Taking Center Stage { OPEN! }

[Bartholomew B. Sauer]

Bartholomew gazed around the lobby of the theater. Well, perhaps he should say auditorium . That was what this part of the Red Building was called, though it did look like a small theater when he had looked inside a moment ago. There was a stage, lights, a booth for the technical folks, and fold-down cushion chairs. At least it wasn’t in the gym. That would have made this mandatory attendance more of an irritation for the young sophomore.

He didn’t see why this was mandatory, even though it was on a Friday. That seemed a little ridiculous, seeing as other people would have plans for their Friday nights. Bartholomew, for example, had been intent on finishing his geometry homework and then researching potential colleges to attend, or perhaps enjoying a nice botanical book. Others, he knew, would be wasting their time at parties or hanging out with friends around Pallet. So it seemed like a bad decision on the part of the administration, but he would follow the directions given to him. He supposed it must be important if they had asked all of the students on orientation to attend the end of summer play.

And it was a musical. Good grief. He had to sit through singing when he could be reading his newest book on horticulture: The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techniques. He’d really been looking forward to reading it, too. It had seemed fascinating, and offered insights that he wasn’t familiar with yet on how to prune and plant perennials, which could be quite temperamental little plants.

He stood away from the door to the auditorium and over by the the concessions stand, which sold a few varieties of candy, chips, and lemonade. He held a cup of lemonade in one hand and had the other firmly pushed into his pocket as he leaned against the wall. Others were milling around, complaining that they had to be here or showing a genuine interest in seeing the play and/or their friends in the play. It was fairly crowded - Bartholomew hadn’t noticed how many people had actually come to the summer orientation. There was a shout as a pair of loudly giggling girls dashed by Bartholomew, who had to press himself against the wall to avoid being shoved. He leaned forward when they had passed, looking to see where they had gone or what they were doing. Another shout of play sounded out behind him and he turned just as two larger boys pushed past him and he went sprawling onto the floor, lemonade spilling everywhere. The students who had pushed him raced away, seemingly unaware (or more than likely uncaring) about the sophomore on the floor.

Bartholomew sighed. He should have expected that.




Summary: Bartholomew is standing near the concessions stand, holding a cup of lemonade while he inner-monolouges about losing his Friday night filled with the excitement of geometry and horticulture books (nerd). Two girls run by and Bartholomew nearly gets pushed over. He looks after them to see where they went and then actually gets knocked over by two male pursuers. He’s now lying on the floor, lemonade spilled and somewhat grumpy.
Comments:

[/i] This is just before the play, and I rearranged the day so that I could be involved and we failed at starting this on time due to real life. Sorry guys. Feel free to jump in here or make your own threads, but do try to roleplay as much as possible, and with people you don’t know if you can! :D[/blockquote]

[Samuel Norton]

Pretty much anything with a name as ridiculous as Romeo and Juliet: The Musical was bound to be so stupid it crossed over into hilarious. He wondered how exactly this piece of artistic bankruptsy would work: would Romeo really sing "but soft! what light through yonder window breaks"? One could only hope there would be no rap involved, or at least not rap performed by someone white enough to glow in a dark room. If it had been up to him, Samuel might have quite willingly gone to this play with the expectation of quite enjoying its stupidity, MSTing it all the while. But since it was mandatory...

Really? Making it mandatory to go see a play? And here he had been thinking that at least the educational system had no control over what he did on a Friday evening. He had a right, he thought, to waste his time doing whatever he liked. Apparently this belief was naive of him.

As he stood in the lobby ruminating on all this, he teetered on the verge of resentment and then restrained it. There was nothing he could do about this (ultimately somewhat trivial) infringment on his free time and getting pissed off would be completely pointless. He might as well just go with it. He grabbed a bag of chips from the concession stand and found a spot to stand around eating and keeping an eye out for anyone he knew.

A louder shouting cut through the dull roar of socializing teenagers and, swearing under his breath at the annoying immaturity, Norton turned to see the offenders, two upperclassmen, bowl over a younger, skinnier boy who had been standing not far away. The poor kid was knocked to the hard floor, his drink going everywhere. Of course the asses who sent him sprawling didn't even notice. Without pausing to think, Sam swiped a fistful of paper napkins and a couple steps carried him over to where the underclassmen was.

"Here," Norton said, bending down to offer a hand.

[Bartholomew B. Sauer]

Bartholomew would have started grumbling about the irresponsibility of people his age (and even those who were older!) when he heard a voice and noticed a hand being offered to him. He looked up to see an overweight teenager with an impassive, almost sleepy expression, holding one of his hands out to Bartholomew, while the other held paper towels. Relieved to see someone was doing something about the situation, Bartholomew reached for the hand and allowed himself to be pulled upward. He stood awkwardly where he had risen for a few moments.

“Um, thanks.” He said. Then, “I should, um, probably get more paper towels.” He strode back over to the concession stand and grabbed a few of the napkins before striding back to where he had fallen and bending over to clean it up. He wiped up the yellow liquid in silence for a moment, and then decided he didn’t like the awkward silence.

“Thanks again. I’m Bartholomew, by the way. Bartholomew Sauer.” He glanced sideways at the other boy to see if he would have anything to say. If he didn’t, well, that would just make the whole situation more awkward. But Bartholomew was grateful that someone had decided to help and not just stand there staring at him. Most of the staring eyes had gone back to their conversation, from what Bartholomew had noticed, but there were probably still a few eyes on them. He ignored the thought for the time being.




Summary: Grateful for the help, Bartholomew rises and then thanks his 'rescuer.' He realizes that he shouldn't just stand there and goes to get paper towels and helps clean up the spill. He offers his thanks again, then his name to the other boy. (Note: working under the assumption that Sam and Bart haven't met yet.)
Comments:

[/i] Lulz, Bart is awkward. xP Posts will be kept short to keep the thread moving, at least on my end. Do whatever you're comfortable with. :][/blockquote]

[Samuel Norton]

It was convenient that Norton's bulk the other student's skinnier frame; Sam pulled him up easily. That accomplished, he stepped back a small bit to give the younger boy some room and he stood awkwardly for a few seconds, unsure what to say or do next. He was not expecting to find the younger boy excusing himself for a minute as soon as he had thanked him.

Ug, he had volunteered himself to help out. What possessed him to do that? Now he actually had to make himself useful, so he didn't look like an awkward jerk. Norton's plan had been to just hand the guy some napkins after pulling him up. He hadn't been intending to do any actual work.

Reluctantly, too lazy to bend over or get down on his knees to clean up, Sam dropped his handful of paper napkins onto the floor, stepped on them, and started using one leg to move them around the floor in a lazy, haphazard way, balancing on one leg while he did so like a graceless ballet dancer.

"Sam Norton," he returned politely when Bartholomew introduced himself. "Charmed, I'm sure."



[Your definition of "short" is really not that short. I'm sorry I wasn't quite sure what to do with this; awkward social interaction is awkward. But that's why Bart is so cute.]

[Tai Amity Lurio]

Oh how torn Tai was! Was she to like being forced to see Romeo and Juliet, or was she to despise it? The pros of the situation were that she would be able to understand just what some of the art majors were doing. She liked to know just what everyone did even though it was difficult to find out at times. That way it'd be easier to connect with whatever friends she had made (which at the time was a total of 0), whoever they were. However the cons were that she may not be able to sit through the whole thing without becoming restless. She hoped she could focus on the play enough to make herself calm down.

Of course the play had yet to begin so Tai was just standing around, waiting for everyone else to go into the auditorium. However just standing around turned out to be quite difficult for her. When she tried to move, she found that difficult as well. It was more like a zoo in there rather than a school. She didn't mind all the movement. In fact she saw a girl being chased by two guys and hoped that she wouldn't mind if she joined her on the running. Perhaps getting out that extra steam would make her focus more on the play once it started.

As Tai started to run beside the girl, she looked at Tai weirdly, but kept running. The two guys didn't seem to mind much. Of course after only a minute of being chased, the two of them nearly knocked over a student. Worried about the kid, she broke from the chase to see if he was alright. As she did, the two guys who had been chasing them completely knocked the kid over and spilled his drink everywhere. She was about to run over and apologise, but it seemed another student was already helping me. However Tai wasn't ready to just walk away from the situation. Rather than that, she casually walked by towards the concession stands and took a sniff of what he had. Lemonade.

"Excuse me, could I have one lemonade?" Tai asked the person running concessions. She handed the person the correct amount of money as the person handed over a lemonade. From there she grabbed a few napkins and walked over to the mess.

Once she came across the two boys wiping up the lemonade, Tai got down on her hands and knees and started to help clean up the spilled lemonade. They were introducing themselves, so she thought, why not join in on the fun?

"I'm real sorry about those guys running into you. I bought you a new drink. I hope lemonade's okay?" Tai said as she 'stood' on her knees and offered the drink to the boy who was cleaning beside her.

[Hope you all don't mind me popping in [: I need to rp with this character more! XD]

[Toliver Copperfield]

[atrb=cellspacing,5,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px, height: 500px; background-color: #383838; -moz-border-radius: 15px, btable][rs=2][atrb=style, height: 500px; overflow:auto; background-color: #505050] Take the photograph Please don't be starting already, please don't be starting already, he chanted mentally as he nearly tripped out the door. Oh he was so stupid! There was nothing better than a Shakespearean play, especially performed at a high school level. They almost always made mistakes galore and funny inserts to make up for their lack of knowledge of the Shakespearean language. One in particular moment he remembered was in The Taming of the Shrew. Kate had asked Pertrucio "where he studied all his goodly speech." The person playing Pertrucio has replied with, "I pull it out of thine ass," to hide the fact that he had forgotten his line. Of course, it only showed it more than hid it. Nonetheless, Toliver shoved the thought to the back of his mind before hurrying to the Red Building. His newest camera, a Casio EX-H10, was held in one of his hands as he sprinted across the field. However, with him being as uncoordinated as he was, he wasn't all that fast. It took him a good ten minutes to reach the building in question and another fifteen for him to weasel his way through the crowd. He enjoyed plays and musicals and various other theatrical performances. They always did the lighting and other effects for him so he just had to snap the photo. As he slipped into the auditorium, he began to regret it as he was pushed from side to side by people much larger or sturdier than himself. He sighed, snapping a quick photo of one of the sophomores that shoved him aside like they owned the place. He'd deface the photo later. However, he soon forgot about the rude people as he nearly slipped. Thankfully, a nearby senior just happened to be standing in the right place so Toliver was able to deftly grab onto the other's jacket and prevent a terribly embarrassing fall from occurring. "The hell?" he asked, pulling his sleeve free from the younger boy's grasp. "Sorry," he muttered, backing into the crowd of people and trying his best to fade into the background. He glanced down to see a trail of a spilled drink on the ground. Where it was splattered, he assumed, was where he had stepped on it. He followed it with his eyes to a group of kids working on cleaning it up. Shoving his camera away into one of his inside pockets, the good samaritan came out and he grabbed a couple napkins to add on to the pile that the group already had. "Need any more help?" he offered. If not, then he figured he'd grab a drink of his own.

[atrb=style, width: 150px; height: 150px] Words: Lazy Tags: Everyone Listening To: Nothing Notes: Huzzah, a post!

[Bartholomew B. Sauer]

“Sam Norton. Charmed, I’m sure.”

“Likewise.”

Once the other boy introduced himself and the introduction had been recognized, there was little for Bartholomew to do other than continue to mop up the mess. He was reluctantly impressed with just how far the lemonade had managed to fly and then trickle forward along the linoleum floor. How had he managed to spill his drink so far? And to think that those other two boys hadn’t even stopped to help him clean up. It was simply ridiculous and nearly made him ashamed to be associated with his portion of the human species. Of course, they were gone and there was someone else helping him (a male as well, no less), so Bartholomew supposed he shouldn’t complain.

After a moment he became aware of a new pair of feet approaching him and then stopped in front of him. He looked up as a brown-haired girl knelt down next to him and held out a new cup of lemonade. She offered some apologies for the boys. Bartholomew was perplexed for a moment, but after a moment scrounging his memory banks, he recognized her as one of the girls that had been running. He frowned slightly, but reached out a hand to accept the drink.

“Thank you. But you should be more careful where you’re running next time.” Bartholomew paused to take a sip of the lemonade, which was actually somewhat lemon-y and not mostly water. Pleased, he offered a faint smile as she continued to aid himself and Sam in clean up. It was sort of embarrassing that they had to do clean up, really, but he had to at least repair some of the damage.

There was a few moments of quiet scrubbing. Bartholomew leaned out to gather up more of the mess with a paper towel when he saw another pair of feet. He looked up to see taller boy above him, who asked if they needed more help.

“Um, I think we’re good. Thank you, though.” Bartholomew replied kindly. He noted the bulge in other boy’s pocket and saw the corner of a camera sticking out. That was interesting. “Are you taking pictures for the yearbook or something?” He nodded at the corner of the camera. It was the first question he thought of, and was out of his mouth before he really recognized and processed the thought.




Summary: Bartholomew and Sam are cleaning up the mess in awkward silence when a girl walks up and gives Bart another lemonade, which he takes, though he recognizes her as one of the girls who indirectly caused him to get knocked over. (He lightly scolds her for running. How old-manish of him.) They continue cleaning with another person comes up - a boy this time - and offers help. He has a camera in his pocket, which Bart comments on and asks about.
Comments:

[/i] Sorry, Kashi - I just mean that I force something out and if it covers everything, I post it. No extra fluff unless I deem I want some in there, you know. That's all I mean by short. (Though it might be actually short, in some instances.) xD
And thanks for joining, Laura and Todoku! This should be fun! :][/blockquote]

[Samuel Norton]

The bare minimum of social interaction having been accomplished, he wondered if maybe he should make some friendly overture; this Bartholomew kid seemed naturally prone to awkwardness, and Norton could try to alleviate that. But he wasn't in the mood to take any initiative in that moment, and the other student seemed content to just continue cleaning up, so Norton let it drop and turned back to his own mopping, keeping his head down.

He was surprised to see how, all of a sudden, the younger student seemed to be acting as a magnet: two people were caught in his net in the span of a couple minutes, and the girl had bought him a drink. (Norton amused himself with a silly mental image of Bartholomew attracting a whole crowd of females with the power of a pathetic look.)

While the kid was distracted, Sam decided that he was obviously superfluous and his mopping contributions wouldn't be missed, and so he picked up his thin paper napkins, which were completely soaked through with lemonade, and ducked away to find a trashcan in which to dispose them. Within a minute or two he had gone and was on his way back.




[What--? When did I say anything that needs to be apologized about? No "sorry" nonsense is necessary here! Except for me being sorry I got such a ridiculous case of writer's-block.]

[S H A Z A M ?! *]

whoa, what just happened?!

[/size][/font]

The lights are dimming - the show must be starting soon!

Time to head inside the theater![/center]