Kyle Fitzpatrick

"Please -- for the love of God -- can we just try to have a halfway decent rehearsal?" Kyle Fitzpatrick is just an ordinary musician, working for Sander Cohen and trying to keep Fleet Hall from falling to the dogs. As far as Kyle is concerned, he's the only thing keeping the Fort from falling into abject chaos, and he considers himself Sander Cohen's right-hand man. He's everyone's right-hand man. He's a man. He promises he's a man. He has to be. He must.

Kyle Fitzpatrick

"Please -- for the love of God -- can we just try to have a halfway decent rehearsal?" Kyle Fitzpatrick is just an ordinary musician, working for Sander Cohen and trying to keep Fleet Hall from falling to the dogs. As far as Kyle is concerned, he's the only thing keeping the Fort from falling into abject chaos, and he considers himself Sander Cohen's right-hand man. He's everyone's right-hand man. He's a man. He promises he's a man. He has to be. He must.

It was Hell Week. For starters. A colloquial slang phrase that meant, "the week before a show's opening night". Referred to as such because the week would inevitably be a maelstrom of chaos and tears–and that was just with the actors.

To me, Hell Week meant "lots of work in not enough time", so I'd already started rehearsal. Today marked the third time this week they had shown up late. This time they were even later than the others had been; their understudy showed up, so we could still rehearse, but we got through all of Act One and up til the murder scene in Act Two before they bothered to stumble through the door.

"Hold, please," I said, first into the microphone and then away from it for the benefit of those in the booth and those on stage. I took a few seconds to compose myself. I didn't want to scream. Not today.

"You're late. Again." I lowered my headset, looking them over. Oh, look. They had bothered to wear a shirt this time. (I looked away to avoid thinking of the last incident, when their abdominal muscles and stomach hair had just been out for anyone to look at, for anyone to see.)

"We open on Monday and you've been late three days in a row," I said. I could feel myself doing that thing where I got out of control; my head felt fuzzy and I clenched my hands into fists.

"I don't understand you. You're the lead. You should care about this more. What the hell is your problem?"