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It’s show time! Schools all across America have been putting on plays. They range from classics like Shakespeare, to adventure like Peter Pan, or musicals like the one my school put on last year.1 Plays are fun; the feeling of standing center stage, with all eyes in the audience turned on you can be exhilarating2. But there’s also the not so fun part: auditions3, rehearsals, things going wrong. Either way, here’s my experience with school plays.
Like anything else in the entertainment industry, it starts with an audition. I, like many others prepared for weeks, going over the monologue4 and song over and over again. On the day of the actual audition though, it seems waiting outside of the room is actually more nerve-wracking5 than the actual audition. That’s when those moments of “I’m scared I’ll do badly” or “I’m not good enough” can hit. Plus, often there’s at least one person making all of that worse by bragging about6 their “theatrical experience”.
Then, finally parts are assigned7 and rehearsal begins. For our musical that year, my school chose “The Big Bad8 Musical”. For a basic plot summary, the characters from classic children’s books appear in the court room. With the honorable judge White Rabbit9 presiding, everyone is there to see the trial of the Big Bad Wolf. He is on trial for eating Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, blowing down the houses of the three little pigs, and stealing the sheep of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. On the side of the plaintiffs is the Fairy Godmother.10 Defending the wolf is the Evil Stepmother11 (played by me). As the play progresses, the Fairy Godmother shows that the wolf did do the crimes, but the Evil Stepmother puts up a good fight. It is revealed that the Little Red’s grandmother had a wolf skin carpet, the Lumberjack cut open the wolf’s stomach without any evidence that he ate anyone, the little pigs’ houses were unstable and could have blown over any day, and the Boy Who Cried Wolf believes that “all wolves are bad” and didn’t even know if the wolf took the sheep. Near the end of the play, the wolf sings his song begging for mercy and shows everyone that he does have a good heart. The audience then votes if he is innocent, guilty, or if it’s a hung jury12.
Rehearsing was a grueling13 process. Standing for hours at a time, walking from stage left to stage right, re-learning all of your movements because the director changed her mind, learning and re-learning choreography, singing the musical numbers14 hundreds of times, it was tough. Practices lasted over 12 hours on weekends and much of the lead cast had to spend hours after school. Worst of all, there were times where it seemed that it would never come together and the whole thing would fail. There were times that we wanted to quit, even I thought about it. In fact, two weeks before the show, our leading man, the Big Bad Wolf, did quit. It was quite a mess indeed.
But we managed to pull it off15. We found a new leading man, who did exceptionally well. Opening night came together and the musical was a smashing16 success. The feeling of that night, canceled out almost all the negative feelings for the musical that many of us had. It was a good time, with amazing people. And then of course, there was the cast party. It was a great experience, the play even managed to teach me a new moral (be open-minded).
单词卡片
1. Shakespeare : 莎士比亚（1564—1616），英国文艺复兴时期伟大的剧作家和诗人，代表作有《哈姆雷特》和《威尼斯商人》等；Peter Pan : 彼得·潘，是苏格兰小说家及剧作家詹姆斯·马修·巴利（1860—1937）的代表作《彼得·潘：不会长大的男孩》中的主人公。该剧讲述了彼得·潘，一个会飞的拒绝长大的顽皮男孩在永无岛与温迪以及她的弟弟们的各种历险故事。
2. exhilarating : 使心情快活的，使情绪高昂的。
3. audition: （应征艺人、歌手等的）试镜，指试演、试唱、试奏等。
4. monologue : 【戏】独白，独角戏。
5. nerve-wracking : 令人神经紧张的，使人心烦的，伤脑筋的。
6. brag about: 自夸，吹牛。
7. assign: 选派，指派。
8. Big Bad : 这里指的是德国童话作家格林笔下《小红帽》里的大灰狼（The Big Bad Wolf）。
9. White Rabbit : 白兔，英国作家路易斯·卡罗尔的《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》中带领爱丽丝进入仙境的一只会说话的兔子。
10. plaintiff : 【律】起诉人，原告；Fairy Godmother:仙女教母，格林童话《灰姑娘》中帮助灰姑娘的仙女。
11. Evil Stepmother : 格林童话《白雪公主》中迫害白雪公主的邪恶后母。
12. hung jury : （因陪审员意见不一致而）未能做出裁定的陪审团。
13. grueling: 使人筋疲力尽的。
14. number: 一首流行乐曲。
15. pull off: 成功完成（困难的事）。
16. smashing: 非凡的，极好的。
演出时间到啦！全美国的学校正接连上演各种剧目，有莎士比亚的经典之作，彼得·潘历险记，还有音乐剧——我们学校去年就上演了一部音乐剧。演戏很有意思：站在舞台中央，引得所有观众都注目于你，（这种感觉）真是让人兴奋。可是也有没那么有趣的部分：试镜、排练、出纰漏。有苦有甜，这就是我所经历的校园戏剧季。
和娱乐界的其他活动一样，校园戏剧也是从试镜开始。我和其他许多人一样都准备了好几个星期，一遍又一遍地排练独白和歌词。然而，到了真正试镜的那天，似乎是在试镜间外等候竟要比试镜本身更加折磨人。诸如“我害怕我会搞砸”或是“我不够出色”这样的想法在此时都冒了出来。还有，通常这种时候都至少会有一个人吹嘘自己的“表演经验如何如何丰富”，这致使整个情况变得更糟。
之后，角色最终确定下来，排练开始。我们学校那年的音乐剧选的是《大灰狼之剧》。基本情节就是：经典童书里的人物出现在法庭里。白兔作为荣誉法官主持审判大灰狼，大家全部到场听审。大灰狼吃了小红帽的外婆、吹倒了三只小猪的房子、偷吃了喊“狼来了”的小孩的羊。原告一方是仙女教母。替大灰狼辩护的是邪恶后母（由我扮演）。剧中，仙女教母证明大灰狼罪证确凿，但邪恶后母也打了一场精彩的辩护战。她揭露出小红帽的外婆有一张狼皮毯子；伐木工人割开大灰狼的肚皮时没有找到任何证据证明他吃了人；小猪们的房子并不结实，说不定哪一天就可能被吹倒；喊“狼来了”的小孩认为“所有的狼都是坏东西”，他甚至不知道大灰狼是否偷了羊。这部剧在接近尾声时，大灰狼唱歌乞求宽恕，向大家证明他的确拥有一颗善良之心。之后观众投票来决定大灰狼是无辜，还是有罪，或者意见不一，难以定论。
排练是个折磨人的苦差事。一站就是几个小时，从舞台左边走到右边。由于导演的想法总在变，因此要重新练习所有的动作，舞蹈动作也是学了又学，剧中曲目唱了千百遍，真是艰苦啊。周末的练习时间长达12个小时，而且大部分主要角色在放学后也得练上几个小时。最糟糕的是，有时候似乎总是觉得这剧要演不起来，一切都要泡汤。也有的时候我们想半途而废，甚至我自己都有过这个念头。事实上，演出两周之前，我们的主角大灰狼退出了。当时真是一团糟。
但我们设法度过了难关。我们找到了一位新男主，他的表现非常好。首场演出之夜终于到了，我们的音乐剧大获成功。那晚的感觉几乎抵消了我们许多人对该剧的所有负面情绪。和一群出色的人在一起，那晚度过得很愉快，而且，当然了，还少不了（演出后）演职人员的庆祝派对。真是一次很棒的经历，这部戏甚至还让我明白了一个新道理（要虚心接受新思想）。