Look Both Ways(17)

“Well, I still have my side project,” I say. “But, yeah, I am doing a lot of tech.”

“Wow. That’s awful,” says the redhead. She moves a little farther away from me, like my lack of talent might be contagious.

Before I can answer, Marcus bursts through the doors of Haydu with a big canvas bag over his shoulder, and everyone falls silent and backs up to clear a path for him. He doesn’t even glance at us, and when he hits the bottom of the steps, he keeps going, heading around to the back of the building like we’re not even here. We look at each other, unsure of what to do, but nobody moves until he barks, “Are you coming or not?”

We scramble into a duckling-like row behind him, and I wonder if we’ve already failed our first test. Jessa strides along in front of me, her giant puffball ponytail bobbing up and down. She looks a lot more confident than I feel, but maybe that’s because she’s so tall. I concentrate on holding my head as high as I can.

Marcus stops on a stretch of flat lawn surrounded by weeping willow trees. “Sit,” he orders, like we’re dogs, and everyone does. I expect him to lay out what we’re going to do for the next couple of hours, but instead, he launches right in like we’re already in the middle of a conversation. “Acting is not about pretending to be another person. Any actor who tells you that deserves to be blacklisted from every stage in America. Acting is an embodiment of real life. When you act, you are not recreating. You are creating.”



I’m not totally sure I agree with that. If the actors are supposed to create the play, what’s the playwright’s job? When we do text analysis and stuff, isn’t the whole point that it helps us understand our characters and embody them instead of drawing from our real lives? I glance around to see how everyone else is reacting and see that most people are nodding, including Zoe.

“I had a student once,” Marcus continues. “She was rehearsing Lady Macbeth’s raven speech late one night in her room. ‘Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!’?” The Shakespearean language rolls off Marcus’s tongue like it’s as familiar to him as a nursery rhyme. “As she said Lady Macbeth’s lines, she noticed the dagger-shaped letter opener on her desk. She grabbed it, feeling the surge of power that the blade in her hand put behind her words. She wasn’t herself any longer. She was Lady Macbeth. She gestured wildly with the knife, heedless of where her blade might fall. She didn’t even realize what she was doing until she had already plunged the knife deep into her own leg.”

Everyone gasps, and Livvy wraps her arms around her skinny thighs like she’s trying to protect them. I wait for Marcus to say something about how dangerous it is to completely lose ourselves, even as we appear to come apart in front of our audience. But instead he says, “That is dedication to craft. That is what I want to see from each and every one of you. If you are not prepared to stab yourself in the leg for art, you will never truly be an actor.”



“Um,” says a lanky apprentice with hipster glasses. “Was she okay?”

Marcus nods. “Yes, after three hours of surgery. She has a scar that will last forever. I envy her that. Every time she looks at it, she will be reminded what true transcendence feels like. Most of us have scars only on the inside.” His eyes sweep around the semicircle. “I need a volunteer.”

Under normal circumstances, I would never put myself out there without knowing what I was getting into. Just the thought of standing up in front of the whole apprentice company makes my stomach twist unpleasantly, much worse than it ever does at Family Night. But this is really, really important; half the company already knows I wasn’t cast in anything, and I need to prove to them that I belong here. Even if I fail completely, maybe they’ll respect the courage it took to get up first, especially after that story about the virtues of being injured. And if I do a really good job, it’s possible Marcus will even find a tiny role for me on the main stage.

I put my hand in the air.

Marcus zeroes in on me. His gaze makes me feel like I’m under the superbright light they shine into your mouth at the dentist. “Name?” he asks.



“Brooklyn.” My last name is on the tip of my tongue; maybe Marcus would go easier on me if he knew I was Lana’s kid. But it’s more critical now than ever that none of the other apprentices find out who my mom is.

“Stand over there,” Marcus says, gesturing to a stretch of grass in front of the trees.

I go where he’s pointing and face the group, chin up and shoulders back so nobody can tell how thoroughly freaked out I am. “A great actor never loses focus, no matter what is going on around him,” Marcus says. “Why is this?”

The redheaded girl who sneered at me earlier raises her hand. “Because you’re becoming another person, not playing a part,” she says. “Nothing can make you stop being you, no matter what happens.”

“Exactly,” Marcus thunders, and the girl flinches, even though he’s agreeing with her. “Name?”

“Pandora,” she says. I catch Zoe’s eye, and she raises her eyebrow like, Seriously?

“I’ve never heard it put better,” Marcus says, and the girl preens and blushes. “Nothing can make you stop being you—not a missing prop or a coughing audience member or a siren going off down the block. Do you understand?” We all nod. “It is time to see if Brooklyn has what it takes to be a real actor.” Marcus turns to me. “What was your audition monologue?”