Carlos arrives at seven and Alex is already at the door, they are both dressed in shorts and their workout shirts, ready for Luna to make everyone sweat. They enter through the university through the north, as usual, get to parking on the upper side of the Community Center with Alex’s Collaborator ID and manage to park for free.

“So, what do I do while you open up the studio?” Carlos asks.

“There’s still an hour left, so maybe... get us breakfast?”

Carlos nods his way as they get out of the car.

They walk down the parking lot, Alex waves Carlos goodbye as he goes left to the convenience store (the cafeteria is not open till nine a.m.) and he goes down the stairs on the side of the Community Center (the second floor is closed until nine as well). Alex walks past the graduation bell, the many posters he had to hang for the audition and goes through the main entrance of the Community Center.

He enjoys the hall, a large expanse of marbled floors in grey, beige and terracota, the latter forming lines on that converge under an enormous statue at the center; said statue faces the huge windows that, with each floor, seem to push themselves into the building until they reach the ceiling, leaving the place ever sunny. Most of the structure is concrete, but it there are details everywhere that make the hall pop: a pyramid on the corner where students gather to study and gossip, a weird interactive hand sculpture on the wall, a store with trinkets of the uni. This is one of his favorite spaces of the university.

Alex walks to the guards desk, right next to the elevator and stairs, past the enormous statue.

“Hey Evelyn, how has the semester been treating you?” he says to a thin woman with beady eyes, a huge smile and a lovely aquiline bone structure behind the desk. She is one of the many security guards on rotation, all of which are very friendly with Alex, but Evelyn has a special place in his heart, always helping him out no matter what.

“So far, nothing to report. We’ve missed you, youngin!” Evelyn says looking for her ring of keys. “I’m guessing you will need both the dance and acting studio, right? Luna called the office.”

“Thanks, Evelyn.”

They take the elevator to the third floor. Alex might prefer walking, but Evelyn has to do a lot of leg work through the day, so he understands why she prefers this. All the way up and while walking towards the studios they make small talk and recount little anecdotes from their summers. Soon the studios are open and Evelyn is waving him goodbye.

Alex waits for Carlos inside the dance studio while getting the sound system and cables in order. He hasn’t been on the floorboards since the last rehearsal for the Welcome Ceremony, and it already felt like too long. The openness, the wall to wall mirror, the dance bars and the brightness of this room always makes him smile. He wishes he could stay here forever.

He hears a knock behind him.

“Heya Giant, I brought sandwiches and a Luna,” Carlos says, walking with Luna in tow.

“Morning, Alex,” she says giving him a kiss and hug. “I assume everything is ready, right?”

“There was not much to prepare, so yeah,” Alex says, grabbing the sandwich Carlos brought as Luna goes towards the sound system. “I will ask Carlos to help me move the desk outside and if you hand me the numbers, I can start the register as soon as new arrivals come.”

“Excellent!” Luna says. “This is going to be a fun day”

Whenever Luna says that, Alex knows everyone in the room will end the day wishing to never exercise again.

***

Alex ends up receiving all the singers that came yesterday AND the dancers who are here exclusively for the dance call. The audition ends up being two hundred and seventeen people huddled in the dance studio that —after one of Luna’s famous warm ups that make people puke (only five guys this time)— are trying their best to learn the choreo to “What You Want”.

As the audition moves forward, Alex just sits back and relaxes right next to the sound system. He is in charge of playing and pausing the track. The dance call is way more straight forward than the actors audition because: Luna doesn’t skip a beat. She knows what she is looking for, and as soon as she sees it, she asks Alex to write down a number and she just keeps eyeing all the bodies.

It is also a more collaborative process. All the old castmates, particularly Eva, are giving advice to the new auditionees and teaching them how to polish their combinations. It is a quite friendly environment.

After a while, Luna asks the auditionees to enter in groups of ten. She sees their combinations two times, thanks them and asks them to step out; then she tells Alex who is in and who isn’t. The process goes on and on until the fourteenth group walks in, and with it, Eva and Carlos’ smiling faces.

“Hey, kids, ready?” Luna says.

“Once again, I’ll do my best not to bore you,” Luna says with a wink.

“I am just glad I don’t have to do pirouettes this year,” Carlos says.

And with that, Alex hits play and off they go.

Sometimes, Alex can forget his friends are hot, but when they dance he has no room to doubt it. luna has told him since high school that you can always tell if a dancer is good by their arms: they have to strong, precise and flexible; if they flail like Kermit you’ve got a problem. Carlos and Eva always seem to flow, no matter how precise or harsh the movement, it always seem natural, and with this song they are both able to embrace their playfulness and sensuality. It is a hard thing to master, you cannot let that energy carry you, you have to harness it.

Eva particularly, seems to be leaving everything on the dance floor, and once the freestyle section hits, Carlos and her are doing a whole routine of their own. Trained dancers are something else, the poor kids that are with them don’t stand a chance.

They repeat the combination twice, say their goodbyes and go.

The rest of the audition goes on as normal and, by the end, Luna just walks everybody inside, thanks them and tells them they’ll see the results for the full company on tuesday. Then she does her favorite part.

“You’ve all done me the honor of dancing for me, now, I think it is only fair I do that for you,” she always does this, a demonstration of her talent and also a way to show her vulnerability. “If anybody wants to join, they are more than welcome.”

Few people step up, between them Eva and they all stand next to Luna. The latter looks at Alex, nods and he hits play.

It’s always fun to see Luna dance at her heart’s content. She did West End (where she trained) and Broadway in her twenties, but then came here, so it is always amazing to see her talent unleashed. The oddity comes at the freestyle where she seems to be challenging Eva, each move a deliberate response to hers and so they both seem to be dancing with and without one another. It is truly fun! But Alex has to wonder what Luna has in mind.

Then the music stops.

“Thank you everyone, it’s been an honor,” Luna says, barely sweating. “I hope I keep seeing you in auditions.”

Carlos and Eva wave his way and Alex gestures that he’ll catch up to them. They go and he turns to safeguard the equipment and pick up his things. Luna is watching the list with the final auditionees that will make it into the dance ensemble, but as he gets closer he sees her raise her eyes to him in a conspiratorial stare.

“What do you think of Eva as Elle?” Luna says, a smile creeping at the corner of her mouth.

Alex is shocked. “What?”

“I said, Eva as Elle, thoughts?”

He stares at her for one hard minute, is should he answer this? He decides to test the waters.

“I think she is my friend and maybe I shouldn’t comment”

“Oh, come on Alex! I didn’t hire you to pull that bullshit on me,” she whines while slapping his arm. “I hired you because you have good eye, great ear, I have trained you and I KNOW you will fight me no matter what. Remember Hairspray?”

Alex lets out a huge groan.

“Don’t get me started: I still think that was blackface!” he says.

“But you are brown!”

“But not an afro Mexican!” he retorts, exasperated. “Anyhow that is a whole different conversation.”

“Indeed it is, so… Eva? Your categorical opinion on her,” Alex looks her in the eye as she says it. He knows that look, it is he “I’m going to fight David until I get exactly what I want” look. He loves it.

“She is an asset. I think we can exploit both her following, she is huge on social media, and her talent to make this musical something to remember,” he says. “Also, Elle Woods as a big girl is QUITE the statement, if I do say so myself.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Luna says with a conspiratorial smile. “Besides, this might be Eva’s last musical, we must make the best use of her while she is here. I’ve fought with David so much over her, I really think she is something else! So, I think that if I spin the angle of a body positivity message to the board and they accept it, we’ll be more than fine and David won’t be able to complain. We know she has the range after all.”

“There won’t be problems over the casting with the right holders, though?” Alex has heard some nightmares about musicals shutting down one day before opening due to miscasting drama or directorial freedom.

“I don’t think so,” Luna says. “But I’ll check, just to make sure.”

Luna is smiling from ear to ear.

“I can’t wait for everyone to see her do this!”

Alex is thinking of Eva waiting for him with the others downstairs, how she’ll react if all goes well once the list is posted. A memory from when she got the part as Tracy hits him. 

"This is great," she had said, "but I can't wait to play a part where I can be more than the fat girl people happen to be in love with. I want to be that girl who is what everyone wants to be, and just happens to be fat."

She had worked so hard.

“I can’t wait either.”