Last week I stayed in the dorms at Stanford University attending Emerging Writers Institute. Going to these camps really helps inspire me. In regular life, I’ll get distracted and writing can get put on the back burner. Here I’m constantly surrounded by books, prompts, and fellow writers. Every day we get new activities and advice (I think I found my happy place). At the end of this program, we presented our creative writing project. I wrote a comedy/satire short story set in a high school theater department. The original version was about four and a half pages and took nine minutes to read. My time slot was 5 minutes so I edited it down to two pages. Here is my short story called The One-Sided War.

The One-Sided War

By Lili Lang

From third grade, we dazzled our audiences with song and dance. They were kindergarteners but hey, they were dazzled. And we brought with us that same spark to Sun Valley High. Now equipped with a stage, tech crew, and costumes the possibilities were infinite. But with those possibilities came some new realities. Who would schedule rehearsals, write the playbill, or man the concession stand?  I was happy to take on the position. I had always enjoyed helping out with the plays. Now I had an actual title: The stage manager! 

 While I love the production side of theater another aspect has always intrigued me. The script. One day I hope to see my own script performed. 

So after applying three times already and waiting months for confirmation, I was accepted to attend a prestigious screenwriting seminar.  Unfortunately, I would have to miss our production of Fiddler on the Roof to attend. So they found this girl to fill in for me. Emphasis on fill in not replace! So imagine my surprise when I look at the casting list. Next to the stage manager position it read the usual Ethan and then wait, Mya. Some Mya Lagowski. Obviously, this was a typo. No worries, accidents happen. I just hope poor Mya doesn’t get her hopes up. Tommy, our lead actor quickly disillusioned me. 

“ Oh yeah my my’s gonna be helping out cool huh?” he said with a dopey grin. Cool?! My My! Have you lost your mind?  Of course, you have this is an actor’m talking to. Not that Tommy was listening to me he had already tapped danced off to join the rest of the actors in some infuriatingly good impromptu song.

Here I am running around scheduling rehearsals, distributing costumes, and designing playbills! Since elementary with our first-ever play, I’ve dealt with actors, techies, and directors alike. They’ve taken at least 10 years of my life. And what do I ask for? A thank you, a little coffee, and oh yeah a job! 

 Mya was punctual, to say the least. As always I had been up late last night finalizing schedules and working script deliveries. I ended up sleeping in so I showed up with bed hair, morning breath, and late. Only to find Mya had been a half hour early and brought donuts. It took every ounce of willpower not to accept one. This seemed to be the theme for the next few weeks. Maya’s eager bubbly personality won over the actors. She even managed to steal my techies. One Starbucks run in the traitors jumped ship. Turns out the little coffee addicts are made of more caffeine than loyalty. 

Things came to a head just two weeks before opening night. Yet another argument had erupted between the actors and techies. Everyone was feeling pretty tense with the show around the corner and it didn’t help that techies had just gone decaf.  Stacy, head of the tech crew, found out Willow, an ensemble member, misplaced a prop and it was all over. Things escalated quickly and with the director running late I was the only one around to keep things under control. So I ran around trying to dodge the blow of brutal insults being thrown across the room. Well brutal by theater standards. “Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been eating in your costume, Joey. You wouldn’t know a kickball shuffle step if it bit you on the nose Lisa. Oh please Patrick you got one line and know you acting like the big man on stage.” I did my best to extinguish the flames but I soon realized no one was listening. I felt a tap on my shoulder and whirled around to find Mya who had been hot on my heels looking to assist. 

“What can I do to help?” squeaked Mya. In the chaos of the moment, I took out all my frustrations on her. “No Mya! Alright, no one wants your help here, no one. We don’t need you so why don’t you just go back to Colorado already.” My face went pale realizing what I just said. I saw tears threatening the borders of Mya’s eyes and she turned around out the door just as Mr. Howard the director was entering. 

Upon seeing the havoc before him Mr. Howard showed a side we seldom saw, anger. 

“We are just weeks away from our show and rather than using this valuable time you all squabble it on petty bickering.” he roared, causing us all to duck our heads in shame. We shuffled off to our positions, his words weighing on us. On my way out Mr. Howard called my name.

“Ethan I heard what you said to Mya.” I turned my head away not ready to admit my wrongdoing. “I expected more from you really. After all, you have always been this theater’s most vehement supporter. I imagined you to be the first to welcome Mya not to be her only opposition. What has she done to you other than take every opportunity to prove herself?” I pondered this idea had Mya truly just been trying to help rather than push me out? Seeming to read my thoughts Mr. Howard responded “Ethan this theater needs you. We were never trying to replace you. And if it makes you feel any better you can be senior stage manager.”

 From then on I put away my feeble complaints and got to work in earnest. It seemed Mya never had anything against me. This whole war was pretty one-sided. By figuring out each of our strengths and weaknesses we could divide and conquer. While I worked on lighting Mya handled ticket sales and we got things done in record time. We actually managed to stick to practice times and not go over. We even figured out how to patch things up with the techies and actors. A couple of lattes can do wonders 

That year we had our best show yet and I’m sure the next one will be even better!