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A wry, warm comedy set in a small town where June Calder, a meticulous stage manager, must choreograph donors, actors, and a brewing storm into one seamless evening. Between damp pastries, kettle-melodies, and improvised rigging, she shapes an unruly gala into theatrical grace.
June Calder arrived before dawn because the theatre asked her to and because she liked the way the empty house smelled at that hour—dust that could be trusted, old rope that smelled faintly of lemon oil, and the particular grease of stage lights that made her think in cues and numbers. Outside, the town was finishing a rain. The cobbles still shone; Mrs. Pritchard's stall on the corner steamed with sweet fritters that smelled faintly of cinnamon and regret. It was the sort of town that had a Tuesday market where people bartered knitted hats for stories and a municipal kettle that whistled twice at noon for reasons no one could remember. The theatre took part in none of that but benefited from the leftover crumbs and a devoted audience of people who liked to clap loudly at the wrong moments.
June pulled the stage door open with a hand that knew exactly how much force the latch could take without complaining. She hooked her keys to the rail, looped her headset around her neck like a necklace of authority, and took inventory. Lightboard checked. Cue list folded. Two spare gaffer tapes, one roll of safety pins, four paper cups that had once been coffee and were now adoptive props. The flying system creaked as if to say hello. She moved with small, efficient movements—hands that fixed things, knees that knew the steps behind the curtain.
By eight, Elliot Fiske arrived precisely on time, carrying a paper bag like an offering. He had the pleasant, unremarkable face of an insurance card and spoke with the exactness of a man who wrote polite emails for a living.
"Morning, June," he said, placing the bag on the program table as if it were fragile china.
June glanced at the bag. "Is that a sandwich or a contract?"
Elliot smiled, which did not reach his eyes entirely. "Both, if we are lucky. Donor’s luncheon is at eleven. I have…materials." He produced a stack of printed pages, a pocket-sized binder labelled 'Heritage Gala: Presentation Standards,' and a small laminated card that read PLEASE DO NOT INVOLVE DONORS WITHOUT PRIOR CONSENT.
There was something about laminated warnings in the morning that made her itch. She opened the binder with a thumb that had been known to place actors and props in their proper orbits.
Rosa Whit drifted in like sunlight in a costume closet—warm, a little theatrical, and always the sort who saw opportunities as props. She clasped a thermos as if it were a scepter and peered at the binder with the enthusiastic optimism of someone who still believed money could be coaxed into behaving.
"So?" Rosa asked, and June could hear all her seasons of hoping rolled into that single breath.
June started a tick-box list on a half-sheet of paper. No audience participation, fixed run time, family-friendly content, no mention of charity politics, no nervous improv, no late-night after-show rituals. She wrote them as if cataloguing birds—clinical, careful, necessary.
Elliot fumbled for a line he knew someone would like. "There is a provision—" he said—"donors may be invited to a limited audience-facing role if they so desire, properly guided by staff."
June's pen paused in mid-air. "What does that mean in respectable English?"
"They might be invited up onstage for a ceremonial something. A ribbon, perhaps. A—"
Rosa laughed in that unsteady way directors laugh when they try to make compromise sound romantic. "It could be charming. It could be new friends." She set the thermos down with determination.
June pictured what 'ceremonial something' usually meant: a buttonless jacket under hot lights, hands that trembled when given scissors, applause that was always a beat too late. She imagined donors clapping because a script had told them when to and actors waiting, hearts tied into neat bows. The mental image provoked a small, contemptuous smile that did not suit her professional face.
Over the next hour, props found their places like obedient children. June pinned a safety note under the main prop table: 'Do not trust anything on this table at curtain.' She rewired the headset, checked the emergency lantern, and catalogued the binder into categories on her sheet: Negotiable, Non-Negotiable, Hysterically Unlikely. The paper bag, by then, had been unwrapped to reveal a scone and a neat stack of donor etiquette pamphlets. Someone had neatly tied a ribbon around the pamphlets as if to hide the words 'must stay in seat' behind pretty twine. June found that both infuriated and oddly funny.