The Audition 1

With Emilie's amazing persuasion, Shawn agreed to trying out in the audition. It wasn't that Shawn had stage fright or anything. He had done presentations before, but they had never affected him as a person. Maybe it was because of his lackadaisical attitude which allowed the boy to not feel nervousness. Or maybe he was built for the stage. All of these would soon be found out after the boy gets through the auditioning stage.

The play had been decided. The play was called Struggles and it was a modern screen play starring a male and female lead that goes to the same high school. The male lead, by the name of Robert King was a 15-year-old boy that was going through tough times where by his mother passes away and his father was an alcoholic. The female lead, by the name of Sarah Payne was also 15-years-old and she herself had abusive parents and every day, she would be afraid to go home. This screen play was all about adolescence and to make awareness to people that family troubles was everywhere in this world, even though it may not be seen on the outside of those people. Both Robert and Sarah held personas in school that differed from their real personalities at home. Only when the pair discovered that they were in the same boat did they start opening up to being open about their physical and mental struggles.

For Shawn and Emilie's case, the pair would obviously not be aiming for the male and female lead. Rather, they would be aiming for the antagonist couple, Raymond and Jacelyn that had a medium sized role in the play. Shawn, at first, was very against this idea as he did not want to have to memorise many lines. However, with Emilie's constant nagging, he relented, but he asked for a compromise that if he were to fail, then their promise was over. And that was on the fact that Shawn would try his best for this audition.

Seeing that Emilie agreed to this proposition, for the next two weeks until the audition, Shawn would practice with Emilie on the way home from school, since the morning bus ride was normally for sleeping. The boy was genuine about trying, which made Emilie very surprised. She had thought that Shawn was joking about it, but he genuinely tried putting feelings into his words. As a result, Emilie put on her acting cap and started to give some pointers to her partner.

"The way you say 'You dare?' needs to have more spite. You can't just look stern without the emotion in your voice."

"When you grab onto the male lead's collar, your face needs to look condescending. You can't just be looking angry."

"Remember to do this action facing the audience. Mr Bialik always talks about positioning yourself well."

The advices were taken in easily by Shawn. Emilie was very clear in her directing and Shawn followed along. The recess break before the audition, Shawn practiced his lines with Emilie by the stairway and the girl was flabbergasted by his progress. It was crazy how much one can improve when they placed their heart into it. For Shawn's case, he had set amazingly low expectations for himself, but at his current state, he could be said to really be talented in acting.

"All I did was follow your advice." Shawn spoke honestly. He had truly just followed along with what Emilie had told him to do. Other than memorising his lines, everything else was through her instructions. That was Shawn's way of cutting corners as he did not want to put in anymore effort into it.

"No, I am serious though. You managed to improve so much in so little time." Emilie wasn't lying when she said that. "You will definitely get the part."

"Huh what? Seriously?" Shawn's hope was that his acting wouldn't be that good and he could just call it a day after the auditions. What Emilie had just said made the boy slightly afraid for what was to come.

"Yeah, seriously. Your acting skills are better than everyone in our class."

"But there are still Year 7 and 8 students and also the other students from year 9." The school play was separated into two levels. The year 7,8 and 9 would perform one play, while the year 10 and 11 students would perform another. The reason why it was separated was because in year 10 and 11, those students that did school plays were actually because they chose Drama as a specialty subject in their IHCSE examination. Their performances would be graded or used as preparation for their real deal.

"Even if there was, I still think that we can make it together!" Emilie said happily. Compared to what Shawn was feeling, the girl student was glad that their chances of success were very high.

"Ah whatever. We can think about this when we are done with our audition." Shawn shrugged it off. The pair made their way together to the audition room which was also their form classroom. Their form classroom was the largest in the whole school as it was purposefully built bigger to accommodate to students practising for drama. The auditions were split into two days where 20 students by 20 students were auditioned. As there were many people to get through, the students would only have to read a page of lines for their selected role before they were allowed to go. Only if they were asked to read more, would they have to continue on. There was a total of three drama teachers in school and all three were judges for today's audition.

"Let us begin the audition. First up, Sally Jankins."