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Performers

Jessica Hendy

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Creator & Book Writer

Setting

The streets of New York, and elsewhere.
There will be no intermission.

Songs & Scenes

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Board Members

Student Advisory Board

Credits

Lighting equipment from PRG Lighting, sound equipment from Sound Associates, rehearsed at The Public Theater’s Rehearsal Studios. Developed as part of Irons in the Fire at Fault Line Theatre in New York City.

Special Thanks

*Appearing through an Agreement between this theatre and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Actors’ Equity Association (“Equity”), founded in 1913, is the U.S. labor union that represents more than 51,000 actors and stage managers, Equity fosters the art of live theatre as an essential component of society and advances the careers of its members by negotiating wages, improving working conditions and providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. Actors’ Equity is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an International organization of performing arts unions. www.actorsequity.org

United Scenic Artists ● Local USA 829 of the I.A.T.S.E represents the Designers & Scenic Artists for the American Theatre

ATPAM, the Association of Theatrical Press Agents & Managers (IATSE Local 18032), represents the Press Agents, Company Managers, and Theatre Managers employed on this production.

Show Synopsis

Walking With Bubbles is a one-act play with music written by Jessica Hendy with an original score by Brianna Barnes, based on an extraordinary true story, and performed solo by the woman who lived it. Jessica is a woman living her dream - a career in the big city and a perfect marriage - when her husband begins to suffer an inexplicable mental health crisis that leads to his homelessness. She is left with her young son, Beckett, nicknamed Bubbles, to navigate a seemingly impossible new landscape with few resources other than an irrepressible sense of humor and a mother's determination. Walking with Bubbles is the surprising and emotional true story of a woman's resilience and her journey to a new beginning. The interwoven original score by Jonathan Larson Grant 2021 Finalist, Brianna Barnes, beautifully pairs the female-driven perspective with anthemic inspiration, led by warm guitars and ear-worm melodies. The first of its kind in the musical theater genre, Walking with Bubbles presents a way forward through chaos with memorable song and conversational dialogue, offering hard-won wisdom by bravely dramatizing missteps, embarrassments, and failures where audiences arrive as strangers and leave feeling like old friends forged through emotion, honesty, and unmatched authenticity.

Cast
Creatives

Meet the Cast

Jessica Hendy

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Creator & Book Writer
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Pronouns:
She/Her

Ms. Hendy made her Broadway debut as “Grizabella” in the original Broadway production of CATS at the Winter Garden Theatre, and is the only member of that production to have also been a cast member of the Broadway revival at the Neil Simon Theatre.  Other Broadway credits include AIDA (Amneris), and AMOUR.  She made her Radio City Music Hall debut in THE NEW YORK SPRING SPECTACULAR alongside the world famous ROCKETTES, and toured nationally with CATS (Grizabella), JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT (Narrator), and in concert with composer Stephen Schwartz, singing DEFYING GRAVITY from WICKED.  Her one-woman cabaret, A LIFE TO CALL YOUR OWN received rave reviews in the New York press, and she received a Bistro Award for the review GET YOUR TICKETS NOW at Don’t Tell Mama. She played “Diana Goodman” in the regional premier of NEXT TO NORMAL at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, she earned an Acclaim Award.  Other regional theatre credits include MAMMA MIA (Donna) in the Terrence Mann directed production at Connecticut Rep, North Shore Music Theatre's MISS SAIGON (Ellen), and the Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center production of SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD with Jason Robert Brown. She’s regular guest artist at Feinstein’s 54 Below, housed in New York’s legendary Studio 54. Ms. Hendy continues to appear in concert with Symphony Orchestras across North America.  She attended the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and lives in New York City with her amazing son, Beckett.

Meet the Team

Brianna Barnes

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Original Music & Lyrics
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Pronouns:
She/Her

Ms. Barnes is a multi-dimensional artist who works professionally as an actor, singer-songwriter, and composer/lyricist. She is a Finalist for The American Theatre Wing’s 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant and Recipient of the 2022 NYC Women’s Fund Grant through the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and NY Foundation For The Arts. A graduate of the esteemed Musical Theater Program at The University of Cincinnati (CCM), she has performed professionally around the country (Theatre Aspen, John W. Engeman Theater, Wick Theatre) as well as starred in the National Tour of A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS. Brianna directed and produced her first original musical, LET THERE BE LIGHT (Book, Music, & Lyrics), which won Best Musical and Best Score at The New York Theatre Festival in 2018. In 2021 she was commissioned as Composer/Lyricist for the new rock musical, RATHSKELLER, which won Best Musical in Broadway World’s Off-Off-Broadway Awards. Her musical, THE PRESENCE (Book, Music, and Lyrics) is currently in development. Her debut album, HIEROPHANIES: MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SACRED, made the first round on the GRAMMY Awards® ballot for consideration under Best Contemporary Christian Album. Brianna is a member of The Dramatist Guild, BMI, and Maestra. Her literary work is represented by Amy Wagner of A3 Artists Agency and her performing work is represented by Michael Rodriguez of The Roster Agency.

Richard Hess

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Director
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Pronouns:
He/Him

Richard Hess made his New York directing debut at the Laurie Beechman Theatre directing AN EVENING OF (Mostly) TRUE SONGS (with Andrea Burns), a new incarnation of Don't Look Down, the music and lyrics of Adam Wagner, first seen in the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Favorite directing credits at the Human Race Theatre Co., where he is a resident artist, include On Golden Pond, Race, Red, Doubt, Proof, I Am My Own Wife and A Delicate Balance. Other credits include the Los Angeles staging of the one-woman show Besame Mucho, O.K. That's Enough (with Diana Maria Riva), and the smash hits The Pages of My Diary I'd Rather Not Read and The Catholic Girl's Guide to Losing Your Virginity, both of which enjoyed sold out runs at the Hudson Theatre in LA. For five years Hess was the artistic director of Hot Summer Nights in Cincinnati, where he directed Violet (with Ashley Brown), Hello, Dolly! (with Pamela Myers), Godspell (with Shoshana Bean and Leslie Kritzer) and the premiere of We Tell The Story: The Songs of Ahrens and Flaherty, in collaboration with Stephen Flaherty. He was Chair of the CCM Acting Department for 25 years at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). Favorite directing credits at CCM include ONCE, Middletown, Her Naked Skin, Pentecost, The Heidi Chronicles, Speech and Debate, The Crucible, The Laramie Project, Coram Boy, RENT, Bat Boy, You Can’t Take It With You, Anon(ymous), Brigadoon and Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. He studied with the internationally acclaimed director Anne Bogart and members of the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in New York and Los Angeles, and has taught Viewpoints Training in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Nairobi, Kenya, Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia, Beijing, China, and across the US. He is a Fulbright Scholar and taught acting and directing at Kenyatta University in Kenya.

Media

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2021 National Touring Cast

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Stanley Tucci Makes London Stage Directing Debut This Summer with SPRINGWOOD
Emily Wyrwa
December 18, 2025

Stanley Tucci alert! The iconic actor, author, and screen director will make his London stage directing debut with the world premier of Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Nelson’s new play Springwood. The play will run at Hampstead Theatre’s Mainstage from June 19 to July 25, 2026. 

Springwood was originally commissioned by Colin Callender and is produced at the Hampstead Theatre by arrangement with his company Playground. 

The play tells the story of the first ever visit of a British monarch to the United States in 1939 between King George VI and President Roosevelt. A weekend at a country house. The fate of nations hangs in the balance; King George VI’s single opportunity to convince President Roosevelt to support his country in impending war is seemingly dependent on whether he and his wife can navigate a public picnic with the decorum and dignity expected of royalty. Can the "special relationship" survive a menu of hot dogs and beer? 

“I am thrilled to be able to bring Richard Nelson’s poignant play to the stage. It is a nuanced, touching and very timely piece of writing,” director Tucci said in a statement. 

Nelson said in a statement that he had been working with Callender for years to find the right home for Springwood, and is excited to bring it to the intimate Hampstead Theatre.

Springwood runs at the Hampstead Theatre’s Mainstage in North West London from June 19 to July 25, 2026. For tickets and more information, visit here.

BEACHES Comes To Broadway Starring Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett
Emily Wyrwa
December 18, 2025

This Broadway opening is the “wind beneath our wings!” Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett will star in Beaches, A New Musical at the Majestic Theatre for a limited New York engagement to launch its multi-city National Tour. Previews begin March 27, with official opening set for April 22. The musical will run through Sept. 6.

Beaches, based on the New York Times bestseller that became a blockbuster film, tells the story of Cee Cee and Bertie, who meet as children and become fast friends. Their relationship is oil and water; as they transition from pen-pals to roommates and romantic rivals, their friendship perseveres through the most tragic trials. 

The new musical features a score by Grammy Award-winning legend Mike Stoller, lyrics by Iris Rainer Dart, and a book by Iris Rainer Dart & Thom Thomas. The musical was developed in collaboration with David Austin. It is co-directed by Lonny Price and Matt Cowart. Vosk will play Cee Cee and Barrett will play Bertie.

The musical will be choreographed by Jennifer Rias, with orchestrations by Tony Award winner Charlie Rosen, scenic design by James Noone, costume design by Tracy Christensen, lighting design by Tony Award winner Ken Billington, sound design by Tony Award winner Kai Harada, projection design by David Bengali, and wig, hair & make-up design by J. Jared Janas. 

Casting is by The TRC (Tara Rubin Casting) Company, Peter Van Dam, CSA, and Joseph Thalken serves as Music Supervisor. The Production Stage Manager is Thomas Recktenwald and Alchemy Production Group serves as General Manager.

Beaches will run at the Majestic Theatre on West 44th Street in New York City from March 27 to Sept. 6, 2026. Tickets go on sale in January. For tickets and more information, visit here.

Chloe Tucker Caine Is Taking New York By Storm
Kobi Kassal
December 18, 2025

Many folks who start their careers on the national tour of Mamma Mia! end up working all over Broadway. And then you have Chloe Tucker Caine who is selling multi-million dollar homes up and down that very street. 

Since pivoting to the world of luxury real estate, Chloe has become a breakout star of the hit Netflix series Owning Manhattan. Following Ryan Serhant’s team, season two just dropped and boy is it a great watch. 

I recently caught up with Chloe to discuss bringing her love of Broadway to this season, Dancing With The Stars, and of course Legally Blonde: The Search For Elle Woods. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length. 

Theatrely: So how's it going? Season Two is now out. 

It's going great. The show came out and I was terrified because you never know what's actually going to make it on air. And the response has been really incredible. It's really the first time I put myself out there when it comes to performing, especially in the real estate world of it all, so it was nerve racking, but the response has been great. I've been getting a lot of messages, especially about the audition scene and how it touched a lot of people and people really connected to it. So it's been a joy.

So I was doing a deep dive on you.

Oh boy.

And I was reading how you went to the Boston Conservatory…

I was actually only there for four months because I went and then a lot of people don't know this, but I was on that show about becoming the next Elle Woods on MTV.

Oh trust me, we know. Let’s jump into that. 

Yeah. So I literally went to an open call for that TV show with all my friends from Boston and they were like, "okay, you made the top 10. You're going to be moving into this house." And I was like, great, I'm leaving school to be a big Broadway star, like see you never. And then got kicked off on the very first episode, scene one beat one. I was like, "I can't go back to school, this is horrifying!" So I went to LA, I went home.

How did that show prepare you for reality TV now? 

God, that's a good question. I mean, that show, I was so young and it was such a gut punch and I literally became a recluse in LA. I couldn't leave, I couldn't leave the house, I couldn't be seen. That show kind of changed the course of my life because after being in LA, because I left school, I was doing everything but performing for a beat. And then I said, "wait a minute, what are you doing? You know, you want to perform, go perform." So I was like, "I'm going to go to an open call." The first open call I went to was for Sophie in Mamma Mia! and then booked the role and was off for two years on tour.

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Photos: Joan Marcus

Have you seen it since it's been back on Broadway. 

I'm actually going on Saturday. We're taking my little cousin and I'm so excited.

Talk to me about that touring experience and going out on the road. And also, we have to know, who was your Donna?

Kaye Tuckerman. She's incredible. The whole experience was incredible. I learned so much about myself. And also, you know, that was my college experience. It was on the road. It was the years I should have been in school, but I really got a lot of hands on training. It also, I will say, messed me up a bit mentally because I booked it so fast. So when I got to New York, I was like, "hello, I'm here. Where's the parade? Where are the roles?" It definitely took me a beat to really understand how theatre works in New York.

So you finished the tour and you moved straight to New York…

You know, it's funny: I didn't realize it at the time, but I was actually doing really well. I had a huge agent and I was always getting callbacks. I was in the room. I was also in the conversations. But I think because I was so young and I didn't really understand the business of the business, to me I was like, "well I'm not making it here. I'm not good enough." And so I really got in my own head. And I kind of have this joke with my mom that the truth is no one told me I wasn't good enough but me. I was really hard on myself. I really, really struggled mentally with the industry. And I hate to say it, but I essentially ended up just giving up on myself and it's sad when I really think about that little girl in her twenties who thought she couldn't do it, but really she was doing great. Listen, it led me to here and now I'm in real estate and now we're back to the performing of it all. But you know, life, what can I tell you?

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Photo: Netflix 2025

So was there always that passion for real estate there?

I had no passion for real estate. It was never on my bingo card. I've had people in the past be like, you should go into real estate, and I'm like, that's embarrassing. Absolutely not, over my dead body. But in between theatre gigs, I was bartending, and I was just such a bad bartender, I kept getting fired. So then I was like, "okay, how can I make money?" So I started Airbnb-ing my apartment in Midtown in Hell's Kitchen. And I was doing great, like I was booked and busy. I was running this little business and then it started getting really illegal in New York. And my landlord was like, "I see what you're doing, you better pack it up." My boyfriend, my now husband, at the time was like "why don't you just go get your real estate license? It's like basically what you've been doing, but legal." And I was like I guess that's a good idea. I mean, why not? It's a two week course. So I got my license and I was like, wait, I'm really good at this. Like, I could kill this. Like, screw theater, screw Broadway. I'm going to be the biggest real estate star you've ever seen. I think I did like 150 rentals in my first year. And from there, you know, I always have had this itch to perform and be on camera. And so I started stalking Ryan Serhan, as you do, as after watching Million Dollar Listing. And I said to myself, I could do that. So I started copying the way he made his YouTube videos and I kind of told myself, when I get to 10 videos, I'm going to reach out to Ryan Serhan and I'm gonna go work for him. But I actually got to six videos and someone from his office called me and that's how it all happened.

Tell me about starting the show last season, what was going through your head at the time. 

I was one of the first people to join Ryan's new company, and even from the very beginning, there was always this kind of rumbling that he wanted to do his own real estate show. I can't remember how it happened, but I was always in the mix for this. I always kind of knew that this is something we were going to do and that I was going to be a part of it. Maybe it was just me being delusional, being like, "I'm going to be on his show." But in my memory, I was always in the mix. But eventually, they had a big casting team come in and we all had to do a casting audition and then it ended up happening. I was very excited. I always was like, put a camera on me. I'm ready.

I love it. So then after season one aired and it came out, how would you say your life changed?

I think I was just definitely a lot more known. I don't know that anything changed drastically, but it definitely gave me a bigger platform to go out and start creating stuff, which then did lead to, you know, the musical series I started, Chloe in Manhattan, the musicals series. But it definitely just opened up the possibilities of what I could do.

Why was creating this series so important to you?

I was focusing on real estate, but secretly was still singing, dancing and acting. I was renting rehearsal spaces at Ripley-Grier and singing in between listing appointments, so it was always on my heart and my conscious, but it was not something I was putting out into the world and out of the blue. In the same week I had Michael McCrary, who I went to BoCo with, reached out to me, who is now a huge director choreographer. He said, "hey, I've really been thinking about you. I really think you need to start creating stuff again. What should we make?" Literally within three days, I had Michael Farrar reach out, who was my musical director on an Off-Broadway show I did called Death of the Moon. It was a one woman show. And he kind of had the same sentiment of you've been so on my mind. Why aren't you singing? Why aren't your performing? Like, let's figure out what you wanna do. And I was like, this is Kismet. Not only is it both of them reaching out to me on the same week, they're both Michael. I was, like, the world is trying to tell me to do something. I always knew I wanted to make a version of The Wizard and I, but turned it into Ryan Serhant and I would sing it to myself, walking into the office in SoHo. And I know what I wanna make. And they just happened to be the only two people in the universe that I think could take exactly what it was in my brain and turn it into a reality.

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Photo: Netflix 2025

So now we are at Season Two. Talk to me about what you wanted with this season. Just seeing you in Open Jar Studios was everything…

I really went into season two, not really sure where my storyline was going to go, but I knew that I was coming into it as a new mom. And for me, it was such a different version of myself, especially than the one you saw on season one, that I wanted to show the world what it had been like for me trying to balance both motherhood and real estate. And it really switched something in me because I thought you only had to be one thing. I thought, going back to theatre, I can't do theatre, I can only do real estate. Being a mom really showed me that you can be a multi-dimensional human. You can be more than one thing and I just wanted to, I didn't know that we were gonna go down this path of theatre, but I just knew that I wanted to say yes to everything and go into this season a lot more open that I may have been last season.

What have you been seeing lately around town that you've been loving?

I love Death Becomes Her. I thought it was one of the funniest things I've seen in like forever. Dying to see Chess. That is the next on our list of things to see. And then Mamma Mia, which I'm so excited to see.

If you could jump into any show on Broadway right now, what do you want to do?

Ooh, I have two. I would love to do Chicago, but I want to do Velma. I want do a Velma stunt cast, and I'd love to do a Satine stunt cast in Moulin Rouge. Like, let me sing Firework, please, I'm ready.

I see you love Dancing With The Stars. I think let's start the campaign now. Who do you want your pro to be?

Obviously Val. I mean, I just think he's like such a winning ticket. He's so good. I'm ready. Sign me up. I have my dancing shoes ready.

If Ryan was going to be in a Broadway show, what do you think, where should he be?

I've already thought about this a million times and it is so clear to me. It’s Billy Flynn. He needs to play that role like he would be phenomenal.

You are at a really exciting moment in your career right now. When you think back in twenty, thirty years to now, what do you want to remember?

I want to remember that I didn't give up on myself like I got out of my own way finally, Chloe got out of her own way. I think I feel like that's really been my theme up to this point is, like I said before, the only person that was telling me I wasn't good enough was me. I've always found a way to psych myself out of things that I don't think I deserve. And now that I have this kid, I have this daughter, I don't ever want her to look at her mom and say, "oh, God, my mom had so much talent. She had so much potential, but she couldn't get out of her own damn way." So I'm in my era of that.

I recently saw Brittany Bateman from Real Housewives 54 Below.

How was it?

It was so iconic. I couldn't believe what I was watching. But when are you gonna come do a cabaret here in New York?

You know, you're not the first person to ask me that, so we are working on it. I will be doing a solo show, dates, TBD, but it's coming.

Theatrely News
EXCLUSIVE: Watch A Clip From THEATER CAMP Starring Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, and Molly Gordon
Theatrely News
READ: An Excerpt From Sean Hayes Debut YA Novel TIME OUT
Theatrely News
"Reframing the COVID-19 Pandemic Through a Stage Manager’s Eyes"
EXCLUSIVE: Watch A Clip From THEATER CAMP Starring Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, and Molly Gordon
By: Maia Penzer
14 July 2023

Finally, summer has arrived, which can only mean one thing: it's time for camp! Theater Camp, that is. Theatrely has a sneak peak at the new film which hits select theaters today. 

The new original comedy starring Tony Award winner Ben Platt and Molly Gordon we guarantee will have you laughing non-stop. The AdirondACTS, a run-down theater camp in upstate New York, is attended by theater-loving children who must work hard to keep their beloved theater camp afloat after the founder, Joan, falls into a coma. 

The film stars Ben Platt and Molly Gordon as Amos Klobuchar and Rebecca-Diane, respectively, as well as Noah Galvin as Glenn Wintrop, Jimmy Tatro as Troy Rubinsky, Patti Harrison as Caroline Krauss, Nathan Lee Graham as Clive DeWitt, Ayo Edebiri as Janet Walch, Owen Thiele as Gigi Charbonier, Caroline Aaron as Rita Cohen, Amy Sedaris as Joan Rubinsky, and Alan Kim as Alan Park. 

Theater Camp was directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman and written by Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman & Ben Platt. Music is by James McAlister and Mark Sonnenblick. On January 21, 2023, Theater Camp had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

You can purchase tickets to the new film from our friends at Hollywood.com here.

READ: An Excerpt From Sean Hayes Debut YA Novel TIME OUT
By: Kobi Kassal
29 May 2023

Actor Sean Hayes is what we in the biz call booked and blessed. On top of his Tony-nominated performance as Oscar Levant in Good Night, Oscar, Hayes has partnered with Todd Milliner and Carlyn Greenwald for the release of their new YA novel Time Out

Heralded by many as Heartstopper meets Friday Night Lights, Time Out follows hometown basketball hero Barclay Elliot who decides to use a pep rally to come out to his school. When the response is not what he had hoped and the hostility continually growing, he turns to his best friend Amy who brings him to her voting rights group at school. There he finds Christopher and… you will just have to grab a copy and find out what happens next. Luckily for you, Time Out hits shelves on May 30 and to hold you over until then we have a special except from the book just for Theatrely:

The good thing about not being on the team the past two weeks has been that I’ve had time to start picking up shifts again at Beau’s diner and save up a little for college now that my scholarship dreams are over.

     The bad part is it’s the perfect place to see how my actions at the pep rally have rotted the townspeople’s brains too.

     During Amy’s very intense musical theater phase in middle school, her parents took her to New York City. And of course she came back home buzzing about Broadway and how beautiful the piss smell was and everything artsy people say about New York. But she also vividly described some diner she waited three hours to get into where the waitstaff would all perform songs for the customers as a way to practice for auditions. The regulars would have favorite staff members and stan them the way Amy stans all her emo musicians.

     Working at Beau’s used to feel kind of like that, like I was part of a performance team I didn’t know I signed up for. The job started off pretty basic over the summer—I wanted to save up for basketball supplies, and Amy worked there and said it was boring ever since her e-girl coworker friend graduated. But I couldn’t get through a single lunch rush table without someone calling me over and wanting the inside scoop on the Wildcats and how we were preparing for the home opener, wanting me to sign an article in the paper or take a photo. Every friendly face just made the resolve grow inside me. People love and support the Wildcats; they would do the same for me.

     Yeah, right.

     Now just like school, customers have been glaring at me, making comments about letting everyone down, about being selfish, about my actions being “unfortunate,” and the tips have been essentially nonexistent. The Wildcats have been obliterated in half their games since I quit, carrying a 2–3 record when last year we were 5–0, and the comments make my feet feel like lead weights I have to drag through every shift.

     Today is no different. It’s Thursday, the usual dinner rush at Beau’s, and I try to stay focused on the stress of balancing seven milkshakes on one platter. A group of regulars, some construction workers, keep loudly wondering why I won’t come back to the team while I refuse proper eye contact.

     One of the guys looks up at me as I drop the bill off. “So, what’s the deal? Does being queer keep ya from physically being able to play?”

     They all snicker as they pull out crumpled bills. I stuff my hands into my pockets, holding my tongue.

     When they leave, I hold my breath as I take their bill.

     Sure enough, no tip.

     “What the fuck?” I mutter under my breath.

     “Language,” Amy says as she glides past me, imitating the way Richard says it to her every shift, and adds, “even though they are dicks.” At least Amy’s been ranting about it every free chance she gets. It was one thing when the student body was being shitty about me leaving the team, but the town being like this is even more infuriating. She doesn’t understand how these fully grown adults can really care that much about high school basketball and thinks they need a new fucking hobby. I finally agree with her.

     [She’s wearing red lipstick to go with her raccoon-adjacent eyeliner as she rushes off to prepare milkshakes for a pack of middle schoolers. I catch her mid–death glare as all three of the kids rotate in their chairs, making the old things squeal. My anger fades a bit as I can’t help but chuckle; Amy’s pissed-off reaction to Richard telling her to smile more was said raccoon makeup, and her tolerance for buffoonery has been at a negative five to start and declining fast.

     I rest my arms on the counter and try not to look as exhausted as I feel.

     “Excuse me!” an old lady screeches, making me jump.

     Amy covers up a laugh as I head to the old lady and her husband’s table. They’ve got finished plates, full waters. Not sure what the problem is. Or I do, which is worse.

     “Yes?” I say trying to suppress my annoyance.

     “Could you be bothered to serve us?”

     Only five more hours on shift. I have a break in three minutes. I’ll be with Devin at Georgia Tech tomorrow. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I say, so careful to keep my words even, but I can feel my hands balling into fists. “What would you—?”

     And suddenly Amy swoops in, dropping two mugs of coffee down. “Sorry about that, you two,” she says, her voice extra high. “The machine was conking out on us, but it’s fine now.”

     Once the coffee is down, she hooks onto a chunk of my shirt, steering us back to the bar.

     “Thanks,” I mutter, embarrassed to have forgotten something so basic. Again.

     “Just keep it together, man,” she says. “Maybe you’d be better off with that creepy night shift where all the truckers and serial killers come in.”

     Honestly, at least the serial killers wouldn’t care about my jump shot.

     It’s a few minutes before my break, but clearly I need it. “I’ll be in the back room.”

     Right before I can head that way though, someone straight-up bursts into the diner and rushes over to me at the bar. It’s a middle-aged dad type, sunburned skin, beer belly, and stained T-shirt.

     “Pickup order?” I ask.

     “You should be ashamed,” he sneers at me. He has a really strong Southern accent, but it’s not Georgian. “Think you’re so high and mighty, that nothing’ll ever affect you? My kid’ll never go to college because of you and your lifestyle. Fuck you, Barclay Ell—”

     And before this man can finish cursing my name, Pat of all people runs in, wide-eyed in humiliation. “Jesus, Dad, please don’t—”

      I pin my gaze on him, remembering how he cowered on the bench as Ostrowski went off, how he didn’t even try to approach me. “Don’t even bother,” I snap.

     I shove a to-go bag into his dad’s arms, relieved it’s prepaid, and storm off to the break room.]

     Amy finds me head in my arms a minute or two later. I look up, rubbing my eyes. “Please spare me the pity.”

     She snorts and hands me a milkshake. Mint chocolate chip. “Wouldn’t dare.” She takes a seat and rolls her shoulders and neck, cracks sounding through the tiny room. “Do you want a distraction or a shoulder to cry on?”

For more information, and to purchase your copy of Time Out, click here.

Reframing the COVID-19 Pandemic Through a Stage Manager’s Eyes
By: Kaitlyn Riggio
5 July 2022

When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national emergency in the United States in March 2020, Broadway veteran stage manager Richard Hester watched the nation’s anxiety unfold on social media.

“No one knew what the virus was going to do,” Hester said. Some people were “losing their minds in abject terror, and then there were some people who were completely denying the whole thing.”

For Hester, the reaction at times felt like something out of a movie. “It was like the Black Plague,” he said. “Some people thought it was going to be like that Monty Python sketch: ‘bring out your dead, bring out your dead.’”

While Hester was also unsure about how the virus would unfold, he felt that his “job as a stage manager is to naturally defuse drama.” Hester brought this approach off the stage and onto social media in the wake of the pandemic.

“I just sort of synthesized everything that was happening into what I thought was a manageable bite, so people could get it,” Hester said. This became a daily exercise for a year. Over two years after the beginning of the pandemic, Hester’s accounts are compiled in the book, Hold Please: Stage Managing A Pandemic. Released earlier this year, the book documents the events of the past two years, filtering national events and day-to-day occurrences through a stage manager’s eyes and storytelling.

When Hester started this project, he had no intention of writing a book. He was originally writing every day because there was nothing else to do. “I am somebody who needs a job or needs a structure,” Hester said.

Surprised to find that people began expecting his daily posts, he began publishing his daily writing to his followers through a Substack newsletter. As his following grew, Hester had to get used to writing for an audience. “I started second guessing myself a lot of the time,” Hester said. “It just sort of put a weird pressure on it.”

Hester said he got especially nervous before publishing posts in which he wrote about more personal topics. For example, some of his posts focused on his experiences growing up in South Africa while others centered on potentially divisive topics, such as the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Despite some of this discomfort, Hester’s more personal posts were often the ones that got the most response. The experience offered him a writing lesson. “I stopped worrying about the audience and just wrote what I wanted to write about,” Hester said. “All of that pressure that I think as artists we put on ourselves, I got used to it.”

One of Hester’s favorite anecdotes featured in the book centers on a woman who dances in Washington Square Park on a canvas, rain or shine. He said he was “mesmerized by her,” which inspired him to write about her. “It was literally snowing and she was barefoot on her canvas dancing, and that seems to me just a spectacularly beautiful metaphor for everything that we all try and do, and she was living that to the fullest.”

During the creation of Hold Please, Hester got the unique opportunity to reflect in-depth on the first year of the pandemic by looking back at his accounts. He realized that post people would not remember the details of the lockdown; people would “remember it as a gap in their lives, but they weren’t going to remember it beat by beat.”

“Reliving each of those moments made me realize just how full a year it was, even though none of us were doing anything outside,” he adds. “We were all on our couches.” Readers will use the book as a way to relive moments of the pandemic’s first year “without having to wallow in the misery of it,” he hopes.

“I talk about the misery of it, but that’s not the focus of what I wrote... it was about hope and moving forward,” Hester said. “In these times when everything is so difficult, we will figure out a way to get through and we will move forward.”

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