CHAPTER SIX

Casting Call

Three days already slither through and the only hissing came out of his mouth is from that one oh-so-interesting vocal class he chose to sign up. If it was not for Seokmin happy vibes spreading into his soul, he would have sit at the back of the faculty’s library, reading whatever reachable. Part of him is regretting it mainly because he is supposed to be a full-time Film student. Nonetheless, he can use a good vocal exercise. It can be used in anything else besides acting anyway. He guesses he will live longer than expected after all. Jokes aside, Minghao glances over to the said fellow.

“Are you going to Rose Quartz’s Casting Call by any chance?” The question came out at the end of the extra Theatre class whilst his eyes following Seokmin’s busy hand movements, packing up. “I am but not to land a character but a production job. Apparently, I’m in charge of marketing.”

“Wait, are you for real? This is awkward.” The boy uttered the last sentence and sees his friend looking beyond his shoulder. Noticing the stare and smile, Minghao turns around only to see his classmate which is strange because Jungkook is not a Theatre kid at all. At this rate, no one in the faculty truly sticks to whatever major they are taking. “What are you doing here?” The mentioned one simply beams a smile.

“RQS Casting Call.”

“Hold up,” Minghao grows flustered by the two’s statements. Not that he is against the idea of them swinging by the casting session but that only means one thing. They will be there witnessing him auditioning for a character for the play, he prompted with a sudden rush of nervousness tumbling, showing clearly on his face. He later hears Seokmin laughing lightly as he talks with Jungkook.

Fortunately, Seokmin and Jungkook (who was apparently being dragged into the production earlier this morning to be in Documentation department) leave Minghao in the midst of a somewhat lengthy queue right by the many studios a couple of doors down the current room they used to be in.

It is his first time to line up for a role. He never really thought there will be a day where he has to act, to be honest. He has always been interested in working behind a camera to care about being in front. Fascinated is not even the right word to express the expression plastered yet everything seems new to him out of the blue.

Regardless, a two pages script appears in his hand which makes him hops off the train of thought he has been on. Stood on the left side of him is an unfamiliar face, assumingly older than him but not by much. Not much but comfort and home radiate from the boy. Since the fellow does not make any move seeing that there is no one standing behind him, Minghao starts a conversation.

“This is under RQS Production, right?”

“Yeah, the one and only.” The tall male appears giddy as he said that. He is very cheery for someone who has been standing there for an hour without a break. There may be some pride lingering in his tone too but other than that, Minghao does not know how to make a full response to the line. “Cool. My friend suggested me to try this for my extra credit. Do you know Mingyu?”

“Ah, Kim Mingyu? Our precious lamp post.” Minghao snickers, wanting to resist the urge to break a huge laugh but he can tell he will get along just well with the boy if he managed to land a role. “I know the fellow. He’s our costume designer. Though honestly there is not much design work to be done but he’s doing great already. Anyway, Wen Junhui, Stage Manager for the play.”

Junhui stretches his hand out for a shake which Minghao gladly accepts. It is not often he gets to mingle with people outside of his major but the surname intrigues him more than he supposed to. “You’re Chinese too? I’m Xu Minghao but the guys here call me Myungho, Seo Myungho.” He almost switched his default language for a second back there but he should not take advantage to use his mother tongue just yet.

“Yup. Been here in Korea since high school and really, I don’t know what I’ll do when I head back home, to be honest.”

“Are your family here?”

“They are. Well my sister is but the rest are all way back home. That counts too, I guess. Homesick comes and goes but it is all normal. Talked to Yanan about that and we’re all fine. Do you know Yanan? Well, I figured you don’t-”

‘A chatterbox. Why do I always attract people who talk a lot?’ The younger fellow hesitantly smiles and nods his head occasionally, hoping Junhui does not seem him coming out to be rude for not listening fully.

“Anyway, if I’m you, I will go through that script. There are five possible male characters you can try but if you want to try out for the female ones, I can give it to you too.”

“Ah, no. It’s okay. I’m good.” Minghao breaks a wider smile, genuine one and bows at the latter before Junhui bids his goodbye to pass more of the short scripts to newcomers.

He is wondering why is the line does not move yet though.

“Very typical of you, Soonyoung. You could’ve come soon-er.” Minghao hears the Stage Manager’s voice speaks metres away, followed by a pant when he senses a swift breeze runs past him. The figures are not that far initially so he is not hearing their conversation unintentionally.

“Seungcheol is not mad at me, is he? I had an Anatomy class and you know how Mrs Hope is with her classes. Goodness, she’s so extra sometimes.” The boy informed, holding onto his knees as he tries to catch his breath. If jumping and studying about the limbs are not enough for the dancer, he literally had to run across the campus quad since the foreign lecturer thought it would be nice to learn outdoor for once. That is what he meant by extra.

“Just get in there and we can finally start with the casting session already. I don’t know about you but there is quite a few of them this time around.” Junhui scans his surrounding which Soonyoung follows as well. “Yeah, this is quite surprising, actually. I never come to a theatre casting call so one learns new things every day.” He stated as a curve forms on his lips and his eyes almost disappeared.

Four characters. Minghao can choose a character among the four. What a lucky number, he sarcastically ponders as he skims the script. By first glance, he cannot tell which one is the one character Mingyu told not to try out.  All of them by far seems as important to the other. There is nothing significant except for…oh.

“So, you can start introducing yourself before we proceed.” The boy looks up from the paper when he remembers he is already standing still in the middle of the studio after minutes of standing in the queue. He has his attention on the script whilst waiting for the panel in front of him to be ready to realise that. He bows.

As he is doing the introduction, his conscious tells him to look at the three guys seated on their respective chairs. In their hands are papers and pens in different colours: blue, black, and red. He guesses it is all planned out according to their positions when he notices the small rectangular placard placed in front of them with their titles and names written. It may be coincidental but what does he knows about Theatre casting sessions, right?

“Can you dance?” The fellow he caught talking with Junhui questioned as soon as he finished giving brief information about himself. “Uh, I can? I used to b-boy back at my hometown.”

“How do you feel about doing your own stunt?” Another one asked. He is the one holding a black pen, situated in the middle. The question indeed makes the boy taken aback. It never crosses his mind that such a question will be thrown out that easily. “Is this because of that one part written in the last scene?” Minghao questioned instead of answering.

It is a casting session, right? Why does it feel like it is more of a walk-in job interview? Those are only three out of many things he wants to ask the panel but then he sees the one asking him whispering to the last guy with blue pen twirled between his fingers.

“Sorry, Seungcheol can be very straightforward but yes. It’s that one part written on the last scene.” Soonyoung told him when the other two discussed something, leaving him on the side wondering what on Earth they are discussing in the midst of a casting session. “Anyway, do you have any character that caught your attention the most in ‘Night & Rain’?”

“Actually,” Minghao paused before taking a good look at the script once again. Once he is sure of himself, he gets the green light from the Director to try two characters. He is immersed in the characters quickly, already feeling good about landing on either one of them. He believes the characters stand close to his own vibe anyway so he does not feel uncomfortable at all. His accent is a bit obvious he is not a local. Nevertheless, the Chinese bows once again after Seungcheol stated that they will give a call if he is in.

“If the lighting comes out from the back of a character, it is considered as backlighting. It can be used to give the Halo effect so seeing that he is the God there, it only makes sense for him to have that kind of lighting, right?”

Soonyoung chuckles as he enters the house to his fellow housemate talking to herself which is a common occurrence. After tossing his shoes on the rack, he stops by the living room only to see Shinyoung has her ears stuffed by her earphones and still talking. Now that he is seeing the situation right in front of his eyes, he realises Shinyoung is talking on the phone whilst her fingers stuck on the same place on the keyboard for a good ten seconds before typing.

Continuing his destination which is the kitchen, she finally pulls out the hearing device before speaking to her friend. “Did the casting session run well? Did you guys find the ones that caught your eyes?” Shinyoung moves her hair behind her ear before turning around on her seat to see Soonyoung placing a black plastic bag on the kitchen counter. “It did. We already discussed who gets who and I must say, it is an ef-ing difficult decision because your precious man does not seem to be fine with anything initially.”

Shinyoung scoffs and returns to pay half of the attention from Soonyoung to her assignment. “He is hard to work with. Poor Seungcheol. He never truly works by his side before. He usually gets the script and handed them over to the real directors in the past. It’s his first time working side by side. It boggles me how they can be good friends. Junhui included.”

“Hey, it’s not that bad actually at least on my side. As the Choreographer, I only have to get a list of names of people who are interested. They don’t have to be good. I’m just glad a lot of my juniors signed up for it. They like me after all.”

“You’re Kwon Soonyoung. Who the hell wouldn’t like you?” She smiles and adds, “Anyway, who did Wonwoo decided to torture and make him jump off a high building?” She is genuinely curious really. With the Playwright being the Assistant Director, she knows the lead actor will have it tough to portray a character made by Wonwoo. That is what she often catches whenever his scripts were chosen.

“Interestingly, Wonwoo trusted a fresh, new actor who is not from an Acting major to take the lead character because taking two is a burden since the kid does his own stunt.”

“Very interesting indeed, Soon. So it’s a kid? Is he younger than us? You don’t just call people a kid, you know.” Shinyoung asked as her fingers press ‘ctrl’ and ‘s’ on her keyboard before shutting it down for the day. She hears the rustling plastic from her spot and sees Soonyoung preparing for dinner already. As she follows the boy’s movement keenly, her eyes widen in surprise when hears the name.

“A film kid named Seo Myungho. He’s Chinese, used to do b-boy and parkour. Seungcheol wanted to use his power as the Director to reject and go with someone else but let’s face it, as annoying the guy is, Wonwoo knows he got potential.”

“Myungho can act?!” She yelled all of the sudden which causes Soonyoung to jolt at the loudness. He quickly asks if she knows the kid and of course she knows. She literally called him minutes ago to talk about the Cinematography presentation.

After getting the new information, she figured Minghao does not know he landed himself a lead character since he sounded calm explaining about the presentation. She supposed she can discuss it tomorrow but no one ever responded in the group chat and she needed an answer fast to write them out on paper. If Wonwoo really approves him, so he must be very convincing in acting out the character and she will see him even more.

And she has no idea why she makes it sound as if it will cause more trouble than it already is.

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