one
“And this year’s musical is going to be—drum roll please,” Wade exclaims as his fingers drag a sheet down from the wall to reveal an old poster, “Grease,”
He received a few pity smiles and sympathetic hurrays from his students before sighing, “Look, guys, I'm gonna be honest with you, I don’t want this either, but the school cut the budget on funding our drama department. We had to use something we already had.”
The truth was that the head of school didn’t trust Wade enough to put a big budget to use. They said he hadn’t produced enough “good material” in the past few years. Whatever that means. It’s not like he has control of how the students perform end-all, he can only mentor them into producing the best of themselves. Which, apparently, wasn’t enough for academic hierarchy.
The money that was supposed to be his was now funding the athletic field. So, instead of props and costumes, it will now buy balls for students to beat and destroy.
Wade looked around at all the faces in front of him, they all shared the disappointment he felt. Bracing himself, he clapped his hands together, “Okay, I sent out a mass text to you with the script bits to memorize, go get in groups and practice. Auditions are Monday,” That gave them a weekend to prepare. Jesus H. Christ he hopes they will do this one right.
—
The weekend came and went just fine. Wade spent most of it on his couch, actually, but he will lead people to think it was more exciting. He waits in the auditorium for the final period to end, to allow his kids to flood in.
Unfortunately, he got a little excited and showed up wicked early. He does this at the beginning of almost every production. Attempting to stay productive and patient failed him quickly. He fell into a steady rhythm of pacing the stage and moving shit around that should have stayed in place.
He continued until he heard an amused voice call to him from the entrance,”Mr. Wilson what are you doing?” It was Laura.
He swung himself around to smile at her, “Productively screwing myself over,” he stepped off the stage, “How many times have I told you all to just call me Wade, Laura, all the other students do. Except for Ben, but… that’s Ben,”
She set her backpack down in one of the front few pews,”Yes, and my dad would bitch about it if I did,”
“Mr. Howlett? Don’t his students call him Logan? Seems hypocritical to me,”
“Yeah, well, they do it to piss him off. He does that stupid grunting thing and they find it amusing,” She finally walked up to the front with him.
Other students started piling in before Wade could respond. But, grunting? Seriously?
“Okay, everyone, who is ready to preform for my perfect, divine judgment?” He looked around at everyone getting seated and sent a prayer to whatever jackoff would save him now.
His judgment reached its full potential, and his prayers were nowhere near answered. Most of the kids sucked ass. He had a lot of work to do.
Laura did well, as his only hope, she’ll get cast as Sandy. They need strong leads, at the very least. The boys are all lackluster, but the best is Ben. He is an odd kid, but the boy has some talent for sure. He’ll be their Danny.
Wade brought his hands to his head and dragged them down his face, he was gonna be fucked if this fell apart. His budget was already cut, who knows what the administration will cut next. They could get rid of the drama department all together.
He can’t afford that right now.
He looked up at the girl currently singing. She was off pitch, but with a little work she could make a decent Rizzo.
Sighing, he attempted to let some tension out. He just had to have faith in the kids. Everything will be okay once he has a cast, and can work around their personal faults. Except it’s hard to have hope when your almost-Rizzo just went further off pitch, and there are very few left to audition. His pool of talent is kiddy sized, and Wade is watching this show slip through his fingers before he can even get a hold of it.
To lose the department would mean to lose his job. After the separation with Vanessa he really can’t take another blow. He is splitting a shit rent with his mother’s old friend, and he can’t let her down again by not making the cut.
While he was witnessing his career shit it’s existence away Laura sat beside him. She was quiet, observing the student auditioning now. The almost-Rizzo had walked off and a new boy was now up. He was reading for the part of Kenickie.
Laura snorted soon after he began, and Wade hit her lightly on the arm, “Don’t laugh at the other students,”
“But he sucks,”
“He is trying,” Wade defended.
“Poorly,” She smirked, and he tried to hide a smile.
She was a cool kid. He came across very few truly tolerable students, but she passed the test. She’s actually funny, gives good feedback, an cares about theater as much as him. She is snarky, though— which she probably gets from the animal of a father she has. He is always barking orders at people.
Wade hasn’t had many one on one interactions with Logan. Of course , they had run into each other through meetings, shared students, and tense pleasantries that weren’t very pleasant. But he usually tried to keep his distance because the guy always looks pissed.
He rarely smiles or laughs. From what Wade has heard, the students have a lot of mixed opinions on him. Some say he sucks simply because they hate physical education, those opinions Wade writes off, they don’t count. Others just don’t like him; they say he is mean or an ‘over the top try-hard’ that makes them work way too much. But, Wade has heard a few kids say Logan is their favorite teacher because he is so kind to them. He finds that hard to believe.
Laura always talks highly of him; she makes those latter remarks a little easier to consider. Wade has only ever seen Logan really smile when he and Laura are together. He doesn’t know their story, just that she was adopted, which isn’t much in the long run. Their bond is undeniable, though, and Wade believes that has something to do with the lack of a second parent.
After the last audition was done he told the kids good job and sent them home. He had a lot of freaking out to do.
By the time he filled out the cast list he was exhausted. He had spent about two hours sitting at his desk agonizing over who would be the least worst to act and sing. Whoever he cast had to be decent at both, not just one or the other.
Why the hell did he think a spring musical was a good idea?
—
Wade waited until all the students had piled into the auditorium before he walked out holding the castlist sheet high over his head. He made a production of it, slow but sharp marching towards the wall while humming a drum roll. He taped the paper up and swiftly backed away as the kids swarmed.
He watched Laura smile as she discovered she would play their lead. She pulled out her phone to text who Wade presumed to be her dad. Ben, who got their other lead, just as planned, high-fived his friend who got Keneckie. A couple other kids looked excited while the rest were disappointed.
He made his way up to the stage and cleared his throat,”Come now, hither, dear ducklings.'' He waited for them to fill the empty space in front of him, “So, we need to get started quickly and efficiently. I'm sorry to the few who didn’t get cast, don’t be butthurt, we don’t have the time for it.”
He walked over the left side of the stage, “This is where some of you are going to fix and pretty-up these,” He gestured around himself at the piles of old props, before walking to the right side, “This is where my extras are going to collect, I will section you off into smaller parts later,” finally, he moved to the center, “Now this, this is where my leads collect and start running lines, I don’t care which scene,” He clapped his hands, “Everyone, go.”
It took about an hour for Wade to decide how truly fucked he was. Yes, the kids were doing their best, but it just wasn’t adding up. Sandy and Danny weren’t comfortable enough together, props kept breaking due to sheer, brittle age, and the extras kept complaining. Wade was going to lose his fucking mind.
He got up to distract himself and intervene with the main cast, “Laura, hun, you need to loosen up, when he touches you it looks like you are gonna stab him. This needs to be family friendly, no blood shed allowed,”
She rolled her eyes, “He keeps messing up his timing and touching when he isn’t supposed to,”
“Hey,” Ben pouted, “I’m not that off,”
Wade interrupted before Laura could counter, “Irrelevant, it’s the first day, Laura, quit clenching your cheeks. And, Ben, practice punctual positioning. We need this to be smooth and comfortable, guys,”
“Fine,” Laura huffed.
Wade wondered himself over to watch the prop work and almost shed a tear at how poorly it was coming along. There wasn’t much to say about it, though, nothing useful that is.
The last hour of practice was slow and agonizing. More props broke, Ben’s timing stayed steadily off, and the remaining cast were mind numbing. He should just kiss his future in this career goodbye.
Wade waved the kids off as practice came to an end. He really needed to figure something out quick or he would remain with a dick up his ass and be utterly fucked.
Laura walked up to him, her face glowing. Wade can not imagine why she would be so thrilled with this shitty first day.
“This was ass,” Is the first thing she said.
“Thank you, Miss fucking obvious,”
“Wait, let me finish,” She took her phone out, “I think I know who could help,”
“Unless you're gonna call up Jesus H. Christ himself, I really don’t think you can pull that off,”
All she did was smile and keep swiping on her phone. She turned the screen to Wade, “Him,”
Wade snorted, on her phone was a young guy dressed as Rocky Horror’s very own Frank-N-Furter, “Laura, we aren’t performing Rocky, I would lose my job even quicker than I already will,”
Laura chuckled, “No, look closer, at the actor,”
Wade took the phone and squinted, “No. Fucking. Way,” He looked up at her, then back down at the photo. It was a picture of a younger Logan Howlett in a corset, tights, pumps, and a latex thong. Wade stared.
“Quit drooling, Jesus, Wade,” She took her phone back, “He did theater all through college. He knows shit, and I think he could be a big help in this show,”
“I know shit too. I’m the head of the drama department, duh,”
“Did you ever play Danny?” Laura asked.
Wade stayed silent, “Well, dad did. He knows this show inside and out,”
“And you want me to go up to your dad— who I have talked to such a miniscule amount of times that I can count each instance on one hand —and ask him to save my production,” Wade shook his head, “No way,”
“Mr— Wade, come on, we both know you need this,” Laura reasoned.
“I am perfectly fine, I don’t need saving,” He crossed his arms. She stared at him expectedly, “Okay, fine, maybe I do, but if he says no?”
“He won’t,” She smiled.
“And how are you so positive,”
“Because you will have these,” She tapped her phone, and Wade’s vibrated a second later. She had sent him multiple photos of Logan’s Rocky performance.
“With those, he can’t say no,” She put her phone away, “He should be in his office, he doesn't leave until seven,” She patted his shoulder and walked past him, “Your welcome,” The smile on her lips bounced off her voice.
Wade kept his eyes on the pictures of Logan for longer than he would ever admit.
Sighing, he put his phone in his pocket, setting one foot in front of the other, and making his way towards the gym.