All The World May Be a Stage, But We Can't All Be the Best of Actors

I was literally bouncing in my seat. I was Mrs. Hoffman's favorite student, so I had already been informed we were doing Shakespeare in pairs today. It was my second year in Theatre and Performance. I loved the class, so I took it twice. I was excited. Shakespeare had been my favorite chapter last year. Sadly, last year Mrs. Hoffman was injured badly right before this project and we ended up doing a bunch of written work since the substitute couldn't grade acting. By the time she got back, we were far past Shakespeare, and all we got to do was a Shakespearean monologue for kicks. I sighed and looked around the room for potential partners. When my eyes hit Jenna Coalman, I glared, hoping she ended up with the worst partner in the whole class. Jenna was the biggest show off and I hated when Mrs. Hoffman gave her credit for doing something that wasn’t even that great. As mean as it was, I wanted her to fail this project, miserably.

"Okay, class!" Mrs. Hoffman said, clasping her hands together, "For the next few weeks you're in for a treat." Her loud voice echoed throughout the auditorium. The only lighting was the stage lights, which better assured people focused on her during class.

Some people mumbled, but us students that Mrs. Hoffman favored just smirked to ourselves. I did, at least. Jenna and William were chattering excitedly about the Shakespeare project. Other kids started picking up on what we were going to do and began to groan.

"I am going to split you up into pairs and you're going to be doing Shakespeare! There are more boys than girls in here, but don't worry. I won't make any same sex pairs do real lovey-dovey scenes," Mrs. Hoffman reassured.

A hand was raised.

She called on the freshman girl named Sunni. The freshman asked, "Do we get to choose our partners?"

Mrs. Hoffman laughed, "That definitely doesn't work out. I will be choosing your partners by popsicle stick."

Even I groaned at that. The popsicle sticks were the worst.

She hopped offstage and got her blue cup full of blue popsicle sticks and her pink cup full of pink popsicle sticks. There were only a few less pink than blue.

She drew a blue first, and then a pink, "Darin and Erica."

The blonde senior sighed and walked over to sit next to her partner. She didn't seem very upset, but she didn't seem very happy either. Darin, a freshman, on the other hand, looked ecstatic.

"Todd and Jenna."

I groaned as Todd made his way to sit next to Jenna. My eyes darted around the room, looking for a partner that could act better than Todd. While I was searching frantically, looking for a girl that wasn't going to ruin our scene, Mrs. Hoffman announced she was out of pink sticks. There were three blue left.

She drew one, "Davis, you will be teaming up with a group that will volunteer to do a group of three."

Immediately, Corey raised her hand. Her partner looked at her confused and raised his hand as well.

"You'll be with Corey and Tylar."

Davis made his way over to create their threesome and I shot my hand in the air, "Why can't we do three person scenes for all the boys?"

"There's only one three person scene, Matt. I'm sorry."

I huffed and she looked at the last two sticks, "Matt, you will be with James."

My eyes widened as I looked over at James. He looked at me with a scowl and dragged his feet across the carpeted floor to sit next to me. He sat in the seat and didn't make eye contact. He hated me. I was aware of this, but we had to work together. Couldn't he put that behind us only for a few weeks?

"I will be handing you your scripts in a few moments," Mrs. Hoffman said, "so that will give you some time to get to know your partner if you don't already."

He looked at my shirt and back up at my face. Though I couldn't see his eyes behind his dark hair, I could tell he was glaring.

"So...I'm Matt, if you didn't know," I started, trying to be friendly.

He said nothing, only glared.

"Alright then," I said, clearing my throat, "if you want, I can take the harder part so you don't have to do a lot."

He still said nothing, but he balled his hands into fists. I blinked a little and looked back up to Mrs. Hoffman with pleading eyes. She ignored me and began handing out the scripts. Jenna beamed as she and Todd recieved Romeo and Juliet, which she apparentally knew by heart.

Mrs. Hoffman smiled and plopped our scripts in my lap. I looked at it and sighed, "We have an extremely short scene. I'll be Borachio. You'll be Don John."

"Whatever," he mumbled, looking away. I held out his script and he simply ignored me. I set it in his lap and he turned to glare at me.

"You know this would be easier if we worked as a team a little," I pressed, looking over my part.

He rolled his eyes and stuffed the script into his bag, crumpling it up something terrible. I gasped as he swung his bag over his shoulder and sat elsewhere in the auditorium. I almost followed, but then the bell went off.

"What part did you get?" asked Jenna as we opened our lockers, which were next to one another.

"I'm Borachio from Much Ado About Nothing," I said, "I'm kind of mad I got such a short scene. It's James's fault. We would've gotten a far longer scene if I wouldn't have been paired with him."

"She gave Todd and I Romeo and Juliet," she said, with a dramatic batting of eyelashes, "and of course, I'm Juliet. I'm excited. I memorized that whole play when I was a freshman. It's such a great play. I'm lucky to have it. Sucks that you got what you got."

I flipped my hair out of my eyes and she skipped off with her things after slamming her locker shut. I rolled my eyes and gathered my Chemistry book and notebook before scowling to myself. It was typical Jenna Coalman to try and steal my thunder. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had gotten a better role, but Mrs. Hoffman just had to team me with James Borden and give us Much Ado About Nothing. Out of everyone in the class, I ended up with the only person who never actually made a decent attempt at acting.

I slammed my locker shut and started towards Room 207 in a huff. I dropped my books on my desk next to Deidre Hathborn and sighed. I sat myself in my seat, a pout set upon my lips. Jenna came into class, chatting amongst her friends from Fifth Hour Drama. Though I was interested in theatre, I never really got along with all of the thespians. They were sort of my competition, and it took a lot of effort to get along with Jenna. It would have been different if she were my partner. We would have made an excellent Romeo and Juliet, but Mrs. Hoffman had to pull sticks.

The bell rang and Jenna and the Fifth Hour Drama students' giggles faded. Mr. Dill waddled into class and stood in the front to check attendance.

"Abt, Haley," he said in his deep, choppy voice.

Haley Abt, a Fifth Hour Drama girl, raised her hand with a giggle. Jenna smiled and began to giggle with her.

"Artez, Peter."

Peter Artez, the school's biggest geek, raised his hand as he made a face. He adjusted his glasses and shook his head, as though trying to get his vision back in order.

"Borden, James."

James wasn't anywhere to be found. This didn't surprise me at all. He skipped class almost daily, as though it were optional to be here. What did surprise me was that he walked in the door before Mr. Dill had the chance to mark him absent. His ice blue eyes darted around the classroom as he seated himself in the back.

Mr. Dill looked up and almost argued, but remembered it was useless. After the first two weeks of school of telling James he wasn't sitting in his assigned seat, he figured he'd save himself the headache and stop arguing. James did not care about following rules.

James was sitting in the seat behind me, and I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my skull. Mr. Dill continued attendance, and as "Cook, Matt" was called, I raised my hand. I turned back around to glare at James.

"You need to try and make an effort to get along with me, because this partnership won't work if you can't do that."

He rolled his eyes and put earbuds in his ears. I cringed as I heard his music start, because it had to hurt. The volume level didn't seem to phase him and I turned back around, rolling my own eyes.

I felt his eyes again and I turned around, "Please stare elsewhere!"

He glared, but did not remove his eyes. I felt a little uncomfortable, and a rose coloration found its way to my cheeks. I thought he would smirk at me or something, but he kept glaring. I raised my hand, in hope for Mr. Dill to allow me to move, but he kept his back turned and continued writing notes down on the board.

I tried to ignore James by looking over my lines for Much Ado About Nothing. I succeeded, but then Jenna caught my attention. She was going over Romeo and Juliet, her eyes running over the script, wildly. I could tell by the look on her face that she really did know all of it, and as lengthy as it was, it would be no problem for her.

I turned around, hateful expression etched into my face and told James, "I don't care if you hate me. We are going to make Jenna Coalman run away crying at the end of our performance whether you like it or not."

He just rolled his eyes at me and I turned around with a sigh. This was going to be a long couple of weeks.