So we entered the theatre together. There was a performance to be that night I thought, as preparations seemed in full swing. I was happy to have encountered Florence, that way I had no need to draw attention to myself by asking for my way with a male voice. Florence sure of where we were going led me to a rehearsal room, where my projector was set up. Abigail and Valerie were already there and some others, too. Abigail noticed us and came to greet Florence in the French way with kisses on both cheeks. Then she asked:

“Whom did you bring there, Florence?”

Florence grinned from ear to ear and said:

“Whom would I bring, do you think?”

“Magna, I mean Monique? Is that you?”

“Yes, Abigail. It is me, Monique Madelaine.” I replied.

Valerie had joined us meanwhile and said.

“Congratulations, Monique, you look ravishing.”

“Thanks.” I said blushing.

“I don’t believe this.” Abigail exclaimed surprised “You blush like a girl.”

“Yes,” I whispered blushing even more “amazing, isn’t it?”

“Amazing?” Abigail laughed “An effing miracle is that, girl!”

Neither of the three seemed to have any difficulties to accept and treat me as a woman. They reacted in behaviour and language as if I was really Monique Madelaine. Abigail now also kissed me on both cheeks and said:

“I wish you all success, today and in future, perhaps forever a woman?”

“Who knows?”

Meanwhile a group of various women had formed around us and I was examined and watched with keen interest. I was glad about the hypnotic help, otherwise I would probably have broken my ankles on the heels, put runners in my stockings and messed up my clothes and generally been insecure. But I was moving comfortably around, was careful with my new clothes and the long nails and was simply Monique Madelaine, the candidate for the post of technical director and master lighting designer. The girls started to whisper among themselves, so I took the initiative and asked:

“Is everybody there?”

“All but …” Abigail started as that moment the last one arrived.

She was the most beautiful woman I could possibly imagine: not tall, but with a perfectly womanly figure. The best curves since Sophia Loren, that she nevertheless tried to hide behind Jean dungarees and an oversized T-shirt. She had black curls, that escaped indomitably from a bun she had put them in and fell across her shoulder. With her brown eyes she looked directly into mine, an ironic smile playing around her lips.

It hit me like lightning, made my heart beat like crazy, let my breath stop, turned my stomach upside down and made my knees weak. It was not the fact, that I knew that if I could not love her I would never again want to love anyone else. It was the realisation, that I would not be able to make love to her unless I was myself as much completely a woman as it was humanly possible, that almost made me faint.

“Hmmm, so,” she said a little aggressively “you are the bloke who wants to disguise himself as a woman to get the job.”

That got me almost too drastically back to earth, but then I felt someone gently take my hand, Florence. I gathered my wits about me and collected all my courage, concentrated on Florence’s encouraging pressure and replied:

“Well, it is not quite like that,” I said trying to keep my voice soft and feminine “but I think all should hear what I have to say.”

The silence was immediate.

“As I have already explained to Abigail, Valerie and Florence it is a silly misunderstanding with the name, but that cannot be changed. But since my personal situation is such that I really urgently need this job I made this proposal, that I must admit appeared even to me absurd at first. My best friend Sandra, though, with whom I am staying here in London, loved the craziness of it and has, as you can see, done her best to help. Now I will be Monique Madelaine until the production is over, unless I actually decide to become a woman completely, what I cannot totally exclude any more.”

I had got my composure back and Florence let go of my hand. I continued:

“I have to admit, that I really feel at home in my current manner of dress. But I really want to talk about something else. Although I can, even after only three days in dresses, understand why a lady might want to make – I’d say a political – point in her work environment. But let’s be honest, in our professions at the theatre we have a completely different goal. We want to give our audience an unforgettable experience. And for that it doesn’t matter if we are male or female. To be successful in our professions it needs, the professional qualifications aside, creative thinking and the courage to take risks. When a production has become a success everybody, the author, the director, the producer, the actresses and actors or singers, the musicians and the technical and administrative staff have given their best.”

“After you have worked with me you will have learned to look at whatever material with the afterthought, for what it could be used apart from what it was made for. You will look at things through different more open eyes and be able to make the most out of the least you have in technical equipment. And do never forget, it doesn’t work without us, but neither without the others. And the less you see the use of lighting, the better it is.”

I now had everybody’s attention, so I made a pause, took off my trench and hung it over a chair, on which I also put my handbag. Then I looked around at everyone and continued:

“To give you an impression, what you can do even with just very little, I have composed a video with some of my work.”

Even the one that had so challenged me seemed at least a bit interested and so I asked the “girls” to sit down. Then I put the video in, asked Abigail to cut the lights and started the show.

“The first sequence” I explained “is about an alternative theatre festival called the Sommertheater, that was supposed to run for two months. Unfortunately the organisers had already almost spent all the money given them by the city state of Hamburg on advances for the participating groups for travelling, before they called for help on the technical side.”

I made a little dramatical pause.

“Lighting material was as much as non existent, as was sound equipment and the venue was an empty old factory, that had but one rehearsal stage, set up by one of the established theatres of Hamburg. So I called in favours from all my contacts in the music industry and with the donations of old or broken lights and other stuff and with what Hamburg’s free theatre groups could contribute, I created three differently sized theatres in the old factory.

What resulted was a true festival with up to four performances a day. All that is to say more is that we managed to achieve a profit of about 120.000 Mark and everybody was paid well. The scenes are taken from the best performances.”

When the scenes from the Sommertheater were over I stopped the video for a moment and asked:

“Who can tell me how many lights and which were used as a maximum in these examples?”

Embarrassed silence.

“Any guesses?”

Still embarrassed silence.

“Did you like it?”

At least at that there was hesitant agreement and I noticed, that my three co-conspirators kept silent.

“Right,” I began again “the absolute maximum were 24 500 watt lights in in groups of two on a twelve channel manual lighting desk.

“That is impossible!” one exclaimed and others, too, made disbelieving noises.

That Abigail took as her cue:

“Monique is telling the truth. Hannah Hurtzig, who organised the whole thing, is a friend of mine and she recommended Monique and has confirmed everything she said to me.”

“Now,” I started again “an example how even a surplus of the best material can become a problem, if the planning is rubbish. The Alte Oper in Frankfurt had promised to equip a large tent in Grüneburgpark as a venue for the “Theater der Welt”. Unfortunately they had bought the latest and first fully computerised 96 channel lighting desk from Rank Strand with all new power packs and lights, but forgotten the cables. I was hired three weeks before the opening night, because apart from me there was nobody available, who knew how to work the thing, not to talk of the ability and confidence to turn a tent into a theatre in tree weeks time.”

“Luckily the Alte Oper had promised the tent as rehearsal stage to the opening act, so that I found a lot of willing helpers there to actually install what was necessary, but had to suffer the fact, that the director, expecting the glorious lighting equipment to make everything that much better, rewrote half the play in the process. The result was, that at the public dress rehearsal I had to light the fourth act without ever having seen it and to make matters worse, save it all for the premier the next day.”

“To this day I do not exactly know how I did it, I had two guys, one on either side of me, who were supposed to note everything I was doing or muttering to myself, but they admitted to have given up about half way through. But when we put the diskette in the next morning I found, that not only had I all of the twenty three settings correctly saved with all the fade phases but also never erred in a single light.”

All that I explained while the images from the installation were shown. Then I showed the two scenes, that I was particularly proud of. A full moon night in which the full moon actually seemed to hang right there in the middle of the sky and light the actors and a sunrise, for which I used the five minutes warm up of a 5 Kw halogene spot, that changed the light from an almost red orange to daylight white. The girls were attentively silent. Abigail turned the lights back on.

“I have some more scenes on the tape,” I said “But I think those examples should give you an idea. Perhaps I should add, that I would really like to be your technical director, lighting designer and master lighting technician in this. My name in that case would be from now on Monique. What do you think?”

Abigail organised a vote and I was accepted with only one abstention.