Chapter Text
They needed the money, that's what Chris kept reminding himself.
It's how he kept rationalizing it as he sent out emails and confirmed documents. The Cornley Drama Society really needed the money, and there's only so many Cornley based local businesses that would sponsor them before bridges got literally burned. So, instead of a series three of Play of the Week (which they all really wanted) the BBC decided on a different format.
A very annoying, uninspired, and cliche format- Chris decided.
Most of the Society didn't share his belief, but hey! In the end they still got to put on staged shows, it didn't matter if cameras were following their every move. Right? God, hopefully, right?
Of course, Chris was the first one at the theater, as he usually was. Already deep in paperwork in his small office, which was two doors down from the dressing rooms. The old cement and wooden theater had been home to the Cornley Drama Society for years now that they were no longer the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society. Chris could get lost in thought, reminiscing on his time in polytechnic with all of his friends- but decided not to, not only was today a very important meeting for the group, the damned BBC documentary crew would be in today sometime after lunch.
He sighed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, Chris really needed another coffee. No, what he desperately needed was more budget to not only keep the lights on in this derelict place, but enough money to pay for sets, props, costumes, and pay the cast and crew well. Or, cast and Trevor- for some reason they could never keep a backstage crew from production to production.
'Knock knock, kn-knock, knock. Knock-knock!' was heard on his office door, Chris needn't look up, knowing immediately the only other person who would be in the space before nine in the morning- the aforementioned Trevor.
"Black coffee for you, with a cheese croissant." The stage manager had a tray of two coffees in his hand, and a small bag of croissants for them to share. "Morning."
Chris took the coffee and food from him, laying it down next to his laptop. They both took out the croissants and put them on top of the crumpled bag, like a plate. "Good morning, Trevor. You shouldn't have."
"You never have breakfast, and I know you've been up for hours, it's the least I can do." With a free hand, Trevor grabbed at a smaller chair in the corner of Chris' office (that definitely wasn't his, and everyone definitely knew that,) and sat next to the director. "What do we have?"
Chris tore his eyes away from his screen and looked over his impromptu breakfast, and then to the man who brought it, giving Trevor a fond smile. "Consent forms about the documentary, insurance papers, and scripts for our latest production."
They both took a synchronized drink of their coffee, as Chris handed him the script on top. On the top left corner, in Chris Bean's perfect cursive was 'Trevor Watson: Stage Manager.' Practically a formality at this point. They both knew their roles within the CDS, which rarely varied or wavered. But Chris, ever the perfectionist, had to write everyone's names and roles.
"Melody of Secrets?" Trevor read the cover, each script, except for Chris' had been photocopied in black and white.
"Romantic drama with no set time period, so we have free for all." Chris talked at him, eyes scanning more emails, taking a bite of his croissant. "What cheese is this?"
"Um, swiss, your favorite."
"Swiss? Tastes like cheddar." They both looked at each other, then down at their breakfast before Trevor spun the bag around.
"You're eating mine." They both shared a small grin as Chris handed him the croissant with the bite taken out of it, Trevor taking the next bite. "No worries."
Of course Chris didn't even have the apology out of his mouth yet before Trevor could dismiss it, it's just how they worked. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Trevor reading over the script, and Chris answering emails, the only sound was when either of them had any of their breakfast.
Trevor sat down his to-go cup on the desk, humming, eyebrows knitted. Chris immediately handed him a red pen from his ever growing pen collection, Trevor taking it, both moving automatically in sync. He scribbled a few words in the margin and then circled something, before holding the pen with his teeth.
"There is a perfectly organized desk in front of you to put the pen down, you don't have to put it in your mouth like some animal." Chris remarked, side eyeing the other as he picked up his food.
Trevor shrugged, eyes flying to the ceiling, barely taking the pen out of his mouth and then putting it right back in. "Force of habit, mate."
"Insufferable." He heard Chris say under his breath with an air of fondness, both knowing he didn't mean what he said.
Finishing off his food and drink relatively quickly, Trevor leaned forward on the desk, now shoulder to shoulder with the other man. Every so often, he'd make a note in his script, either about a sound cue, lighting cue, a specific prop, or the ever growing risk assessment list they both had. Soon, he finished the story, placing it back on the desk, but away from the main stack of scripts.
"Thoughts?" Chris asked, teeming with anticipation, Trevor could immediately sense that this story was important to him somehow.
"Good, good. Seems like it's in our wheelhouse." He bit at his bottom lip, searching for the right words. "Let me guess, you're playing Andrew?"
"Correct!" There was a joy to his voice that Trevor placed as excitement for a new character and story to discover. "It was between him or Nicholas, but I think Max suits him better."
Trevor nodded, looking over the other scripts, noticing who was cast as who- it was the usual fair. Sandra the leading lady, Robert a villain, Annie a more character role, etc etc. Chris did have a pattern in casting, though he was loath to admit it. His gaze landed on the release forms next to the scripts, which were undoubtedly about the BBC documentary. Trevor didn't mind as much, as long as they didn't follow him home. He was just surprised they hadn't pressed charges when they overthrew Christmas Carol, or when Robert shot Chris. But that surprise wasn't anything new. Nor the burning anger Trevor had in the pit of his stomach anytime the thought of Robert shooting Chris crossed his mind, over a year later. Fourteen months, to be exact. But Trevor wasn't counting.
He softly looked over to Chris, the man who, (depending on the situation) at the moment looked incredibly stressed. "How're ya feeling about the documentary?"
"Honestly?" Chris' head fell for a split second before rising again, and then turning to Trevor. "Not good."
"Then why are ya allowing them in the damn place?"
"It's good publicity, good money… At least Robert and Sandra agree the format is cheap and overdone." Chris turned back, resuming his typing, then taking another swig of his coffee. "What about you?"
"I think it's fine. I'm kinda safe from it all, I'm just crew. These television types only wanna focus on the actors and shite. No offense." He tried to get one last drop of drink out of his cup that wasn't there, before throwing it in the bin next to the door.
"None taken." Another comfortable silence as Trevor contemplated looking through the script once more before Chris spoke again. "After I send this last email, we can figure out a setting, set, props, costumes. Then the budget?"
"Sure." Trevor picked up his script and red pen, chewing on the cap absent-mindedly, before a gruff, disapproving sigh escaped Chris.
"For the main set," Chris finished typing and swiveled to meet the other man's gaze. "I'm thinking we could have part of it be a painted backdrop to add depth."
"Yeah, easy enough." Trevor got out his small flip notebook and started making notes.
Chris paused, eyeing his fast scrawl. "And for the recital, two wooden curved staircases?"
There was silence between them as Trevor slowly looked up at him, pen loose in his hand. "You want to kill me."
Chris tried and failed to suppress a breathy laugh as the two shared a fond smile for the other. "Never."
"Good morning everyone!" Chris said to their group of nine, all in plastic chairs around a circular table, set up on the stage. "It's great to see everyone again, after our extended hiatus."
"How's your shoulder?" Robert's usually loud voice was even louder today, as the rest of the group was settling in to the meeting.
"Fine." The response was obviously very pointed, and all eyes flickered between the director and so-called lead actor. "Today, not only are we embarking on our newest staged production, the BBC documentary crew will be here in about an hour and a half to start their documenting. Everyone please be on your best behaviors. Annie, Trevor, will you please hand out the scripts and consent forms to everyone?"
Even though it has been years since Annie was stage manager, every so often there were small moments like this where all thoughts of acting washed out of her head, and racing to the stack of papers to give out was her only job. She and Trevor were each other's best friends, that was no secret, and everyone treated them as such.
As Chris spoke, he watched as Trevor gave out the scripts in a clockwise motion, Annie handing them a consent form in counterclockwise, the two giving each other a hefty shoulder bump on the way past. "Max, Sandra, Dennis, Robert, I'm sure you have already discussed your boundaries on any filming taking place in your home?"
Dennis raised his hand, but began speaking even if he didn't need to be called on. "Why would I talk to Sandra and Max about that? They don't live with us."
Before Chris could interject about how he meant them as pairs, Max jumped in. "Oh, that would be so cool, the four of us as roommates!"
"That would be dreadful, darling." Sandra cut their trains of thought off, before turning to their director. "Yes, Max and I discussed it. We think it would be better to go with the option of recording ourselves whenever we feel comfortable, we don't want a camera crew there all the time."
"Dennis and I also talked, I'm fine with it, and he doesn't care." Robert blinked slowly, obviously not a hundred percent awake yet, even though it was almost 11 am. "Really Chris, do you think a documentary about us will truly get butts in the seats? I can't believe you could pass on another series of Play of the Week for this hogwash!"
Chris swallowed an argument in his throat, Robert truly not knowing the full story, Jonathan spoke up. "I think it's a great idea, Chris. People have stage door-ed before asking about us, I think they'll tune in."
"Thank you Annie!" Max tried to stage whisper, as they fist bumped, after she handed him the last sheet of paper, sitting down herself.
"Um, t-thank you Trevor," Vanessa anxiously copied Max, as Trevor sat down after giving her the last script in the pile, he nodded accordingly to her.
"Alright, please sign your name, the date, and explain in the box at the bottom if you want to be recorded at home, by yourself- or the crew." Chris sighed, he truly only wanted to talk about the script today. "And once you're done, Trevor- if you don't mind; will take them to my office. And then we can finally get on with the important business of today."
As soon as Trevor was up on his feet, he started collecting papers and rushing them to the office, not wanting to miss anything important.
Chris waited for the stage manager to return to his seat before starting. "Our next play is called Melody of Secrets. A romantic drama set during piano rehearsals and a recital. Each character has their own secret to keep or tell, and they all interweave and intersect.
"Sandra," The actress looked up from the script in her hands. "Will be playing Lyla, a piano protégé, engaged to Nicholas, played by Max. But she is secretly in love with Andrew, another pianist, played by myself."
He paused for a moment, as Sandra and Max got out their color coordinated highlighters from Sandra's purse: yellow and pink.
"Robert, you will be playing James, Lyla's father and the main antagonist. He's a very wealthy man who sees no importance in music." Every syllable was enunciated to perfection, a habit Chris had when talking to Robert.
"Hmm, a villain role, I can work with this." Robert was already underlining his lines with a black pen. "Though extremely cliché, Chris."
Everyone chose to ignore Robert's comment as he continued. "Annie and Vanessa will be playing Elizabeth and Rose, respectively. They are Andrew's closest friends, and also have a romantic subplot that mirrors the main. Some even argue that they are the main relationship."
Across the circular table from one another, Annie gave out a wink, and Vanessa returned it with some slightly awkward finger guns, before the girls started highlighting their scripts. Sandra always brought extra highlighters for the girls.
"Jonathan, hello," Chris gave a pinched smile to the waving actor, then continued. "Your main character will be Mitchell, the piano teacher and general mentor. And a few incidentals, which we will go over once we get to the dry read."
"And finally Dennis," Chris sucked in a big breath, then let it go, preparing himself for the conversation. "In the script, the character was originally named Alexandra. Because I liked the script so much, I decided to change it to fit you, which is why the character's name is now Alexander. Do you understand that, Dennis?"
Trevor could sense the forming tension to his left, even though it was rarely there when they performed, Chris could show a lot of patience.
"I think so, but why would a girl's name be Alexander?" Dennis asked, no pen, pencil, or highlighter in sight.
"Names don't have to be gendered, Dennis." Annie spoke up, she was almost completely done highlighting all of her lines.
"Thank you Annie, though that's not helpful at the moment." Chris steeled himself, eyes closed for a second. "The character was originally a female part, but I changed it to a male part for you, that's why the name is different. Everyone, please correct it in your scripts."
"You didn't have to do that… unless she wanted you to." It took everyone a moment before realizing Dennis was talking about the fictional character. "Or I guess he'd want you to."
"Oh, you're so confused, but you're almost there." Annie stretched over to pat him on the back.
"Dennis, do you want me to keep the character as is, and you perform in drag?" Chris genuinely asked, swiping his hand slowly across his face.
He thought about it for a moment, looking up at the rafters above the stage, all painted a dark black. "I don't know, I don't know anything about the character yet."
"We'll talk about all this later." Chris quickly stammered out, looking over to Trevor.
Before Chris could start his next spiel about their first dry read through, Max raised his hand to match Dennis' from before. "Yes, Max?"
"You said there's music in this. Is it a musical?" He said with his ever present boyish smile.
Another sigh, this was going to be a long hour.
The camera and documentary crew were there a bit earlier than projected, the Cornley group having about five pages left of the script to read. Or maybe it was the constant stopping and starting, or colorful commentary from Robert. Or how Chris became irate answering the same question over and over again before writing in big bold letters on the front of both their scripts: "NOT A MUSICAL!!! IT JUST HAS MUSIC IN IT, OKAY DENNIS AND MAX?"
Most of the cast were out of their chairs, all loved being so physical with their acting, Annie most of all. "Rose, I can't have us ending up like Lyla!"
"And what do you expect us to do, get married?" Vanessa had kept herself planted in her seat, looking between her script and scene partner, trying to conjure genuine heartbreak.
Chris leaned over to Trevor's ear, who put a hand on his back for stability. "We need to figure out how to get the piano on and off stage."
Trevor nodded, then showed him his script with a whisper. "One step ahead of you mate." In red ink, he had already written down the conundrum with several potential solutions and question marks.
Right as he was about to give the women the attention their scene deserved, he could see past the actors, to the BBC workers staring them down. Chris assumed the filming crew would be a larger size, similar to the one they were used to from their old BBC show, but no. In fact, there were more Cornley actors than there were filming crew. For some reason that reassured Chris, but also made him entirely skeptical of the whole business.
Chris could do nothing but smile and pat the other man on the back, hoping the recording hadn't already started. "Alright everyone, sorry to cut this short, we can finish up these last few pages in a moment."
The other actors' attention was ripped away from Vanessa and Annie, and towards their director. He made a motion to the small filming crew that were now making their way down the aisle and toward the stage. Ahead of them all was a very short, smartly dressed woman with long red hair, holding a folder in one hand and clipboard in the other. Trying to keep pace with her was a taller, brunette woman, holding a portable camera. And behind them were two men, the one holding another camera had curly blonde hair and wore glasses, the other holding tons of wires and portable switches practically taped to his chest, with short spiked hair. The two men were between Max and Dennis' height, which was a large margin.
"Chris Bean?" The woman in charge scanned the group on stage before landing on the man in question. "Hello, I'm Sue Ford, I'm the director of the documentary."
Chris broke away from the group and made his way down the stage, absolutely talking through his teeth. "Lovely to meet you."
"This is Leslie and Jack, camera one and two." She used her blue folder to point at the people who had just stopped walking behind her. "And this is Alexander, our sound operator."
"Oh, am I supposed to be playing him?" Dennis popped his head up, giving the sound operator a wave, waiting for it to be returned.
Chris closed his eyes, spun on his left heel ever so gently. "No Dennis, just because your character has the same name as him, does not mean you are playing him."
He turned back to Sue, accidentally forgetting the height difference and swiveling his head downward, hoping she didn't notice. "I'm Chris, you already know that from our emails and phone calls. Going around the circle is Dennis, Annie, Sandra, Max, Robert, Jonathan, Vanessa, and Trevor. I'm sure we'll all get to know each other quite well in the coming months."
"Hmm, yes." She lifted the folder up. "Those consent forms?"
"Trevor, I'm sorry, do you mind?" Chris didn't even turn to look at him, already hearing his black boots across the stage, towards his office.
A moment later, Trevor was already behind Chris, reaching over his side to hand the small stack of papers to Sue. "Here ya go."
"Thank you," she smiled up at him, then skimmed through the papers, Chris thanking him as well. "Fantastic. Just so everyone knows we are also putting up a small camera on the upper balcony that is motion activated, so it can pick up things we will inevitably miss."
One of the men, Alexander with the wires, held up a small circular camera, similar to a surveillance camera at the local ASDA. "Every Monday evening, I'll download the footage to my hard drive, so it doesn't run out of space."
Sue put all of the forms into the blue folder, and handed it off to Leslie, who handed it to Jack, who gave it to Alexander, who tucked it under his arm. "After we get that set up, I'm going to interview you all in pairs, except for you, Chris. You'll have a separate interview."
"Just pretend we're not here!" Leslie spoke up, placing her camera on her shoulder, pointing it at the larger group.
"Great, thank you." Chris really tried not to sound irritated or anxious, he truly did. But, at least Trevor noticed, who squeezed his good shoulder in support.
The men turned away, towards the stage, back to their safe haven-found family of nine. "Okay everyone, break into pairs, I'm sure this will go swimmingly."
Max and Sandra linked hands, but no one was completely sure they already weren't holding hands. Annie walked between Chris and Trevor as they got back in their normal position, giving Trevor a poke, which he returned. Jonathan and Dennis were already beside each other, as they had stayed together after reading a few scenes opposite each other. Vanessa looked towards Chris with pleading eyes, slightly shaking her head no as Robert made his way over to her.
"Pretend we're not here!" Sandra mocked in a hush voice. "As if they're not here to sensationalize our every move!"
"I'm sure everything will be okay, dear." Max smiled as he lifted their interlocked hands to kiss the back of hers. "And if not, you're strong, I know you can set them right."
Jonathan looked up to the balcony where the camera people and lighting guy stood, hooking up the small camera. "I bet that thing won't last a week, it's for sure going to get broken."
"Ten quid?" Robert outstretched his arm to shake Jonathan's hand, who took it.
"Okay, stop betting over the documentary." Chris tried to be quiet, the two groups looking at each other like scared animals.
"Aww, I was just about to bet they'd just make up some bollocks about us." Annie broke her eyes away from the balcony to the director. "Come on Chris, one more bet?"
"Fine!" He relented like an older brother who couldn't stop his siblings from eating more candy before mom got home.
"Yes!" Annie fist pumped and locked eyes with Trevor, who nodded. "Fifteen quid?"
"Nah, five quid," Trevor stifled a laugh. "That's too much."
She got cross, hands on her hips. "Well, I'm not going any lower."
"I'm not going any higher." He mirrored her, both of them smiling.
"Compromise, just say ten, just say ten!" Chris really felt like the only adult somedays.
Chris saw them shake hands out of the corner of his eye, before sighing and sitting back down in his chair. "If anyone wants to back out now, I understand. Or if you want me to pull the plug altogether, I will."
The eight other people on stage all turned towards him, now not caring about the little camera being installed on the balcony.
"Do you not want to do it?" Max was the first to speak up, and before the other's could start their barrage of questions, Chris put his hand up.
"I was just asking for the rest of you, I'm completely fine."
Just as Robert was about to open his mouth, he was cut off by the other director. "Alright, that's all set up, may we have the first pair to interview?"