Phantom of the Operetta

C Bunnell John

Description

While serving as an artist-in-residence at a small Pacific Northwest college, stage actress Juliet McKenna is directing Gilbert & Sullivan's The Sorcerer. Rivalries among the student cast are only to be expected--but are other troubles the work of the theater's restless ghost?Nonsense, Juliet insists, and with Sidhe-born senses to back her conclusions, she should know. But as the curtain rises on opening night, she's forced to revise her opinions. With one performer in chains and another possessed, the show seems poised to end in disaster--because even if Juliet can improvise a new ending, she may not be able to free her students without revealing her own Sidhe origins.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Short story
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Uncial Press
• Date de parution: 14 mars 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781601740441
• Langue: English

Extrait

Phantom of the Operetta
 
A Novel Byte
By
John C. Bunnell
 
 
Uncial Press       Aloha, Oregon 2007
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein areproducts of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirelycoincidental.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-044-1 ISBN 10: 1-60174-044-1
Copyright © 2008 by John C. Bunnell
Cover art and design by Judith B. Glad
All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this workin whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known orhereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Published by Uncial Press, an imprint of GCT, Inc.
Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com
 
for Jack R. Freimann, from whom I learned much more about theaterthan he may think and in memory of Linda Haldeman, Juliet's literarygodmother
Phantom of the Operetta
The exploding teapot was the first sign trouble was brewing.
Gentleman sorcerer John Wellington Wells had just intoned the first verse of hisincantation: "Appear, appear, appear!" As if in response, the teapot on the stand in front of himerupted with a sudden fwoosh , an outpouring of gray smoke, a burst of fire-bright orangelight, and the sharp crack-tinkle of shattering ceramic. There was also a loud THUD and a cursefrom behind the billowing smoke.
"What the hell was that?" demanded Lyle Applegate, dropping out of character andabandoning the sorcerer's roguish British accent in favor of his natural Texan twang.
I was out of my fourth-row aisle seat and mounting the stage before he had finished thesentence. The smoke was already dissipating as I stepped around the stand, extending a hand tohelp my lead actor to his feet. "A very good question," I said. "I gather you did not trigger theflash mechanism."
"I didn't touch it, Ms. McKenna," he said, eyeing the stand and shaking his head. "Hey,that's weird." I followed his glance. The teapot's fragments lay in a tidy ring around the edge ofthe small, nearly chest-high table, which was unmarked save for a dirty black stain in itscenter.
"Indeed," I said. "Remarkably neat, considering. It looked as if all three charges went offat once."
By now, the rest of the cast had crowded onto center stage. "I know!" said PeterMorgenthaler, a member of the chorus and Lyle's understudy. At two inches under six feet, he andLyle were of similar size and build, though Peter presently wore his own short, dark hair whileLyle's yellow-blond buzz cut was concealed by a thick salt-and-pepper wig. "It must have beenthe ghost!"
"Ghost?" I said mildly.
"You don't know the story?" piped up Yvette Qin, who was playing Aline, ouringénue. Unlike Lyle's, her accent was genuine, a by-product of mixed Irish and Chineseparentage by way of Hong Kong.
I arched an eyebrow at her. "Professor Sauvé's notebooks fail to mentionhauntings, and no spectral being has introduced itself to me in the past eleven weeks. Perhapsmere artists-in-residence are beneath its notice."
"He, not it," Lyle put in. "Roderick Riley, class of '25 or '26. I forget which. A fire brokeout during a rehearsal of The Tempest , and somehow he didn't get out with everyoneelse. It took out nearly half the theater. They rebuilt the next summer, and he's supposed to havebeen here ever since."
Yvette bobbed her head. "It would fit. He was playing Prospero back then, so of coursehe'd turn up for The Sorcerer ."
The beginning of a laugh slipped out before I could restrain myself. "Hardly likely," Isaid. "Shattering crockery implies a poltergeist, not a frustrated thespian. Assuming the event wasof ghostly origin to begin with, which I doubt." A quick glance around the stage revealed no signof a supernatural presence--and it was a rare ghost, in my experience, who possessed the skill tohide from a Sidhe.
Mortal readers (she wrote, contemplating the publishedversion of this account) may wonder how a genuine Sidhe came to be anartist-in-residence at a small Pacific Northwest liberal arts college. That tale isbest left for another time; suffice to say that much as mortal youths once ran offto join the circus, this particular Sidhe ran off to join Actors'Equity.
I did not, however, share this last point with my cast. "Back to work," I declaimed in mybest directorial voice. "Places, ladies and gentlemen, if you please--and then, Mr. Applegate, fromthe beginning of the verse." The remainder of the run-through brought no further distractions, atleast not of a ghostly nature.