Thank You for Ten: Short Fiction About a Little Theater

By Ty Unglebower

Experience the love, fear, frustration, silliness and insanity of a typical community theater in these ten short stories. Meet the directors, actors, board members, technicians, audience members and visitors whose perceptions and adventures make the Little Dionysus Playhouse a different place every day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ty Unglebower
• Release date: Jun 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310815966

Ty Unglebower

Ty is a freelance writer, actor, and occasional poet who, according to his official tagline, generally seeks to "shift the everyday a few inches."

Book preview

Thank You for Ten: Short Fiction About a Little Theater

By Ty Unglebower

Copyright 2014 Ty Unglebower

Smashwords Edition

Cover image by Bee Javier. Cover text by J. Lea Lopez

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for purchasing this ebook. This ebook remains the copyrighted property of the author. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please encourage them to legally purchase their own copy from their preferred source. Your respect for the work of the author is greatly appreciated.

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

Stage Ahoy

Aroma Therapy

Double Duty

Theatrical Redundancy

Living Ghosts

Accidental Audition

Story Summit

Sound of Serendipity

Dueling Carols

Art, Look, Listen

About the Author

Author’s Note

Thank you so much for choosing to read my book, out of tens of thousands available to you today. I hope you find it worth your time to read. I certainly found it worth my time to write it for you to enjoy.

Though the stories in this collection are all set within the confines of not just the community theater world, but within one specific community theater, I hope that one need not be intimate with theater itself to recognize aspects of the heartache, triumph, courage, fear and folly explored therein. Such things are in some ways common to the ordinary and extraordinary human experience. If not, then I can say with near certainty that such things are universal within the artistic community both inside and outside of theater.

Indeed the arts as a whole call to us, laugh at us, serve us, challenge us and comfort us, all while utilizing us to perpetuate their existence. We flawed humans who enroll ourselves in that task can only hope to do some degree of justice to that noble mission, each in our own way. These stories are about people attempting to do that very thing, (whether or not they realize it.)

That being said, this collection is theater-oriented by design, and though these stories take place in a fictional playhouse, I'm willing to bet money that theater folk will recognize a little bit of their own venues as they read. I'd like to think so, anyway.

Thank you for ten is how polite actors respond to the ten-minute warning issued by the stage manager of a production. For me as an actor, that’s when the show truly begins. Time to lose yourself in your art. If you're not ready by ten, you won't ever be. If you haven't already, after you say thank you for ten it's time to focus on the moment while watching the future out of the corner of your eye.

That's what I've tried to do with these stories-focus on a moment or a string of moments within a specific venue so as to illuminate the broader concept of theater and art itself. Whether you have done theater yourself or never so much as set foot inside of one, I hope that as you read this collection, you, like the actor ten minutes before curtain, will allow yourself for a time to be lost in the small sliver of the theater world.

On with the show.

-Ty Unglebower, June 16, 2014

Stage Ahoy

A metal fishing boat, about fifteen feet long made its way through town by way of two sets of legs. Passerby parted for it as it traveled by fits and starts down the sidewalk.

The legs belonged to two men. Two men with a height difference of more than a foot. The shorter of the two was in front, the boat completely concealing his head. The taller one contorted his neck in such a way that his face rested on the outside of the boat. He acted as ostensible navigator given that he could see what lie ahead of them about half of the time.

Trashcan coming up. Move to your left, Tommy, the taller one said. Just a little.

How damn much farther do we have to go, anyway? Tommy's voice reverberated off the metal that surrounded his head.

"Another block.

I'm roasting in this thing. Ouch. Dammit, Eddy.

The navigator had failed to alert the weary helmsman of the parking meter.

Sorry, Eddy said. I can't see everything.

Can you see the theater, by any chance?

Yeah. Like I said, we're almost there.

A moment later, with groans of both exhaustion and relief, the two men set the boat down on the sidewalk in front of The Little Dionysus Playhouse.

Sweat poured from Tommy's bald head and down his face. He wiped it on his shirt and exhaled loudly. We just had to do this during Summerfest, when there is nowhere to park.

I didn't know they were having that today, Eddy said. You think I enjoyed having to park a million blocks away with this thing?

You boys are lost if you're looking for the river, called a laughing old man who walked around them on the sidewalk.

Yeah, good one sir, Tommy said. He turned to Eddy. You know, that's just as funny the twelfth time you hear it.

My neck hurts, Eddy said, leaning against the door of the building.

Don't get comfortable yet, Tommy said. Let's just get this stupid thing in there first.

We'll have to carry it through the door sideways, I think.

Yeah, you're right, Tommy said. Let me open the door first. And we need to be careful, lots of glass on these doors.

Tommy reached for the brass handle and pulled. Nothing happened. He reached for each of the other three doors. All locked. Perfect, he said. Gruber said he'd be here. Now what?

We can take it in the back way, Eddy said. I've got the code for the lock box.

How come you have the code, and I don't?

Eddy shrugged. I was a stage manager last year. Were you?

No, I hate being stage manager.

Well then there you go.

Tommy started to say something but just shook his head. He sighed and pointed towards the boat. Eddy nodded, and they mounted the boat on top of themselves again.

God, it's even hotter in here than before, Tommy called back to him.

It's just a few yards this time, Eddy said. I'll tell you when to turn. Watch all the cars.

In a few moments the duo had shuffled and stumbled their way through the filled- up public gravel parking lot on the side of the theater building. They put the boat down again.

This place needs a loading zone or something, Tommy said, leaning against the wall near the back door.

Eddy leaned down and squinted at the electronic lock box. He entered five numbers. It beeped, and a green light flashed. He pulled open a small drawer and removed a key. He held it up to Tommy. All set.

Eddy's big hands fumbled with the key a moment, but he finally got it to turn. The door unlocked with a click and Eddy pushed it open. He walked into the room and flipped on a nearby light switch. Props, costumes, a stray script here and there and old, run down chairs and sofas covered the room. It was the green room, where actors waited between scenes. A small hallway, referred to as The Funnel linked it to the backstage area.

Sideways again? Tommy asked.

Yeah, I think so. Let's do it.

Each man assumed the position, the shorter Tommy in front of the boat with his arms wrapped behind him and the taller Eddy bringing up the rear.

Ready? Tommy asked. Eddy indicated he was.

By way of some tight maneuvering, the gentlemen brought the boat fully into the green room. Tommy set down his end and slapped his hands together. There. Finally. Let's get out of here.

Eddy hadn't put down his end of the boat yet. He looked down at Tommy. But we said we'd put it on the stage.

It's in the building, Tommy said, Close enough. Let's roll, I'm hungry.

But I said we'd put it on the stage.

Silence between the two of them for several minutes.

Fine, Tommy said. The stage.

Tommy huffed and walked over to the hallway door. He opened it and stepped inside. He found the light switch after a short search. A blue light bulb provided enough working light, but the hallway was clearly too narrow to turn the boat through the subsequent passage leading to backstage.

No way, Tommy told his companion back in the green room. We'll have to take it all the way through the Funnel and out the other end to the house.

Both men lifted their own end of the vessel and proceeded into The Funnel toward its opposite door.

I wonder if they'll ever figure out who first named this 'The Funnel', Eddy said as they negotiated the tiny confines, trying not to knock anything off of the shelves that resided there.

I'd like to rename it the 'Pain in My Ass Hallway' to tell you the truth, Tommy said. Put it down, let me get the door to the house.

Even turned on its side, the boat took up most of the