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Badge Productions Presents: A Walk For Christmas
9 o’clock on a Saturday morning in Bronze Lakes, Ohio. The town had been greeted by ample snowfall at the end of the week and was covered in white from the rooftops of the businesses downtown to the slumbering gardens of the suburbanites.
Perfect for a brisk walk.
Yvonne Rogers, who had been awake for two and a half hours by this time, packed a water bottle, a small book, a few granola bars, a pair of muzzles and two rolls of pink plastic bags into her hip pack, and grabbed a pair of retractable dog leashes.
“Archie! Time for walkies~!” She sang into the kitchen. No sooner had the word “walkies” left her mouth than a giant loaf of bread with big point ears, short stubby legs and a long, fluffy tail curled against his backside come bounding into the room, running around his mother’s legs like he was trying to dig a moat into the rug.
“Stay!” Archie stopped in his tracks when he heard the command, still wiggling his backside. The human woman knelt down and attached the leash to his collar before pulling her scarf up over her nose and mouth and flinging open the door.
Immediately the cold air hit the exposed half of her face, making it hurt. Archie practically pulled her onto the already clear sidewalk, jumping into every snow puff they came across as if he was on autopilot.
The pair were on their way to the house of their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Ava Cramer, to pick up her dog to join them on their walk. The old woman was less than keen to attempt the sidewalks on mornings like this, and she always paid Yvonne very well for her efforts.
Through her now-sunglasses, Yvonne was able to enjoy the the beauty of the fresh snowfall in her neighborhood without risking snow blindness, although she did have to keep an eye on Archie to make sure he wasn’t secretly licking up any of the salt on the sidewalk.
When they got to Mrs. Cramer’s house, Archie’s fur was dripping with melting ice and snow. “Oh, Yvonne! Are you here for Burt?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Yvonne replied, as if responding to a teacher.
“Burt! Come here darling!” Unlike Archie, Burt was a stoic, no-nonsense Doberman. When he arrived as summoned, he sat directly beside Mrs. Cramer, immediately presenting his collar to Yvonne.
“I’ll have him back here in two hours!”
“Thank you so much for this, Yvonne. Burt may be a homebody but he still needs his exercise!” She scratched Burt behind his ears. “Don’t you, sweetheart??” Burt only allowed himself a twitch of his tail, but otherwise was a statue.
Yvonne snickered at this as Burt stepped out of the house. “It’s not a problem at all. I’ll see you later!”
As the trio made their way towards town, Archie continued his routine of cannonballing into every sufficiently large snow puff he saw, while Burt kept to the sidewalk, eyes forward, back straight, without so much as a wag of his tail.
This was the way their walks usually went, and Yvonne enjoyed them...
Except for when Archie occasionally forgot himself and decided to shake off all the cold water in his fur in the middle of the café during his mom’s weekly visit.
“Ack! Archie, no!” Yvonne cried as she was spattered in the middle of ordering a croissant.
Mercifully, her order was ready quickly, and the human and two canines made their was to their next stop: The community center.
Bronze Lake Community Center had always been active for its size. Its bulletin board was always filled with fliers for upcoming bake sales, art classes, and the one thing that Yvonne loved most of all:
Theatre productions.
She had loved the stage all her life, since the day her mother took her to see Starlight Express during its 2nd US tour when she was 10. With the flashing lights, the frantic music, and the way the actors moved bombastically on stage in roller skates, she couldn’t help but want to be a part of it.
She was quite proud of the performances she had under her belt already, such as the dancing tree in Midsummer Night’s dream in 10 th grade, of the butt end of a tiger in a production of in The Jungle while at college.
Or was it “Rumble in The Jungle?”
Either way, she knew she had to try to be a part of anything theatre that was going on. And, just her luck, there was a call out for help with a Christmas themed production of Alice in Wonderland, named, in a stroke of creativity, “Alice in Christmasland.” The callout was being held in the assembly hall that used to be a pickleball court; it was converted once everyone in town was determined to be terrible at pickleball and could not stop smacking each other in the eyes.
It’s just as well, thought Yvonne at the time. The last thing I need is a permanent shiner on my path to theatre goddesshood. She produced the pair of muzzles she’d packed for times like these, fitted Archie and (rather unnecessarily) Burt with them, and together they headed upstairs.
Unlike its days as a pickleball court at its peak, the assembly hall was packed with townies laughing and joking amongst themselves, clearly nowhere near as serious as she was about the production. Well, she’d show them!
As she grabbed a seat near the front and the dogs took their places on either side of her on the floor, the creative director, a rather colorful figure by the name of Remy, clad in a colorful turtleneck and flowing pants, appeared from stage left, clipboard in hand.
“Alright, my loves!” Remy sang, immediately grabbing the attention of the whole room. “Thank you so much for coming to this callout! I feel so blessed to see all of you here! Now, we’re gonna play a little loosey-goosey with this production, so--”
Immediately Yvonne’s hand shot up.
“Oh!” Remy exclaimed/ “Already we have a volunteer! If you could stand up and give us your name and pronouns, please?”
Yvonne stood up and proudly put her hands on her hips.
“My name is Yvonne Rogers, pronouns she/her!”
“And how would you like to contribute to the production, Yvonne?”
As though she’d been waiting for this moment for her entire life—and she had—Yvonne took a deep breath and proclaimed:
“I would like to act as the director!”
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