Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been a slow set of days over at Fancy a Change and Marlin was glad to finally shut up shop for the evening. It wasn’t that he disliked his job – in fact quite the contrary – however this close after the Christmas break, there just weren’t that many people out there looking for costumes.

Today at least there’d been a slight break in the monotony that an empty store brought when a family had come in looking for a costume for their nine year old, but the previous days had been completely customer-less to the point where he’d ended up closing shop early.

Tonight was one of the nights that the Take a Bow theatre group met over at the Firebird – in fact the first such meeting of the group since Christmas. It had been decided before Christmas that their next production was going to be a musical – an experimental piece that was kind of like Little Red Riding Hood meet Cinderella that they’d decided to call Into the Woods.

Today they were doing sign-ups and although Marlin had no intention for trying to audition for a stage part, he was looking forward to watching those who were audition. After making sure that everything was properly locked up he headed over in the direction of the Firebird. It was about a ten minute or so walk and one that Marlin generally made three evenings a week.

It didn’t take long for Marlin to reach the pretty red-brick building. The Firebird was so named for the metal statue of a firebird that stood near to the glass doors at the entrance and was a community centre. During the day there was a crèche for parents to leave their children and a café where the coffee wasn’t half bad. There was a jazz café on Tuesday afternoons and of course three evenings a night the Take a Bow theatre group met in the hall towards the back.

Although their productions (usually two, but occasionally three a year) were held at a local theatre, having the meetings at the Firebird was cheaper than having to pay the rates at the theatre.

Reaching the entrance to the Firebird at the same time as a woman with pretty curly short red hair, Marlin held one of the two glass doors open for her with a friendly “After you.”

“You’re welcome.” Entering in after the woman Marlin started to walk down the corridor towards the hall, but hadn’t taken more than a few steps before being stopped by the woman’s voice.

Turning he gave her a friendly nod “Do you mean the auditions for Into the Woods? If so then sure – the Take a Bow group are running them in the hall by the back” he smiled before adding “I’m actually heading that way myself.”

Marlin shook his head, looking faintly embarrassed “Actually no you’re right – it’s just sign-ups tonight. The auditions are in a few weeks.” He shook the offered hand “Nice to meet you Lily, I’m Marlin, Marlin Joanson.”

He moderated his pace to make it easy to keep up to as he started walking the corridor, absently glancing at a few noticeboards. “Out of curiosity what are you planning to sign-up for?”

Marlin shook his head “No I’m pretty much here to watch tonight” he smiled as he went on to add “I guess you could say I’m already signed up – not for a stage part, but I sort out the costumes” the smile turned into an amused grin “And I act as an extra pair of hands for the guys who do the scenery.”

Marlin enjoyed helping the guys out with the scenery. Much as he loved working with costumes, he found it both fun and satisfying doing his part to help bring the scenery that the cast were going to use to life.

“I’ll be watching at the auditions too.” He and some of the guys sometimes went to the café to grab something to drink – well at least as long as they didn’t finish too late given the café closed up at seven on all days except Sunday. “Good luck with going for the lead.”

“Ah not really” Marlin shook his head. “My parents own a costume shop so I’m pretty used to handling costumes” he gave another amused grin “And the acting as an extra pair of hands for the guys who do the scenery is actually pretty literal – planning it is Chloe and Steve’s brain child” he added.

The pair roped people in as needed to help them get things set up and Steve could occasionally be a little on the bossy side at times. The two had come up with some pretty fun ideas so Marlin didn’t mind the occasional bout of stress-induced bossiness on Steve’s part.

He gave a friendly smile and a shake of his head at Lily’s comment about not messing up “I’m sure you won’t, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Reaching the door to the hall, he pushed it open for Lily “They’re doing the sign ups at the table by the wall.”

“It’s pretty just the sign ups tonight” Marlin admitted. “The group’s going to go out together once it’s over. To the café here if it’s still open, or if not there’s a few places nearby where the food’s okay so we’ll probably go to one of them.”

It had been a while since the regular group had met up since the holiday break and it would be their chance to catch up with each other. “You’re welcome to come along with us if you like once we’re done for tonight” he offered. It was an open offer – anyone signing up tonight was free to come along once sign-ups had been done.

He added “It'll be pretty casual though” it wouldn't be any fancy – just the standard group following their usual pattern of grabbing a bite before going their separate ways, but the more the merrier right? They'd probably do the same thing when the auditions came along too.

"Sure" Marlin said with a nod as Lily walked over to the tables that had been set up for sign ups. He turned as a voice from behind him hailed him a cheerful smile on his face as he saw Chloe, he chatted with her for a bit, totally unsurprised when Steve joined them after a bit given that where one was the other usually wasn't that far behind - well at least not when it came to group meet ups.

He left them chatting when someone else called his name, and caught up with a few more people absently glancing over at the people signing up from time to time. There seemed to be a few people there, which would hopefully mean a good turn out for the auditions.

He was looking forward to working on the costumes for this one, what he'd read of the plot seemed like it would be fun to work with too.

For the most part though Marlin was pretty much happy to be catching up with the gang after the Christmas break.