Its been a month now since I went on that theatre date with Yixing. Since then we've caught 2 more plays together. 1 more Ulyssess adaptation and another play based on an Anton Chekov short story.

While Yixing and I have been hitting it off, things seem to have cooled on his and J's relationship front. Which leaves me in a bind. I'm kinda enjoying Yixing's company now. He's that dream theatre buddy that I've always longed for! But if he and J were to call it quits then I probably shouldn't be seen hanging out with him any longer? I wish things would work out between him and J! But there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to help! For one thing, Yixing and I rarely discuss his realtionship with J. We're usually too caught up in our discussions about the plays we've caught or immerse in some other discussion about a literary work. Time flies by when we get engrossed in our discussions and before we know it, it's time to part ways and we ran out of time to discuss any other matters. When we get together, its as if we enter a different realm of our own. A parallel universe, whereby EP, our social differences, our backgrounds, our other friends all disappear. It's simply just Yixing and I, and our immersive world of theatre and the arts. 

***

"Look B! The play chosen for this year's Theatre Slam is The Taming of the Shrew!" Yoona remarks brightly.

Nice! Theatre Slam is this spontaneous compeition we have among the private prep schools in our district. The objective is to challenge the students to take on a controversial play and put their spin on it, so they can attempt to "rectify" the politcal incorrectness of these earlier plays. It's all very tongue-in-cheek as the students are encouraged to tackle these esteemed canonical plays, strip them down, give their own spin on it to address the offensive issue while retaining the integrity of the original plot. Then produce and stage a truncated version of the play. And all within a one-month deadline! So from the moment the play topic is announced, the clock starts ticking for us to quickly cobble together a team, rework the script, cast the actors, rehearse and produce the play! Usually a tight team is assembled with each student taking on multiple roles as scriptwriter, actor, props, producer etc. It's a mad challenge! So naturally I thrive on it! Last year, EP took on Merchant of Venice and we successfully reworked a post-modern version that manages to remove much of the controversial anti-semitism of the original play by spinning a convincing back story for Shylock, making him a more sympathetic character, a man of his circumstances, rather than crucify the entire religion. I re-wrote most of the script together with my seniors, so I'm especially proud of our win.

"You'll probably be a shoo-in for the lead again!" Suzy enthuses.

That's probably true. I usually get the lead actress role in our school plays. That means I get to act as Kate and rework much of the mysogynistic soliloquy! What a relishing challenge! It's a pity Siwon and J won't be able to join me on this as they are both not the literary sorts. They could probably do the acting part. But usually for the slams, the actors are also expected to re-write their own dialogues. Stringing words together is not exactly their forte. Sigh.

"Wonder who'll be the leading guy this time? All the good male thespians have graduated!" Yoona wonders aloud.

Well, I do have someone suitable in mind...