the top of the stairs or you'll be in the dark. The dressing rooms are marked. Take your pick."
"Thanks." He turned and then turned back. "Um...I've got some swag out in the van. Can you help with that? It's only two boxes."
"Is your rig open?"
He dug in his pants pocket for his keys and tossed them to me. "It's parked right outside the end of that hallway." He gestured toward the door through which he had entered.
I nodded. "I've got some tables behind the traveller. OK if we put the merchandise in front of the apron?" I pointed downstage through the open curtain.
"Perfect! See you in a few." He waved.
I moved downstage to the procenium at stage right and opened a long, black, leatherette case and assembled a tripod concealed inside. I grabbed a loop on top of what looked like an upside down window shade and hooked it to the top. I extended the rod and exposed a garish canvas with the words "The Marvelous" splashed on it. I crossed the stage and repeated the process for a sign that read "Mister Mento."
The van was hard to miss. It displayed the same circus-like font declaring "The Marvelous Mister Mento." I unlocked and opened the sliding door and located the boxes--one full of paperback books, the other of DVDs. I toted them back to the theater in two trips and spotted them in a couple front row seats. I set up the tables and put some skirting around them. I emptied the books from their box and arranged them on one surface and the DVDs on the other. Stepping back, I surveyed the display. It looked good. Mr. Mento would be able to station himself conveniently between the tables and sell his stuff when he was done on stage.
The main light booth would be overkill for this show, so I retrieved the "mini me" from the vault and plugged it into the auxiliary jack in the left orchestra seating. I set up a general cue and then returned to the stage to strike the equity lamp and kill the work lights. Mr. Mento was just climbing the stairs dressed in his tux; his bowtie dangled from the coat pocket. I waited in the darkened left wing surveying the stage.
"How's that for a main cue?" I asked. "You got all the downstage from the chairs and about six feet upstage before it'll start to clip your head."
Mr. Mento nodded and took the stage checking out the illumination. He stopped at center.
"Six feet is plenty. More than that and I'd disappear from the sightline anyway. Can you give me a little color?"
"Warmer or cooler?" I asked a I jumped down from the front of the stage and went to the light board.
"Warmer, please."
He looked at his hand as I tweaked the cue with some rose and bastard amber.
"Great! Right there." He said. I programmed the cue and brought up the preset which included the house lights. "You go to school here?"
"Yeah. I'm a senior."
"Do you mind giving me some help when I ask for volunteers tonight? It's always nice to get an entertaining mix. I like to have about seventy percent female, high school age to elderly. The more interesting they are to the community the better."
I was about to agree to help when my girlfriend, Jen, stepped onto the stage from the wings. "Maybe Jen could do that, Mr. Mento." I grinned. "She'd make a great beautiful assistant! Practically typecast."
"Do what?" Jen asked walking downstage gracefully and sitting on the edge.
"Mr. Mento needs someone to help him select his victims...
"Volunteers," Mr. Mento interjected.
I nodded. "...volunteers for the hypnotism."
"What would I have to do?" Jen asked.
"Well, I need enough volunteers to fill the twenty chairs on stage. Like I told Jeff, I like seventy percent to be female eighteen and older. The rest, obviously, can be male with the same characteristics. Beyond that, they need to be interesting to the community. Nobody comes to see me hypnotise people, they come to see friends and acquaintances hypnotized."
Jen shrugged and sat dangling her denim clad legs over the front of the stage. "Sure."
"Ok, we'll meet when the house opens and I'll give you a general overview, and I'll work your instructions right into my patter. Maybe we'll include you into some other parts of the show, too. Just listen and we'll be fine."
Jen nodded and slid off the stage apron, approached me, and smiled accepting my warm kiss on the lips.
"How was wrestling practice?" She asked.
"Good. Coach was happy. I think we're in good shape. It's really cool to see the young guys stick around through tournament time. That never happened with basketball"
Actually Coach was more than happy. He'd taken me aside after workout to tell me how proud he was of my one and only year of wrestling. He'd said that if I'd have turned out since I was a freshman, I'd already be a state champion. Then he slapped me on the back and sent me to the showers
Jen put her arm through mine and hugged it tight. "This time Friday we'll know if you're in the finals."
"Sure. We'll know by early afternoon. Hey, I think I have that new move down pretty well."
Jen smiled, her eyes twinkled. "Wanna try it out on me, now? She teased.
"Oh, no...it's top secret. You're not in my weight class, anyway. Wouldn't be fair." She slapped my shoulder and put on her pouty face.
Looking at the empty stage, I had a thought. "Wait! I think there is something in costumes that would turn that frown upside down!" I joked. Mr. Mento had worked himself into the orchestra and was re-arranging his sale merchandise. "You mind if I doll Jen up a bit, Mr. Mento?"
He checked his watch again. "She looks fine like she is, but I don't mind. We've got plenty of time if you don't take more than a half hour."
"No problem. I can get her out of her clothes in no time at all." Jen backhanded my shoulder again...harder. I suddenly actually heard what I was saying. "Ouch. Sorry. That didn't come out the way I intended. Come on."
Costumes were stored in a long, repurposed hallway running the length of the top of the theater that probably was intended to be an extension of the corridor through the second floor classroom wing. When the school had been built, there was optimism that the economy would boom forever and that the school would need to be expanded eventually. So much for local economic theory. Hoped for growth never materialized. While the nearby college town gained population, our predominantly rural farming district continued to shrink in population. We climbed the stairs up the back wall of the stage to the second floor level. The door was never locked so we went right through. I flipped the lights on, and we threaded our way through the props and into costume storage.
Costumes from the last two shows were hanging on racks at the front of the long term space on either side of a central aisle. The evening gown I was looking for was easy to spot. The part had been played by Wendy Fromm who was the same height and weight as Jen but not as well endowed.
Jen's tits were wonderful. I spent ten hours a day with a hard on because of those babies. We'd been going together since early December, about a month after football season got over. Long enough for me to have gotten to second base...at least I thought it was second base--I don't play baseball...so they were pretty firmly impressed in my memory.
"Here you go, Jen," I said as I handed her the gown. "Wendy wore it in Lend Me a Tenor."
