Chapter Two

Monday after class Jeff gathered everyone for an emergency meeting in the drama room. There were still streamers dangling from the ceiling that the custodians hadn’t bothered to take down.

“What’s this about?” Valerie whined. “I’m missing lacrosse practice for this.”

“I’ll write you a note,” Jefferson assured her.

Valerie still didn’t look happy, but she let the subject drop for now.

Jeff sauntered up to the front of the room and stood there with his hands clasped in front of him for several seconds. The kids stared up at him with a mixture of disinterest and concern. Someone in the back let out a brackish cough.

Jefferson took in a deep breath and started talking.

“So... I know how much you guys have been wanting to put on a musical—”

“But you said it was too expensive,” Kendra interrupted. She was their local musical theater nerd, always bragging about all the shows she’d managed to see on or off Broadway. Sometimes Jeff thought that the only language Kendra spoke was show tunes. Her enthusiasm was infectious though. There were a couple of nods and a few nervous whispers throughout the room. He definitely had their full attention now.

“Let me finish,” he urged. “Yes. I did manage to buy the rights to a musical. It’s not a musical any of you will have heard of. It was written and composed by a local playwright and it’s only been performed live once before; last summer for an audience of less than two hundred.”

Curious whispers started filling the room as the kids struggled to hide their excitement. Soon a million questions were being hurled his way.

“What’s it about?”

“What’s it called?”

“What genre is it?”

“Who’s the playwright and how did you find them?”

“Where’d you get the money?”

Jeff laughed and held up his hand.

“First off, it’s a sort of meta horror/comedy about a group of high school students trying to put on a play, but different actors keep going missing during every rehearsal, and the ones who remain have to work together to solve the mystery before opening night. It’s called Five Nights ‘til Curtain. I bought the rights with my own money, not the school’s, so it’s a tax write-off at the very least. As far as how I came into contact with this person…”

Jeff had a brief and horrible flashback to scouring the internet for hours only to find that the cheapest anyone was willing to sell the rights to their play was $500. Then he’d gone to get frozen yogurt in defeat and just so happened to bump into an old student who mentioned that his cousin was doing his masters in playwriting and might be willing to work out a deal for his thesis.

Thus, a very prim and articulate English teacher had ended up in the very small and very weed smelling apartment of David Whittaker, who it turns out, was actually an incredible storyteller. Jeff had sped-read through the play the first time, not wanting to spend a second more in David’s apartment than he absolutely had to. Even just skimming though, it was obvious that the script was ingenious, and that his students would absolutely love it. Therefore, Jeff had ended up making out an $80 check to a very sketchy, and very “high” stranger with the promise to “save him a seat” and “not fuck up his art.”

Honestly, he wasn’t even sure David was aware that any of this had happened, but that didn’t matter. Jefferson had an invoice and a scratch track. That’s all that really mattered.

“Well, don’t worry about how I met him. Just know that his script is amazing,” Jeff finished. “Now, are there any more questions?”

“How’s the music gonna work?” asked Adam, always the practical one. It was fair enough considering he was probably the one who would get stuck running the sound board.

“Well, I’ve got sheet music and some rough recordings to get us through for now. Eventually we’ll have to get the instrumentals professionally recorded, but we’ll figure that out when we get to it.”

“How many songs are there?” asked Kendra, eyes wide. It was a wonder that she didn’t stand up and break into song right then and there.

“Thirteen, and a couple of reprises.”

“When can we hear them?” asked Tariq. He was leaning back dangerously far in his chair and the teacher in Jeff made him want to put an end to it, but he decided to let him have fun just this once, even if it meant potentially falling on his ass.

“Yeah, and when can I start pulling props?” asked Enrique. “If this takes place at a high school, we should be able to just walk around campus and take stock of everything we need.”

“You can hear the songs and start staking claims on props after you read the script,” Jefferson answered. He held up a single finger in front of his face. “One more question. Make it a good one.”

“When do we get our roles?” asked Eddie

Jefferson broke out into a huge grin.

“After you audition of course!”

The kids became quiet again. Since their funding had gotten cut and the department had been forced to put on nothing but plays in the public domain, there had been a significant drop in interest for the club as a whole, to the point where Jefferson had stopped bothering with open auditions and just started assigning roles or letting the kids work it out among themselves.

That wasn’t going to fly with this one though. There were more characters than people in the club, plus they needed backup dancers and a chorus. They were going to have to scope out some new talent. He just hoped and prayed that there was some new talent out there willing to be found.