In the Wings

It was the height of summer, and the height of pre-show chaos. Hairspray and mosquito repellent clung to the humid afternoon air as the Custer County Community Theatre prepared for its annual Shakespeare in the Park. Jonas plugged his headphones into his ears, letting the strings of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida wash over him. He was completely ready, but he stayed still, watching the other stagehands hum past like frantic bees. Around him, actors paced, frantically recalling their blocking.

He paused to once again inventory the black folding table in his wing. Each prop sat perfectly centered in its box of painter’s tape, a grid the stage hands used each summer. Jonas prided himself on his table in particular this year. Right in the center sat the heavy, resin skull required for the peak of Act Three.

House lights were down in just moments. Jonas pulled out his headphones and slid on his trusty headset over his ears. His headset always just worked, perfectly silent and static-free, while the rest of the left-wing crew constantly cursed over their dead battery packs and the “black-out zone” near the prop table.

He pulled his black hoodie up over his side-swept hair and glanced down. Black Levi 511s. All-black slip on vans. He smiled. It was the techie uniform, the armor that allowed him to slip through the dark like a shadow, completely unseen. His own invisibility cloak.

From the lip of the wings, the audience poured in, a slow streaming tide. He read the familiar faces. Noting the anticipation and excitement. Homemade quilts with coolers of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay laid out beside plaid lawn chairs where date-night couples cracked open PBRs, balancing food truck entrees on their laps. This was the peak of small-town theatre, and Jonas knew he was lucky to be part of a community that took it so seriously.

Noel, the freshman in college playing Bernardo this summer, shuffled up to the table. He grabbed his prop sword, fumbling to clip it to his hip, eyes wide with opening-night adrenaline. He brushed so close to Jonas that the fabric of his costume rustled against Jonas’s hoodie, but Noel didn’t even blink. He just stared straight through the shadows toward the stage, mouthing his opening cue.

Good, thought Jonas. The pre-show jitters will only convey Bernardo’s fear more authentically.

“Break a leg,” he whispered.

Noel didn’t look back, but he shivered, rubbing his arms against a sudden, mid-July draft as he stepped out onto the castle ramparts.

“Who’s there?” Bernardo looked out at the audience, hand at his sword.

“And back off fog, go house lights. We’re off,” The stage manager’s voice crackled cleanly into Jonas’s headset.

Actors lined up in the wings, preparing to enter stage right at their cue. Jonas was blissful, floating through the night. To the town, this was a fun summer tradition, but for as long as he could remember this had been the center of his universe. An actor rushed past him, sword raised as he ducked soundlessly, the blade slicing through the summer air where his shoulder had been a second before.

While the actors worked for the applause of the audience, Jonas was driven by the run of a perfect show. The heavy curtains, the lights, the lines rolling off trained tongues, set wheels silently turning in the dark.

He took a brief moment to glance out at the audience, scanning the rows of lawn chairs. Near the back, he spotted his parents, devoted theatre patrons as they were. They sat close together, holding hands, his mom’s eyes already brimming with tears before a single tragic line had even been spoken.

“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”

Jonas mouthed the words in perfect synchronization as Hamlet uttered them to his old school friends. For a moment, the magic caught him, too. Tears welled in his own eyes as the prince described his isolation, his grief, his fears. But Jonas silently shifted his weight, drawing back into the present to do the work at hand. His own grief could never find him here in the safety of the theater.

Lillian, a high school sophomore and this year's newest stage hand, materialized beside him.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she hissed, eyes frantically scanning the black folding table. They were in a theatrical blackout, but she pulled out her cell phone, the massive, glowing glass screen blindingly bright in the dim wing. Jonas winced at the light. This is why the prop table was sacred, items had to be grabbed just so and replaced just so, to keep the illusion alive. They were approaching Act Three fast. The emotional peak where Hamlet stands center stage, a skull in his hand.

And the skull was missing.

Jonas never needed the aid of a flashlight or a phone screen. In fact, he carried neither. Leaning over at an impossible, gravity-defying angle into the narrow gap behind the set, he spotted it. It had rolled off the table, landing mercifully on the thick velvet of the main curtain, which had muffled the clatter.

Jonas reached down. The heavy resin prop felt light as a whisper in his hand. Silently, effortlessly, he slid it back onto its taped blue outline on the table.

Lillian spun around, head in her hands, on the verge of tears. She took a steadying breath and looked at the table one last time. She blinked. Blinked again. The missing skull now sat on the table just in front of her. Stunned, she grabbed it without a word, and rushed toward the stage doors, shaking her head at her own opening-night stress.

See, this was what Jonas lived for. To an outsider, it was a minor mistake avoided. But consider the alternative: Hamlet walking to his mark, his blocking committed to memory, only to find an empty table. He would freeze! The crowd would wait on bated breath while the magic dispelled and the cast panicked.

No, the true heroes of the stage never saw the spotlight. They sat to the side, cast in all-black, saving the world one prop at a time.

Time seemed to fold like lines on a map, bending and snapping forward rapidly. This is how time worked in theatre. Somehow, Act Five was here now, a gasp sounded from the audience as a gleeful grin spread across Jonas’s face as the play drew to an emotional end.

Hamlet looked through Jonas, into the darkness of the left wing, feeling a comforting presence in that darkness that stilled his rushing heart and allowed him to command emotion as he delivered his heart wrenching final line: “the rest is silence.”

Jonas watched as the actor melded reality and Shakespeare’s words. Slumping into Horatio, goosebumps spreading across his arm reaching out towards Jonas.

Beside Jonas, Lillian was crying quietly, stray tears flowing over her freckled cheeks. Watching her, Jonas felt a profound ache. She was the mirror of exactly who he once was, young and alive, completely consumed by the magic of the stage.

And then, the stage snapped to black.

The heavy velvet curtains drew closed. Backstage, the actors instantly broke character, clasping shoulders and beaming with pride. The main drape parted again for the curtain call, and the cast walked out in small groups into the blinding glare of the footlights and the deafening roar of the small-town crowd.

The spotlight tracked Hamlet as he stepped forward for the final bow. For a split second, the sweeping beam passed directly through the stage-right wing. It didn't illuminate Jonas's face. Instead, the bright white light seemed to slice right through him, lighting up a swirl of dust in the empty air where he stood. Jonas didn't flinch. He just watched the joy radiating from the audience. For two hours, reality had been suspended. A field of grass in a small rural town had successfully transformed into a haunted, ancient castle.

Now, and only now, did Jonas allow the emotion to completely overtake him. It was another immaculate show. Not a single hand clapped for him. No one called his name. Flowers would never be tossed into the shadows of the wings, but this supporting role, this completely invisible duty, was all he had ever desired.

As the crowd continued to cheer, his tears flowed freely. He closed his eyes, offering up his nightly, unspoken prayer: Just let me keep the magic alive. Just give me one more night.

A stagehand doesn’t pause to celebrate with the cast. The moment the curtain hits the deck, the crew begins buzzing anew, a hive of worker bees. They reset each prop table, clean the stage floor, and hang the heavy velvet costumes. Act One’s set pieces are rolled back into position, prepared in perfect run order for tomorrow.

By the time the cast returns backstage, changing into jeans and sundresses, recording TikToks on their glowing screens, and shouting over plans for the after-party, the crew wraps. The Stage Manager thanks everyone for a flawless opening night, throwing out a few notes for tomorrow. Jonas listens intently from the dark. He understands these directions aren't criticisms. They are only meant to enhance the magic. Every night must be better than the last.

Then, the high schoolers, the college kids, the locals, and the director all file out into the parking lot, heading for the local diner and a celebratory midnight milkshake.

Jonas watched as the last of the headlights sweep across the park trees and disappear. Once the park is entirely dark, he walks the backstage alone, doing his own final sweep to ensure everything is in its place. He paused, noting that Horatio has lost a flume of his hat. Pulling a needle and thread from the sewing kit rigged to his wrist sweatband, Jonas quickly whipstitches the feather back into place with practiced, silent precision.

Finding all else well, he stepped out onto the empty wooden stage.

The open sky blinked at him, full of millions of stars, the summer moon casting a ghostly glow across the stage floor. It illuminated the small brass plaque that the town had bolted to the stage structure nearly two decades ago.

Jonas walked over to the small monument, brushing his fingertips over the cool, engraved metal. The pale moonlight passing completely through his hand, casting no shadow as it illuminates the words below his fingers: In loving memory of Jonas Michael Miller, who never left the theater. 1992 -2008.

Looking down at his translucent palms, Jonas isn't sad. He looks back up at the empty lawn where the chairs had been, entirely at peace. He reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out his thick silver iPod. Spinning the click-wheel, he pressed play, and untangled the white headphone wires from his pocket before popping the earbuds in.

Humming along to Linkin Park’s Leave Out All the Rest, he leaned back against the edge of the stage for a moment, soaking in the joy of another successful opening night. Nineteen summers of opening nights here in the park and it never got old. He stood up, realizing the crew forgot one final detail. Disappearing for only a moment, he rolled out the single, bare-bulb ghost light, letting it cast its solitary glow over the wood.

He rests there now, in the quiet air of the empty stage, counting the stars and waiting for tomorrow’s matinee.

He is exactly where he belongs.