Title: Five Minutes
Author: desireearmfeldt
Fandom: Slings & Arrows
Characters: Cheryl, Cyril, Frank, Kate McNab (how come she gets a last name when so few secondary characters do? :) ), Sophie, Ellen Fanshaw, Geoffrey Tennant, original characters
Rating: G
Length: 1,172 words
Author notes: Written for the "five things" challenge. Un-beta'd. This was originally going to be a multiple-POV story, and it may mutate into one in a future incarnation, or it may become a series of linked stories...But for the moment, a stand-alone vignette, backstage at the new Theatre Sans Argent.
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, I don't own them, I derive no profit from their use.
Summary: Five minutes to places, ladies and gentlemen...

“Five minutes to places.  Archidamus, Camillo, Polixenes, Hermione, Mamillius, Leontes, Paulina, Antigonus, Cleomenes, Dion, Emilia, Lords and Ladies, five minutes to places.”

Cheryl maneuvers her giant-bellied self through the crowded common dressing room, counting heads to make sure everyone is still present and dressed.  Bill brushes accidentally-on-purpose by her, stealing a kiss, which she returns with a swat to his rump.  She can’t help blushing and grinning at the laughter and wolf whistles from a couple of nearby Lords, even though it doesn’t do anything for her stage-managerly autoritas.  Even in the chaos of five minutes before curtain, with her back killing her and her ankles throbbing, she’s too happy to bother pretending to be grumpy.

She catches Cyril’s eye across the room, and he gives her a reassuring nod as he pats Frank on the shoulder: all okay in that quarter.  Frank is a little creakier and dottier than Cheryl is comfortable with.  He’s given them a couple of scares lately, but he hasn’t actually fucked up anything yet, and Cyril, bless him, seems willing and able to keep Frank on track.  Cheryl wonders how long that will last.  She may have to take another shot at talking Geoffrey into talking Frank into retiring.  It’d be a shame: he’s a sweet old trouper, funny and crotchety and old-school and dedicated in his understated way.  But it’d be more of a shame for him to stick around until he irrevocably humiliates himself on stage.

Cheryl locates Max, the eight-year-old playing Mamilius, out of trouble, playing cards with Sophie and Kate.  Kate stands up, laughing, and takes his hand, letting Sophie (who doesn’t go on stage until after intermission) sweep up the cards.  Cheryl moves on, thanking the gods of the theatre for Kate’s sweet temper and willingness to play the role of de facto babysitter offstage as well as onstage nursmaid.  And also for the fact that whatever the issue between Kate and Ellen is, it hasn’t manifested as anything worse than the two of them awkwardly avoiding speaking to each other for the entire rehearsal period.  Kate doesn’t seem like the kind to pick fights with fellow cast members, but Ellen can be a diva when she wants to be.  (And according to Cyril, an excellent source of gossip, Ellen used to be much worse than anything Cheryl’s witnessed from her.)  

Max scuttles off for his traditional last-minute pit-stop.  Kate and Sophie whisper and giggle, foreheads touching.  Those two have been stuck together ever since Kate joined the company.  Cheryl would suspect them of being lovers, but she knows for a fact that Sophie’s dated at least three of the male actors, and Kate’s supposedly recovering from the romance of the century with that action-movie guy who played Hamlet at New Burbage.  Still. . .she makes a mental note to pump Cyril for his opinion of those two later.  It’s not nosiness: as stage manager, she needs to be on top of any potential crises, interpersonal or otherwise.

“Five minutes to places, ladies and gentlemen.”

Out into the hallway and the two smaller dressing rooms.  She knocks on the gents’ first.

“Five minutes to places.  Polixenes, Leontes, Camillo, five minutes to places.”

“Thank you, five,” comes Fred’s voice through the door, followed by Jerry’s “Thanks, Cheryl.”

Max barrels past her as she knocks on the ladies’ door.  She pokes her head in, which elicits the usual shriek from Ellen and a sympathetic eye-roll from Isabelle, who follows Cheryl out the door.  There’s barely room in the hall for them to face off, Isabelle’s fake-pregnant belly brushing against Cheryl’s real one.

“Just the usual?” Cheryl asks.

“She’s fine,” says Isabelle.  “She just gets rattled if people talk to her in the five minutes before.”

Cheryl snorts.  She’s quite familiar with this ridiculous affectation of Ellen’s, but the woman’s a professional, for God’s sake, what does she have to freak out about?  If this is the new-improved Ellen, like Cyril claims, Cheryl’s just glad she never had to deal with the old model.

“Break a leg,” she tells Isabelle.

“Thanks.  And don’t you break your water.”

“I’m not due for three weeks, why do people keep saying things like that?”

“Well. . .no one’s broken any bones or come down with the plague, and we haven’t even had any equipment catch fire.  You’re the obvious disaster waiting to happen.”  Isabelle gives a wicked grin that would be more in character for Mistress Quickly than saintly Hermione. 

“Bite your tongue!” Cheryl slaps her lightly on the shoulder.

Following Isabelle’s trailing skirts back into the main dressing room, Cheryl marvels, as she always does, at Geoffrey’s ability to recruit top-quality professional actors to his little hole-in-the-wall theatre company.  Not just talented actors, but remarkably well-behaved ones.  Or possibly that’s just because any actor who would work at the Theatre Sans Argent for little fame and even less fortune must seriously want to be here. 

She sighs, a little nostalgic for the original Theatre Sans Argent—not so much the continual stress and panic of hanging by a financial thread, but for the thrill of being part of an artistic and political revolution, police sirens and TV reporters and screaming protesters and Geoffrey, wild-eyed and shouting and glorious in his chains.  The new company is poor, but they pay the rent on time, and they get on with their lives and make beautiful theatre.  Which is better; it is.  You can’t live your life on the brink of disaster; sooner or later, the dramatic scene ends and you still have to get up the next morning and take out the garbage.  When she first worked with Geoffrey, it was like being the passenger in a NASCAR race; exhilarating as all hell, but mostly because of the knowledge that any moment, the smash was coming.  But Geoffrey’s changed.  He still has all the passion and drive that made him such a powerful director, but she never hears the brittle edge to his voice that always used to make her wonder if he was going to just fall to pieces one day.  And he’s managed to pull the same trick with his reborn theatre company: art with all the dedication and creativity and emotion, but very little terror. 

So, as she does at least once a night, she thanks the gods of the theatre for Geoffrey Tennant: for the magic he works, for his including her in it, and (while she’s at it) for the fact that he’s out in the audience somewhere rather than back here pestering the actors into nervous fits.

Jason’s voice crackles softly in her headset.  “Cheryl, I’ve fixed the glitch in the board, ready when you are.”

“Check,” she replies.

The baby kicks her in the kidney.

“Not yet, sweetie,” she whispers.  “I promise I’ll give you your cue.”

Ellen brushes past her, then turns back and gives her a squeeze on the shoulder and an oddly tentative smile, before disappearing into the wings.

“Places, ladies and gentlemen,” says Cheryl.  “Places.”

(Whee! Three in a row!)