I prepared carefully for my first appearance as the technical directrice. I dressed not too conservatively but also practical, which meant a short tight skirt with a not too lose jumper and ankle boots with just a modest heel in denim (skirt) and navy blue (jumper) with a black hose and black boots, finishing off with a black swinger coat and a matching largish handbag, that held the differently coloured plastic file folders I had bought along the way during the shopping spree. They now were filled with price lists from the hire companies, a copy of the list of things to be offered to us from Rank Strand and some rough sketches of what I envisioned in terms of rig. Florence and I were the first to arrive and Cheryl already had some coffee ready, that I thanked her for nicely. She smiled in return, her initial reaction to Mr. Magna forgotten.

As Florence an I prepared the meeting in the conference room a new (for me) face appeared, a lady in her fifties whom Florence introduced as the writer of the script, Heather Clarence. She studied me intently and I was not sure if she did or did not know about me being not quite what I looked like, but it turned out that she had only heard of my abilities from Valerie and was interested to see a woman, who knew so much about lighting and electrics. Then there was the set designer, a young artist by the name of Portia (no family name mentioned), which made me suspect that she came form a rather posh environment. I hoped she was not a spoiled brat.

I was very much looking forward to learn what the play/musical/show would be. Abigail and Valerie came together and were the last. We settled around the conference table, Abigail again officially introducing those who had not yet met, giving a short run down on my professional achievements but not mentioning the change I had undergone. That actually was to remain a secret, I learned later. The introductions done Abigail gave the word to Heather to introduce me and Portia to what awaited us.

“Well,” Heather began “as the idea was an all female production, the choice of what to stage was either to create something completely new or rather limited. Nevertheless I decided on a classic with some slight alterations. I know that rumours have been coursing about some feminist and political thing, and I am sure some people will feel themselves validated, when they learn that I chose Lysistrata.”

A broad smile crept across my face, much to Heather’s surprise but Florence’s, Valerie’s and Abigail’s delight. Well, of course Lysistrata could be staged as a blatantly obvious feminist and political play, but done right it could become a hilarious farce with nevertheless a clear message.

“Monique, I am surprised to find you obviously know what Lysistrata is?” Heather said.

“Yes, Heather, I know it quite well. If you just leave the male choruses and turn what they say into recitals by the women it is easily turned into an all female thing and if the dialogues are modernised it could be hilarious without losing any of its relevance.”

Her face broke into a real smile.

“Wow,” she said “Abigail, where did you find this jewel? I could not have summed it up any better.” and turning to me she said “I may not need to ask, but are you as good at lighting as your knowledge of ancient Greek?”

“Better still.” that was Florence relieving me of the necessity to answer.

To my surprise it was Portia, who was now a bit flustered, as she seemed the only one not quite sure what Lysistrata was. Heather quickly brought her up to scratch and said, that her, Portia’s, fathers would certainly at least have a translation of the original in his library. To save the poor girl further embarrassment I took the liberty to take the word and say, that from my point of view the stage should be rather modern, to avoid any comparisons with classical interpretations, which seemed to greatly take away from Portia’s anxiety about her ignorance of the classics, as she gave me a tentative smile, that I returned happily. Abigail took the word again:

“Now that it is out and Monique and Heather seem to be in such good understanding about what we intend, Valerie do you want to add anything?”

“Other than that Monique doesn’t stop to surprise me?” Valerie laughed “No.”

I took that as my cue.

“Right,” I started “I have another surprise for you up my sleeve. I prepared myself a bit for today, by doing some research and a bit of calculating. I am not sure if you will be prepared for this, but before we can even talk about set or lighting, we need to get the basics rolled out and that includes the tour venues, if there already are any. If not, that is to take precedence from my point of view and I will explain to you why.”

Abigail looked at me surprised, Valerie and Heather grinned and Florence nodded encouragingly, while Portia seemed to have lost the plot and looked at me wide eyed.

“To take a good show on the road is something that I have experience of, even if it was for Rock shows.” I began again “That, combined with the tent in Frankfurt for the ‘Theater der Welt’, gave me a unique insight into the problems we might face for the tour, if we do not prepare in the way I have planned out. So I first of all went to find out, what it would cost us to hire equipment for the tour.”

I got my folders out of my bag and all eyes got even wider.

“Apart from the fact, that the current hire companies are not really equipped to do the kind of subtle lighting I am so fond of, their prices are all but prohibitive.”

I paused for effect.

“To try and use equipment that the venues provide would call for a lot of time in preparation on site and thereby loss of valuable working hours as well as time that could be employed serving more venues and thereby drawing more audience.”

By now Florence had a wide grin on her face.

“So my proposition is to already plan for the venues and the time scale for the tour and to produce a travelling rig, that will not only serve the tour, but also the original staging already. That way we save a lot of time and money while at the same time making sure, that the delivered experience doesn’t vary too much.”

By now Florence was up on her feet and as I, too, was standing she came and gave me a hug saying:

“If my husband had heard you, Monique, he’d be clapping by now. As he is one of the major share holders in What Else, I think you need to meet him.”

“And my hubby, too.” Abigail added “Let me make a call and you, Florence, too, ring your husband and ask if he is free tonight for dinner with Monique. This is just amazing.”

I took one look at Portia and saw, that she was about to cry. She must be feeling completely inadequate, I thought. So I went over to her and said:

“Don’t worry, love, the confidence will come with experience. I have no qualms at all to teach you anything you want to know and I am well aware of how intimidating it can be, when you suddenly realise, how much thought and planning needs to go into the staging of a play like this.” I gently touched her cheek “Trust me.”

The look off warm gratefulness in her eyes could have melted an iceberg. To me she felt like a little girl by comparison, and in a way she probably was. The way I perceived her she had never ever born any responsibility at all. It was just as well that that had not turned her into the spoiled brat it could have, but rather made her timid, something I thought I could surely remedy. I had to smile. Were that mother instincts surfacing?

Florence seemed to have the same idea as she said:

“Monique, I think you should seriously consider becoming a mother.”

That made both Valerie and Abigail laugh out loud, while not Heather nor Portia could understand the reason for their hilarity. Neither Abi nor Val cared to explain it either. Since for now everything was as far advanced as it could go Abigail closed the meeting. It was hardly lunchtime. The core team, Florence, Abigail, Valerie an I went for lunch at Bella Italia, much to my delight. Abi, Val and Florence kept bombarding me with questions about how I got that Idea and so on. So I explained, that I always tried to keep the cost in check, after all it made no sense to waste the productions money, when you could use the cash to pay salaries. That was always a point nobody wanted to argue about.

Once their curiosity satisfied, Abigail and Florence explained the structure of What Else Productions to me. The three of them had been friends at uni and when they all settled into serious relationships they decided to try and do something together. Since Abi and Florence’s husbands were successful in their businesses and were doting on their wives, they provided the background money for them to start the company. Florence with her MBA became the manager, Valerie, who had studied English language as a major and acting as a minor, invested the small inheritance she got form a distant aunt and Abigail, being the most adventurous of the three, used her MBA to become the producer. I was seriously impressed.

The two husbands, wanting to stay in the background as much as possible, were just on the board of directors, but with a majority share of 60% (30% each), and so needed to be consulted in cases like this, where major investments were concerned. And after having seen my figures for even just hiring a rig, the three of them knew, that the company would either need a substantial loan or a raise of capital for this venture. Nobody had had enough foresight here to expect that, but then how could they without the technical experience of what a tour entailed. I was very interested to meet the two husbands and see their reaction to me. I automatically assumed they knew about me. At least in Florence’s case I was absolutely certain.

It was not that I was nervous about the professional and not even about the business side of this, I had enough experience to be certain of my opinion, but if those two men would be able to simply accept a trans woman as a person, who knew? Florence’s husband should be OK, after all his wife’s longest friend was a trans woman and she (they?) had contact to more than one like her, but still, this was serious business, that might make a difference. But Abigail’s husband was a completely unknown quantity to me. Somehow she must have sensed my insecurity, because she was studying me carefully.

“What is troubling you, Monique?” she finally asked.

“Well, Abigail, I know a bit about Florence and her family, but I have no idea of yours. Does your husband know about me?”

Her face broke into a broad smile.

“He knows we hired the most professional woman available.” she replied with a grin “Apart from us three, Cheryl and ‘your girls’ (she put a special emphasis on that phrase), your Sandra and her friend May nobody knows. And we all agree that it should stay that way.”

“Oh, wow.” I sighed.

“So, Monique, my husband will meet the incredible woman who will make this venture What Else’s greatest success yet. In every respect!”

To my surprise I blushed deeply.

“And,” Valerie added with a giggle “with that cute blush of yours you’ll have no problem to wrap whatever man you want around your finger.”

“But seriously, Monique,” Florence chimed in “everything you say makes 100% sense, is well founded in your extensive experience and will surely convince even the most conservative business man.”

I was not so sure of that, after the experiences I had had in the beginning with banks in Germany, who had only very reluctantly had let us have a pittance as an overdraft in the beginning, just until we had done 380.000 Mark turnover in the first year, 640.000 in the second and over 820.000 in the third. And all of that with only 30.000 overdraft. Most of it had been due to my ingenious designs for Flight Cases before I invested myself into speaker cabinets and finally lighting.

In any case, if I succeeded here, I would have made a name for me in UK theatre lighting as Monique for the future. There was no way I way I could go back now. I had sealed my own fate. Were there regrets? No. None whatsoever. I realised that I enjoyed being a professional woman and technician more than I had being Magna in the same profession. He was the past. Monique was my future.

“You realise, Monique,” Florence said “that if you pull this off, there will be no way back?”

“Yes,” I answered with a smile “that just now crossed my mind.”