Chapter Text
April 2024
Regulus
Well, it was nice while it lasted.
When Regulus was first getting ready to move to New York City after graduation, it seemed like everyone in his life doubted his ability to thrive in the metropolis for one reason or another. His high school acting teacher and director thought he lacked the “it factor” to make it in the industry, whatever that meant. His parents worried about him graduating with musical theatre and theatre education degrees and being strapped for cash, which was a little insulting, given that they are professionals in the industry themselves. And his twin, ray of sunshine that he is, literally placed a bet that he’d be back home in Connecticut within a year of graduation. At the time, Regulus resented them for their lack of faith in him.
Today, he swallowed the lump in his throat, silently cursing them all as he realized that they had been right.
It wasn’t that he’d had no success in the theatre industry since he moved to New York, but when he graduated from a top theatre program, he imagined he’d have booked something major within a few months. A year out from graduation, Regulus felt like he had barely used his coveted BFA. Sure, he’d performed in a few cabarets, done a couple student films, and he even had a regular gig as a request singer two nights a week at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen. It was hard, though, to watch all of his friends leaving for National Tours, booking Broadway shows, and landing insane performing jobs on cruise ships while he’s stuck recording self-tapes in his cramped Morningside Heights apartment and slinging mimosas and plates of eggs benedict during the brunch rush at Jack’s Wife Freda in the West Village. He had long felt like something bigger was on the horizon for him, but here he was, being called home to Connecticut before he even had a chance to see what it was.
You would think the fact that Regulus’ parents own and operate a first-rate regional theatre in New England would open doors for him and make it easier to break into the industry as an actor, but you’d be sorely mistaken. Walburga and Orion Black were not in the business of giving their sons a leg up as performers by casting them in their shows, that’s for sure. In fact, the two of them would probably proudly brag that nepotism wasn’t even in their vocabulary, which is what made the present circumstances facing Reg so strange.
Black Star Stages, situated in the foothills of the picturesque Berkshires, is a Tony Award-winning regional theatre that boasts a mainstage theatre with 500 seats, a quaint black box theatre, and a state-of-the-art children’s theatre program. For years, the children’s program had been run by Filius Flitwick, a tiny but powerful and highly revered director and teacher. However, Flitwick landed the role of a lifetime in the National Tour of Wicked, leaving the Director of Children’s Programming role wide open. Equal parts concerned about their son’s career prospects as a performer and cautiously optimistic about his future as a theatre educator, Walburga and Orion—in a shock twist—took a chance on Regulus and offered him the job.
So, it had somehow come to pass that Regulus Black, the somewhat reluctant heir to the Black Star Stages throne, was about to set foot back in the theatre that raised him, in many ways. He wasn’t seasoned, he wasn’t qualified, dammit—he wasn’t even
packed
… but he was ready to see where this could take him.
April 2024
James
His mother could barely get the words out at this point.
“I’m so sorry, darling. I just can’t manage it all on my own anymore with him so sick. I didn’t know he’d start fading so fast,” she choked.
“Don’t apologize. I’m happy to come home and help in any way I can. Well, not happy, that’s not the word, but— well, I— you know what I mean.” He gulped, swallowing down his selfish feelings of disappointment, hoping his mum can’t hear them through the tinny speaker on the other end of the receiver.
Selfish little shithead. Your father is dying by the minute, and you’re pissed you have to move home to help with him? You’re beyond help.
“I know, Jamie. You’ve always been the selfless type,” he could hear his mother’s soft smile through her watered-down London accent, “Good luck with the move, and let me know if I can do anything for you to soften the blow.”
“Sure, mum. I will.”
James hung up the phone, reeling from the knowledge that his father’s dementia is advancing and the white hot reality that he has to leave everything he’s come to know behind. He’s fallen in love with Montreal, and he certainly isn’t ready to leave it and go back to buttoned-up Connecticut.
God, leaving Montreal—he never thought he’d see the day. He knew he’d have to leave eventually; his French was rudimentary at best, even after five years in Montreal, and the city wasn’t exactly keen on welcoming Anglophone twentysomethings as permanent residents after their student or work visas expired. Still, he never imagined he’d be packing up this apartment—his first place of his own—just a year after moving in. This moody, marvelous city that echoes Leonard Cohen and drips maple syrup from its gothic architecture to its cobblestone streets… he can’t believe he’s called this city his for the last five years. He’s held it in his hands like something precious, but it’s slipping through his fingers now, one memory boxed up at a time.
James absentmindedly stacked his collection of books into a couple of massive cardboard boxes. There had to be hundreds here, accumulated over the years from his favorite bookstores—Drawn & Quarterly, The Word, and L'Euguélionne. On the top of his last stacks sat a few favorites, mocking him, from his time at McGill. Beautiful Losers, of course, by Leonard Cohen, a handful of Beat poetry collections—James was in the midst of a master’s thesis on Beat literature—and a tattered old libretto. Spring Awakening. He’d loved the show for years. Transgressive as it was beautiful, the piece held memories for James. It was the first and last show he’d ever been in. He picked up the libretto, held it in his hands. He rubbed a calloused thumb over the fading cover. He flipped through the pages, a soft smiling tugging at his lips as he saw his old chicken scratch blocking notes. A wound opened—something raw and tender that sat just below the surface. Suddenly, bile rose in his throat. He couldn’t stop the memories as they flooded back to him—it had been years, but something in him was ripped open, bleeding just the same. Red hot, he slammed the libretto back into the box and urgently taped it shut.
Now is not the time to remember. There’s too much to be done.