Matureauditions -

The scent in the hallway of the Crestwood Community Theatre was a specific cocktail: dust, old wood, and the faint, sharp tang of hope. For Eleanor, 67, that last ingredient was the most surprising. She hadn’t felt it in years, not since she’d retired from teaching high school English and, more pointedly, not since Harold had passed.

That was her. She walked into the cavernous, dark auditorium, the single stage light a blazing sun. The judging table was a shadowy outline in the front row. matureauditions

The pause stretched, thick and alive. Then, a soft rustle from the judging table. The scent in the hallway of the Crestwood

She took her mark. For a moment, the panic was a cold fist in her chest. She looked out at the empty seats, imagining them full. Then she thought of Amanda. Not the caricature of the nagging mother, but the real Amanda: a woman from a faded genteel South, abandoned by her husband, terrified of being forgotten, using her last reserves of charm and ferocity to hold her fragile family together. That was her

“You haven’t done this in a while, have you?” he asked.

Eleanor felt a familiar surge of inadequacy. She’d done community theatre in her thirties, a lifetime ago. A passable Blanche DuBois. A spirited Mrs. Lovett. Then came the mortgage, the tenure track, Harold’s illness. The stage lights dimmed.