by Andy Mientus
“Starting tonight, all the way through closing, you’ll be the stage manager,” Timothy said. “Rehearsals, tech, opening night. It will require every skill in the Backstager arsenal. Think you’re up to it?”
Hunter looked around the room at his friends, who met him with encouraging smiles and nods. He knew that with them, he could do anything.
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
“Good, because we have to do some much-needed college visits! Graduation will be here any minute,” Jamie said.
“Well, then, I’d better get to it!” Hunter said, springing up with newfound energy. “Backstagers, we ready to nail this rehearsal?”
Everyone cheered in agreement.
“Then let’s move out!” Hunter said, and they started up the stairs.
Then there was an ominous knock at the Unsafe door.
Everyone stopped cold.
Eyes met eyes. Breathing slowed to a hush. Hunter put out a hand, signaling his team to stay put as he crept cautiously toward the door. He picked up a flashlight in case he was met with another shadowy specter on the other side. He took a deep breath. He opened the door.
A tall figure stood in shadow just beyond the threshold. It stepped into the light: a tall, very gray, very solemn-looking man of about fifty in plain jeans and a T-shirt. He carried a notebook in his hand and had a serious expression on his face.
“Mr. Rample!” Sasha cried as he bounded for the man and latched on to his leg, an affectionate hug. The man’s stern expression softened a bit.
“Hi, Sasha,” he said. “Hi, boys. Sounds like I missed some excitement.”
It was the first time they had seen their old faculty advisor since he was fired over their disappearance during Lease, and there was so much to catch up on. Rample had gotten a job crewing at a professional regional theater and had traversed their backstage to get to the Genesius backstage and to the Club Room. So he would never be too far away in case they ran into any serious trouble again. Timothy had called him to fill him in about the business with the Arch Ghost, and Rample had decided he needed to come see them right away.
“There was a legend,” he explained, “passed down from Backstager to Backstager from long before my time at Genesius. It told of a set of magic items that were the very tools that created theater everywhere. The tools that built the Arch Theater itself. I thought it was bogus until I stumbled upon one myself.”
He tossed the notebook in his hands to Jory, who recognized it immediately. When they had been trapped in the backstage during Lease, Jory discovered this very notebook. Whatever he drew in it instantly became real. Jory had used it to draw an escape path, and once safely outside, he learned that it had belonged to Rample when he was a student at Genesius.
“That notebook caused such trouble when I was a student, I threw it off the Patchwork Catwalk and decided to never tell a soul about it. But then Jory found it anyway. Like it wanted to be found. And now, it seems another artifact, the Ghost Light, has appeared to you all.”
“What do you think it means?” Aziz asked.
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Rample replied. “But given the speed at which you have been discovering them after all this time hidden, it seems as if the backstage is presenting the Genesius Backstagers with these items.”
He stood and peered at the Unsafe door.
“The Designer’s Notebook. The Ghost Light. The God Mic. The Prop Box. The Carpenter’s Belt. The Show Bible. The Master Switch. These are the items I was told about as a kid. I have to think the backstage chose you all to find them for a reason. I think you all ought to go in search of what that reason is.”
Jory, Hunter, Beckett, Aziz, Sasha, Timothy, Jamie, and Reo looked at one another. After all they had been through, it sounded like an incredible challenge.
It also sounded like an incredible adventure.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Maggie Lehrman, Andrew Smith, and everyone at Abrams Books for leading me to the incredible world of the Backstagers, and James Tynion IV, Rian Sygh, and everyone at BOOM! Comics for their generosity in letting me play in that world.
ANDY MIENTUS is an actor, singer, and songwriter who is best known for his roles in Spring Awakening, Wicked, Les Misérables, Smash, and The Flash. He lives in New York City.
RIAN SYGH is a comic artist and cocreator of the award-winning Backstagers comics. He lives in Glendale, California.
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