The Backstagers and the Final Blackout

by Andy Mientus

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do my thing under that kind of pressure,” Reo confessed.

  “What do you think, Hunter?” Jory asked.

  “Um . . .” Hunter’s eyes were fixed on the pavement. “I do have one idea. It might be a little . . . controversial.”

  “What is it?!” Timothy asked.

  “We stop,” Hunter said, finally looking up to his friends.

  “What? What do you mean?” Timothy said.

  “I mean we stop . . . fighting. Aziz is right, they have everything we’ve been using to fight back. The game is over, and honestly? I’m not really sure if I want to play anymore.”

  He turned to Jory, who looked at his boyfriend as if Hunter were a stranger.

  “Jory, back in the Greenroom, you almost got erased. Do you understand what that would have meant? You would have died, Jory. And this is after you were kidnapped by Thiasos once before. After we all got lost in the Arch Theater and nearly got eaten by echo spiders and, heck, after we DID die fighting the Arch Ghost! We put ourselves in so much danger all the time and I don’t really know what we have to show for it. Nobody knows. Nobody thanks us.”

  “It’s not about being thanked,” Jory said.

  “What I mean is, I don’t even know exactly what we’re fighting for or against, but I know we put ourselves at incredible risk doing it. What if Thiasos does get all the artifacts? What’s the worst thing that could happen? Do you think it’s worth dying over? I’m actually asking.”

  Hunter looked around the circle and all of the Backstagers were quiet.

  All except for Jory, who said, “I don’t know what their goal is, but I can’t un-know what I do know about the backstage and the artifacts. Can you really just go back to putting on shows and only worrying about where to sit at lunch and what grade you’re getting on a test?”

  “It doesn’t sound so bad, honestly,” Hunter said. “It sounds normal.”

  “But we’re not normal,” Jory said. “We’re Backstagers. It’s unfair and it’s scary and it’s sometimes a burden, but it’s our burden and for me . . .” His voice broke a bit as some tears welled up. “For me, it’s the most special thing in my life. And I’m not just going to give it up because some corporation tried to take it.”

  Hunter nodded, his eyes misting over as well.

  “And as for people looking out for us . . .” Jory continued. “We look out for each other. Maybe ninety-nine percent of St. Genesius doesn’t know who we are or what we do for them, but I know how you’ve saved the world this year, Hunter. And you, Sasha. And you, Beckett. And Aziz. And Timothy. And Jamie. And even Reo, in just a short time. You might not believe in yourselves right now, but I’ll believe in you, always. And I hope you’ll believe in me, too. Because we’re a crew.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Usually, when Jory arrived home, the house was very quiet. His mom worked long hours starting very early in the morning, so he’d often come home to find some dinner on the table, the TV softly playing some uncomplicated sitcom, and his mom asleep in her chair, still in her work clothes.

  Tonight, Jory was surprised to hear his mom laughing and socializing as he opened his front door. He was downright shocked when he swung it open and saw the man who was making his mom laugh so jovially.

  “Mr. Rample?!” Jory said, looking at the former faculty advisor of the Backstagers like he’d seen a ghost.

  “Jory, my boy!” Mr. Rample practically leaped up from the sofa, impressive for someone who’d put as many years into the theater as he had, and scooped Jory into a hug.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, right now, I’m enjoying the heck out of your mom’s company and delicious corn-cranberry cookies! You’re a lucky kid!”

  “You want another one? Or do you want to save room for dinner? We’re doing taco night!” Jory’s mom asked, blushing.

  “Kind of you, ma’am, but I came to talk business and I’d better stick to it.”

  “Business?” Jory asked.

  “Mr. Rample has been talking to me about an opportunity for you during exams week,” Jory’s mom said.

  “That is, if you weren’t planning on spending it glued to the couch, binging TV! I wouldn’t blame you!” Mr. Rample said.

  “What is it?” Jory asked, feeling the first bit of hope he’d felt in days.

  “Well, ever since my time at Genesius, I’ve been crewing at a regional theater a few hours away in the country: the Forest of Arden Theater. It just so happens that we’re going into tech for our production of Tiny Store of Terrors this weekend, and I was wondering if you and the guys wanted to come spend your week off with us, shadowing the professional Backstagers and lending a hand with the tech?”

  Jory could have cried in that moment. To shadow at a professional theater was an amazing opportunity on its own, but coming at this moment, it was an even greater one—the chance to get back into the backstage.

  “Oh, Mr. Rample, I’d love to! It’s okay, Mom?”

  “It sounds a lot nicer than that excursion to Greece,” she said, “whatever that was all about.”

  “You know, ma’am,” Mr. Rample said, “I think I will take you up on one more of those cookies, if it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble at all,” Jory’s mom said, beaming. She made her way into the kitchen, and as soon as she was out of the room, Jory launched into action.

  “Mr. Rample,” he whispered, “you have no idea how lucky this is. There’s this organization called Thias—”

  “Is your phone off?” Mr. Rample asked urgently. “Remember, they have the God Mic now, they could be listening to any of this.”

  “It is, yeah,” Jory said, stunned that Rample was one step ahead of him.

  “Hunter has been updating me on the whole Thiasos saga,” Mr. Rample explained. “We’ll leave Friday morning, and you guys will have uninterrupted backstage time until the end of exams week. It’s not long, but hopefully it’s enough time to find the Show Bible, recover the other artifacts, and defeat Thiasos, once and for all.”

  “That’s . . . a lot,” Jory said.

  “If anyone can do it, it’s the Backstagers of Genesius.” Mr. Rample smiled encouragingly at Jory, who nodded in agreement. It was a shot in the dark, but at least it was a shot.

  Beckett wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, when the ring of his house phone broke his trance. It had been a hard couple of days, and he was feeling numb and depleted. When he heard his dad shout, “Beckett, it’s for you!” though, he bolted upright, suddenly a person again. He ran down the stairs to the family landline. Maybe it was Hunter or Timothy or one of the other guys with some news. He took the receiver from his dad and said, “Hello?”

  “There you are,” Bailey said on the other end. Beckett’s heart began to race.

  “Bailey! Oh! Hey! What’s up?”

  “I’ve been texting you all afternoon! And when I called, it went straight to voicemail.” She laughed. “I had to, like, use the phone book to get your family’s landline number. Very old-timey.”

  Crap, Beckett thought. His mind had been racing ever since the assembly, so it never occurred to him that Bailey might be trying to call.

  “Oh . . . gosh, I’m sorry, I came home and totally crashed.” He winced as the lie escaped his lips.

  “Ah . . . okay,” Bailey said with a sigh.

  “. . . Is it okay?” Beckett asked, hearing her tone.

  “Well, I mean yeah, I just haven’t heard from you much since Dance at the Gym. I had to hear about Genesius getting bought from Adrienne. I thought you would have told me.”

  “I . . . I guess I’m still just in shock.”

  “I’m just worried—I mean . . . at the dance . . . did I move too fast? I thought we were ready, but then you went to find the guys and suddenly the after-party was canceled and, I dunno, I felt like maybe I scared you off.”

  Beckett’s heart fell into his shoes.

  “
Oh my gosh, no!” he said. “No, I was so, so happy! Am so happy! Just bad timing with the . . . um . . . I mean, you know, with the—”

  “Food poisoning?” Bailey didn’t sound convinced.

  “Right!” Beckett said. This is why he wasn’t an Onstager; he was a terrible actor. “Yeah, just really, really, cosmically crappy timing. I promise.”

  “Well that’s good,” Bailey said. “I just had this feeling that there was something you weren’t telling me. We’ve known each other a long time and you’ve never kept anything from me, so if you were keeping something, it scares me to imagine what that might be.”

  Beckett swallowed hard, not sure of what to say. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, at that moment, his dad approached.

  “Beckett?” he said, “There’s someone here to see you.”

  He gestured behind himself to reveal, to Beckett’s utter surprise, Mr. Rample.

  “Hey Bailey, I actually gotta go, someone’s here.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll call you later tonight, though, okay?”

  “Sure, Beckett. Later,” Bailey said abruptly and hung up.

  He looked down at the phone, not sure that he’d handled that call very well at all, then back up to Mr. Rample.

  “Mr. Rample, what’s—”

  “Sorry to interrupt you, but time is of the essence,” Mr. Rample said. “We have plans to discuss.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Why don’t we just go now?” Aziz asked. “Get our parents to make an excuse and head to Forest of Arden right away. We could be in the backstage by tonight.” Aziz was not good at letting a problem go unfixed.

  “Thiasos would suspect something if we all took off for vacation early together,” Hunter explained. “We have to do this by the book.”

  Aziz rested his head on the lunchroom table, frustrated. It was only Tuesday, and it was bad enough that they had to sit and spin their wheels until Friday, when exams week began. It was extra bad that, now, they didn’t even have the safety of the Club Room to hang in and hatch their plan. They had to gather in the cafeteria with all of the Nonstagers (kids who didn’t do theater at all) where any ear might belong to a Thiasos spy.

  “Besides,” Beckett said, “I have an idea of something we can do to help today.”

  “What is it?” Aziz asked, raising his head.

  “Well, this afternoon is the final Drama Club meeting of the year,” Beckett explained. “We have to elect next year’s Drama Club president.”

  “Which will be a Blake and Kevin McQueen ticket,” Hunter said. “As always.”

  It was true, the twins had been the copresidents of the club for all three years of their run at St. Genesius and there was no reason to suspect that their senior year would be any different.

  “Are they even speaking, though, after the Tammy thing?” Jory asked.

  “They always run unopposed, so I doubt it matters,” Hunter said.

  “My point is,” Beckett said, “that at the elections meeting, students can bring up issues they’d like to be addressed in the club next year. I thought we could stand up as the Backstagers and ask the Onstagers to join us in rejecting the professional crew. Maybe it could get us into the backstage sooner.”

  “I don’t know,” Reo said. “Do you really think this huge organization is going to listen to the demands of a student group?”

  “If we can even talk the club into demanding it,” Jory added.

  “That might actually work out even better for us,” Beckett said, “because it would look awfully strange for the new owners of a school to reject a simple student wish to keep an extracurricular club student-operated,” Beckett said. “I mean, that would be super shady. Then, we could take the issue to the Nonstagers, get the whole school behind us. Maybe expose Thiasos for the shadowy creeps they are. It might make Ms. LuPone think twice about turning the school over to these people while she’s still around.”

  “Honestly, I’m willing to try anything,” Aziz said.

  “POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” Sasha cried, pretzel crumbs flying from his mouth.

  That afternoon, the Onstagers and Backstagers all gathered in the auditorium for the Drama Club meeting. There was a strange energy in the room, because this was the first meeting since Blake McQueen had stepped down as director of Tammy, and no one was quite sure how the Tammy affair had left the twins’ relationship.

  Everything seemed surprisingly normal, though, when the twins took the stage together, commanding the silence of the room.

  “Good afternoon, St. Genesius Drama,” Blake said soberly. “I want to begin by addressing the elephant in the room. Yes, even though I chose to step away from Tammy for artistic reasons, I am still your copresident and I wanted to let you know that I saw the production and found it . . . fascinating.” There was definitely shade there, but for Blake McQueen, this was about as vulnerable as anyone had ever seen him. “I want to congratulate Beckett on his wonderful work as director, and you all for bringing that work to life onstage and backstage.”

  Kevin smiled at his brother as the room applauded. Aziz looked to Beckett. Maybe the Drama Club could be a unified front against Thiasos.

  “Thank you, Blake,” Kevin said. “We’re glad to have you back. I know I am . . . Anyway . . .” He looked down and shuffled some notes he was holding, though, knowing Kevin, he was fully off-book for the meeting and actually just needed a moment to compose himself.

  “With that behind us,” he said, “let’s get to the business at hand. Deadline for dues is coming up in a couple of weeks, so please get that in if you haven’t. One of our Onstagers has reported his dry shampoo that went missing from the Tammy dressing room has still not been returned. He’d like to note that it is salon grade and so he’d really appreciate it back. Last, but certainly not least, there’s the matter of Drama Club presidency for the fall. For the new kids in the room: Under normal club business, we’d now hear from the candidates, the other students would have the chance to ask questions about policy, and then the candidates would campaign over exams week with an election to follow before the year lets out. However, unless anyone else would like to now announce their candidacy, we can go ahead and vote now and save ourselves the trouble. I suspect there is no . . . opposition?”

  He and Blake scanned the crowd of students, all but daring someone to speak up. Beckett took a sip of his Diet Coke for courage and stood up.

  “I don’t want to run against you guys,” he said, “but I do wonder if we can still ask questions about policy. You are still candidates, right?”

  Blake’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Unopposed candidates, but candidates, yes. I suppose that would be appropriate.”

  “Good,” Beckett said. “Because the Backstagers have something to say. Obviously, we think the decision to replace us with a professional crew is ridiculous and insulting. It’s not happening with any other student club. We stand by our work this year and we’d like the Onstagers to stand with us and reject the professional crew so that we can keep our positions and ensure that the student Drama Club remains in the control of the students.”

  There was an affirmative murmur in the audience. The Onstagers and the Backstagers had a historically tense relationship, not unlike a sibling rivalry, but when Beckett directed Tammy this year and broke down the walls between the groups, relations improved in a big way. The Backstagers came to respect the artistry of the Onstagers more and, in turn, the Onstagers began to see the Backstagers as a hard-working part of the team, not just the weirdos who worked in the dark to make the Onstagers look good.

  Kevin nodded sympathetically and said, “Well, of course. That sounds totally—”

  “Impossible,” Blake interrupted.

  Kevin looked at his brother in shock. Now the auditorium was tittering with tension.

  “Uh-oh,” Sasha whispered.

  “No one is saying that we aren’t grateful for the work you all have done,” Blake said. “You are all incredibly s
killed and we have put on some amazing productions together. However, I can’t, as president, turn down the generous offer of professional help just to be kind. My number-one priority is the quality of the Genesius Drama productions.”

  “Does anyone here think the quality of the productions has been lacking?” Beckett asked the room.

  “No!” an Onstager cried. “The Backstagers are amazing!”

  “The Rainbow Barricade in Les Terribles was Broadway quality,” added another.

  “So was the lighting in Lease!”

  “And the sound in Tammy.”

  “Yeah, come through, Backstagers!”

  The Onstagers cheered in support. Kevin McQueen leaned toward his brother and whispered, “They’re right, Blake. It’s not fair to the Backstagers. Surely we can support them.”

  But Blake cried, “ENOUGH,” quieting the room.

  “It’s not about the quality of the productions lacking,” he said, “though if I’m completely honest, Tammy was not my taste at all. It’s about the Thiasos crew being even better. We have a chance to have professional-level productions and if the Backstagers want to stand in the way of that, even as Thiasos is offering them internships to learn from the professionals, well, I find that selfish. Besides, if no one is running against us, then I don’t know why we’re still talking about this. All in favor of the McQueen ticket say—”

  “Wait.” Kevin interrupted his brother, who glared back at him.

  “. . . Yes?” Blake hissed.

  “My brother, I know our relationship has been strained, and I’ve been so happy we’ve been making amends. The last thing I want is to cause more division between us, but I can’t stand for this. If you won’t support the Backstagers, then I have no choice but to support them myself . . . in opposition to you.”

  There was a collective gasp in the audience. Even at an administrative meeting, the McQueens really knew how to amp up the drama.

  “What are you suggesting?” Blake asked, trying with every cell in his body to remain composed.