Becoming Lexi

Alex shrugged, "You're weird."

"True," she agreed. "Now, you two have gotten yourself into some new fuck up, right?"

Mark explained the situation in full, trying to keep his anger in check. "Now we're part of some theater production thing, and we were wondering if you knew anything about it?"

"Oh, this is fantastic!" she squealed. "You're going to have an amazing time. Professor Corley is running the summer program this year. And it's not really a whole play, just scenes from the standards. Lots of Shakespeare usually."

"So we have to perform Shakespeare?"

The waiter returned and sat down a drink in front of each of them. They quickly ordered, and the waiter lingered only a moment more than proper to look down Julie's shirt. She didn't seem to notice. After a long gulp from her drink, she continued, "Perform is probably overstating it. Look the whole point of the course is a sort of thesis project for underclassmen. The 'actors' are guinea pigs. It's pass-fail for three hours credit, hard to beat. You're lucky to get in. Someone at the registration office must be sweet on you."

Alex nudged Mark's shoulder, "See, that doesn't sound so bad does it?"

Julie's eyes flashed, "I haven't told you the best part yet. Theater in the summer is insane. Only the true believers stay on through the summer. Your little course is a blip on the radar. We have a drama festival and week long seminars and summer camps."

"Sounds like nothing to do with us."

"No, the actual activities don't. But the culture that comes with them. That's what I live for. Those are my people. All summer long, people from other schools will be coming through to help with the different programs. I usually have them crash at my apartment if they're a good fit. You wouldn't believe the girls. After all, theater girls are weird." She downed the rest of her drink in a hurry to get to her next thought. "Last year, at the end of the big festival, we had a big party. All the girls from the play got together and voted on a leader, and the guys did the same. The leaders got to make one rule each and everyone had to follow it. The guy's rule was that no one could wear anything above the waist. All us girls were topless all night."

Both of the guys mouths hung agape, "What was the girl's rule?"

Julie smiled. "Nothing below the waist."

***

Several days later, Alex and Mark arrived at the Small Stage building for their first day. Alex assumed that the name was a contrast to the "big screen," but when they arrive he saw that it was a lot simpler than that. The theater's stage was very small, only about ten yards across and five yards back. Further, the theater didn't have many seats, instead the auditorium was occupied by lighting and audio control stations. It was all very clearly designed to facilitate rehearsals rather than full performances.

Beyond the strange layout, the theater was dark and smelled of old clothes. Large red curtains with old fashioned tassels hung from the walls and the seats were all rigid plastic, preserved from decades before. The two new students soaked in the peculiar atmosphere as they scanned the room for some indication of where they were meant to go. Finally, in a dark corner, they noticed several rows of seats occupied by others who looked very much out of place. In front of the group, an older woman talked causally with the lot, none of whom seemed to be enjoying the conversation. Alex and Mark made their way through the cluttered rows, stepping over crates and wires and an odd assortment of things they didn't recognize, until they reached the seats. The woman smiled at them as they arrived and took seats on the second row.

"Welcome!" she beamed. "You're our last two, I think." She counted through the gathered troupe quickly, first in one direction, and then in the opposite. "Excellent, everyone's here. Let's get started. I'm Dr. Corley, I don't like being called doctor though, I find it too clinical and rigid for our environment. Veronica is fine. If that makes you uncomfortable and you absolutely need some moniker that conveys station, Professor Corley is acceptable, though it may take a few yells before I realize you're talking to me." Veronica Corley said everything with a slightly musical lilt in her voice and tended to end her phrases on a breathy chuckle. She was a middle aged woman with streaks of gray hair peaking through an otherwise black bun. Somehow scarves comprised the majority of her clothes. They all seemed barely attached to her, but created a colorful display which shimmered in the dim light. Alex saw a youthfulness in her face that he had not seen in any of his other professors over the past four years. English professors all had squinted eyes and a constant windswept look. In contrast, Veronica had an earthy, vibrant quality to her that was rather infectious.

"Now then, let's not make a lot of pretense about all this," she continued. "You're all here because somehow you wound up a course short of getting your diploma. We like that. You all have basically no idea what we do here and, believe me, that's easier to work with than our acting students who want to inject proper method into everything. The focus of the aggregate class is on stage production which is a messy, crazy process where you think on your feet. It is an art in its way, but more importantly it's the grunt work that makes actors look like they know what they're doing. So, I suggest you approach the next four weeks with an open mind. Be here every day, have a decent attitude, and put in effort to your tasks. Those three things will get you a passing grade and back to your normal lives."

She picked up a list and called roll. Mark realized halfway through that she had not called a single female name. Looking around, the two friends realized the entire class was male. As Veronica finished, she flicked her eyes from the class down to her tablet, making unseen notes that made more than a few of the young men uncomfortable. "Ok, now, as some of you may have realized, we have no young ladies in our group this year, which is very exciting. As long as none of you signed up hoping to find a girlfriend." She laughed at her own dull joke, but her students watched with an uneasy feeling brewing in their stomachs. "Ahem, anyway, I say it's exciting because this gives our costume department a wonderful opportunity. We're still going to have female parts so we'll be taking a rather archaic tradition into use this year. Anyone have an idea what that might be?"

Alex was surprised he knew the answer, "Most female parts were played by young boys up until...I guess you'd call it recently."

"That's correct," Veronica replied with a warm smile. Alex became keenly aware of the woman's eyes. The glowing yellow lights made her eyes gleam like warm amber. "Until the late 1600's was it essentially illegal in Western Culture for women to play the female roles. It was considered indecent. Well they're plenty of things indecent about the theater life, but thankfully that's no longer among them. Still, for our time together we will make due." She clapped her hands together. "Alright, sixteen of you, and we have six scenes planned. Three scenes will have two actors, one will have five, and the remaining scene will have four. Our plan for today is for each of you to audition, of sorts, nothing to be nervous about. We'll go one at a time and do some simple reads so that I can get a small grasp on where you might fit best. In the meantime, I'll have one of stage hands take you around and introduce you to everyone."

Veronica called over a girl wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard. The girl's incredibly chipper attitude disappeared when Veronica gestured to the rag tag group due for a tour. Alex saw Mark seething with distaste for the whole event. It was unlikely that anything about the situation wasn't irritating him, not even the fact that their tour guide had huge breasts for her small frame, exaggerated by the strap of the messenger bag she wore across her chest. Reluctantly, the novice actors followed her while Veronica pulled two out for the auditions.

They went into a side hallway and headed down to the back of the theater. Alex remembered from his freshman orientation that the Small Theater building was one of the original campus structures once used for faculties offices. The building had been renovated many times over the decades, but never torn out and built back from scratch. Instead, rooms and floors were added on top of one another until someone decided to add the building to the theater department. At that point, the small auditorium and stage area were attached to the existing structure.

Mark was not aware of any of the building's history. He mostly noticed how cramped it was once they entered the backstage area. He had to stoop slightly to pass through several of the doors. While the auditorium had been somewhat empty, the backstage thrived with people. At least, Mark thought that was the case. It was difficult for any of the outsiders to discern much of what was going on. The hallways were cluttered with boxes, detached lights, stage scenery, costumes, and any other odd thing that could possibly be useful in a production.

As they moved through, the girl leading them would periodically stop and gesture to an area backstage and say something like, "That's rigging and scenery. Paint shop is a little further back. They do the cutting at the shop next door. That's Kenny, Erica, and Gwen." The three people she pointed at would wave and gawk at the travelers from beyond the theater world. Both Alex and Mark started to realize how different they and their classmates looked. The denizens of the Small Theater had their own sort of style. They retained the disheveled appearance of other normal college students, but each person seemed to have their own distinct flair. Some of them wore an excess of makeup, others dressed flamboyantly, and others still dressed barely at all. In the makeup room, a curvy girl wore shorts that would have been considered obscene anywhere else. All of the young men stared blatantly as she leaned over the counter and wiggled her ample hips, either for their amusement or simply because she was trying to decide on a color of powder to use.

Throughout the tour, the girl in charge would go quiet while a voice in her headset spoke to her. She would then call out someone's name from her group of bumbling oafs and send them off toward the stage. None of the young men returned, hopefully because they were sent home, but it was equally likely that they were lost somewhere in the backstage labyrinth. Mark's name was called first, and he grudgingly shambled off in the direction of the stage. Two more guys went before Alex, but he was finally called right before they went exploring the costume department.

"Alex!" Veronica called from the center of the stage as he emerged from the curtains. "Wonderful, come right on out here. Nothing to be nervous about." Alex moved out onto the stage, his eyes wincing as they adjusted to the brilliant stage lighting. Once he could see, he scanned the seats to see if Mark or the others were waiting. None of them were visible, but he did notice Julie who gave him a cheerful wave. "Ok, so take this and read through it a few times. Once you're ready, come up and give us a reading. Remember we're not expecting you to be a great actor, but try to think of an actor you like and sort of emulate them."

Alex nodded and looked down at the paper. It was a speech from A Midsummer Night's Dream, but not one that Alex knew off hand. He was to read one of the garrulous lines of Puck the trickster fairy. He muttered to himself as he read through them, trying to understand the cadence of the speech ending with, "Titania walked and straightway loved an ass." He took a deep breath and read through the lines once again before Veronica reminded him that he need not memorize the speech. With no confidence at all, he stepped over to the center of the stage, held the page out in front of him and read. The words poured out of him with an unexpected ease, and he watched Veronica's face change from kind patience to surprised delight. Once he was finished, she gave a rapid applause.

"Wonderful!" she said. "Maybe one of you lot has a future in acting after all. That'll be all for today, come back tomorrow, and we'll have you assigned to a role. We'll go from there. Oh, one last thing. Tracie!" She called over a young woman slightly older than Alex. "Tracie is going to take some measurements for costume later on. Is that alright?"

Alex didn't think he could refuse so he nodded. Tracie instantly produced a measuring tape and started to rove up and down his body, making notes as she did so. She measured his neck, across his chest, and his hips before doing his inseam and making Alex blush. Once that was done, Alex went to say hello to Julie, but she'd already gone. Instead, he checked his phone and saw several messages from Mark bemoaning the fact that he had to wait for his friend.

***

"Oh, god, I hope I don't get one of the female parts," Mark said as Veronica came up to them with a chart in her hand.

"Mark and Alex! I've been told you two were friends before our class," she said. "Hope that won't make things too awkward for you, but I've decided to put you as Romeo and Juliet. It's cliche, but we think of it as a standard for stage construction so we always include it. You'll be doing the balcony scene." She handed them two small scripts and started to totter away. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you who was who." Alex could feel tension radiating off of Mark as he obsessed with worry. Ever since they'd been told about having to take the extra course, Mark had been in a foul mood. The idea of playing a woman for his three last hours of credit seemed like a bridge to far, even to Alex. Mark had never been the expressive type, not even in an introverted manner. Mark was comfortable only being Mark. Alex, on the other hand, had been considering it.

He'd been as surprised as Veronica with his reading. He wasn't rushing off to Broadway, but the brief moment reading on stage had made him feel something he did not quite understand. Alex thought about it for the remainder of that day and fell asleep imagining himself as someone else. Alex didn't mind his life, but a nagging feeling had been preoccupying him ever since he'd gone to Julie's apartment. Something felt off, and the brief time spent as Puck had lessened the feeling. As Veronica announced who would be playing whom, Alex found himself hoping not for the male part, but for Juliet.

"Mark, you'll be Romeo. And Alex, you'll be his Juliet. As long as the both of you are comfortable with that? Which, I'll add, I hope you are. It adds an additional level of complexity for our costumers."

Mark's face was a mask of anger, frustration, and a hint of disgust. "But...we're friends! We live together and everything!"

"That's a problem?" Veronica asked, not seeing any logic behind Mark's objection.

Mark fumbled for a different way to explain himself. "I can't....he's Alex!"

"Yes, he is. But let's give our crew a chance to make you think otherwise. You don't have to kiss him if you don't want. Alex are you alright with being Juliet?"

He was thrilled, but Mark's rambling incoherence made him suppress his excitement. "Yeah, sure, that's fine."

She pushed the scripts into their hands. "Ok then, that's settled. Start learning your lines. One of the girls will be up to take you down to costuming in a few minutes."

Once Veronica moved out of ear shot, Mark tossed his script on the chair beside him. "This isn't worth it man. Fuck it, let's drop out."

They already had this conversation several times, but Alex put down his script to address it once again. "We can't quit. Registration for all the summer courses is closed. If we drop this class, we'll have to wait until fall. Fall courses are much longer than four weeks. We won't get our diploma until Christmas which isn't going to sit well with our potential employers. Also, tuition is higher in the fall, and we'd have to renew our lease for another year despite not wanting to live here past this summer. That's a lot of extra collateral because you don't want to man up and be Romeo for three and a half more weeks. Shit, we only meet three times a week anyway. Ten more three hour sessions, and we're done. Forever."

Mark let out a long sigh and picked up his script again. "Fuck it have to be Shakespeare for though. I hate Shakespeare."

"Could be worse," Alex mused. "Could be doing Oedipus, and I could be your mom."

Tracie appeared out of thin air beside them. Mark cursed, and Alex dropped his script from being startled. Upon further inspection, they saw she had emerged from a trap door a few feet behind them on the stage. "Remind me, which one of you is Alex?" Alex meekly raised his hand. Tracie was an intimidating woman, tall with cropped hair, sleeve tattoos on both arms, and a stud in her tongue. "Come on, we want to try some stuff on you." She did not wait for him to agree, but turned back to the trap door and dropped out of sight. After a worried look to Mark, Alex followed.

Tracie moved through the narrow passages quicker than Alex would have liked. They passed through room after room until they reached the section dedicated to the costume department. Alex's face turned beet red as they rounded a corner into a room with three topless girls. One glanced up at him, but the others left their focus on their phones. Tracie didn't slow her stride. "Try not to stare," she said as she pulled him on through the room.

"I like it when the newbies stare," one of the girls said. She had bright blue hair and smacked bubble gum.

"Put your tits up, Carol, you're done for today anyway. You other two, the tops should be done in about fifteen minutes." She continued on into a room where she finally stopped. After recovering from the shock of seeing three half naked women, Alex realized he had been led to Tracie's own private corner of the Small Theater. The rectangular room had a wall length mirror on both ends with small platforms in front of them. Adjacent to the fitting mirrors was Tracie's desk, though it took a moment for Alex to think of it as a desk seeing as it was entirely covered in fabrics and thick, three ring binders. On the opposite end of the room was an almost identical setup other than the small personal touches. Tracie's end had photographs of intricate tattoo designs and a smattering of black and white photography while the other end looked like the wall of a teenage girl plastered with cut outs from fashion magazines. "You have a problem with nudity? We're all pretty laid back about that around here, but usually it's a slow adjustment from freshman to graduation. Two years ago, we had one of you freshman newbies go full weirdo about it. Found him masturbating in a closet. You're not going to start jerking off in a closet are you?"

"What? Jesus Christ," Alex yelped. "This place is a fucking mad house, you know that right?"

Tracie smiled, "Sure we do. Shoes off, shirt off, shorts off. Hope you wore clean boxers. Then hop up here. Time to make you Juliet."

Meekly, Alex undressed, casting a few glances over his shoulder toward the room where Carol had been. Tracie tutted at him to hurry while holding up swaths of fabric to his bare chest. As she worked, she started explaining how stage productions traditionally dressed Juliet in white to emphasize the virgin aspect of the character. Alex nodded along, but mostly focused on not popping an erection as Tracie periodically ran her hands over his body to take another measurement.

After a few moments, she produced a dress and told him to try it on. Alex obeyed, feeling absolutely ridiculous. Before he had it halfway on, a true difficultly seeing that he had no real notion of how to put on a dress, Tracie snatched it back from him with an announcement that it was all wrong. After three attempts, he had a light blue dress fully on, but one look in the mirror made him very aware he looked nothing like a young woman, but very much like a guy in drag. Tracie produced a large number of pins and started moving around him, pulling and twisting at the fabric until Alex's narrow hips started to look round. Tracie pulled the dress off his shoulders and left sleeves about halfway up his arms. "Don't worry, we have a prosthetic you'll wear for your breasts. This doesn't look half bad though. You have a neckline a woman would kill for by the way. Needs something to go with it though, I think."