It was Saturday, the third week in August. Most New York City residents had abandoned the scorching city for cooler seaside destinations, but the city had just gained over ten thousand students for the day.
All these students were heading to the Manhattan Performing Arts Academy for audition day. The school was the most competitive performing arts high school in the whole country, one of the best in the world. Almost every graduate went to join a ballet company, or got a record deal, or headed to Broadway, or made the first stand of cellos in the New York Philharmonic.
Rachel Berry considered this day one of the most important days of her fourteen years so far. (It would come in second, of course, when she starred in her first Broadway musical.) And she was late.
Rachel grew up on Long Island, but she'd never gotten used to the city's traffic. Of course she couldn't catch a taxi, so she was throwing herself across the street and weaving through beeping cars. Drivers stuck their heads out their windows and hollered foreign curses at her.
Finally, she caught sight of the academy and ran through the doors. Nervous-looking kids were walking around, looking for the practice rooms. Rachel quickly spotted the sign-in desk. She shoved her forms at the disgruntled-looking woman there and said quickly, "Rachel Berry, singing."
The woman glared at her and put on a pair of glasses, examining the form. "Down there, second room on the left," she said curtly. "That's your practice room. Your audition time is at eleven. Someone will call for you."
"Thank you," Rachel said, grabbing the forms from the woman and rushing down the hallway.
The room was fairly crowded. A curvy black girl was doing voice exercises near the window (mi mi mi MI mi mi mi…), an Asian boy was stretching in the other corner. There were two pianos, one of which was being used by a tall brown-haired girl. Nervous butterflies in her stomach, Rachel opened her mouth and began to sing.
*~*~*~*~*
In one of the other practice rooms, Finn Hudson was sweating and drumming on his knees. He let his wrists fall into their usual rhythm as he warmed up for his audition at the MPAA.
Damn, was it hot here. He'd come to New York City once before, April vacation of seventh grade. It had been fun and there had been good weather. It wasn't this hot back in Ohio, where he was from.
He wasn't nervous, not really. He'd prepared well for this. All he could do now was his best, take it or leave it.
The door opened and everyone looked up, quickly relaxing when it was only another student. The kid was muscular, probably played football like Finn, and had his hair shaved in a Mohawk. He went over and sat next to Finn. "Some hot chicks at this school, huh, dude?" he said, eyeing the Hispanic girl a few feet from them who was stretching her feet over her head.
Finn nodded and stopped drumming for a second. "I've got a girlfriend."
"She go here?"
Again, he nodded. "Yeah, she's a dancer. Her name's Quinn Fabray." Finn nodded. "I'm Finn, by the way. Finn Hudson. Doing drumming, obviously."
The kid nodded. "Cool. And I'm Noah Puckerman, but everyone calls me Puck. I'm doing guitar." He gestured at the case by his feet. "Good luck, man."
"You too." Finn grinned at Puck and went back to drumming.
*~*~*~*~*
Artie Abrams arrived at his assigned practice room and wheeled his chair a few feet away from the piano someone was using. He turned around and grabbed his guitar off the back of his wheelchair and began tuning it.
Everyone in the room had turned to look at him when his wheels squeaked at the door. Some looked surprised and some amused, like a cripple couldn't play an instrument.
Well, almost everyone had turned. The Asian girl playing the piano was still fully immersed in her music, something classical. Her long fingers flew across the keys and Artie envied her concentration.
She was wearing a black dress and Converse sneakers and had blue streaks in her hair. A curvy girl walked over and sat on the piano bench beside her, and the girl stopped playing and smiled at the other girl.
Clearly, they knew each other from before. The black girl squeezed the piano player's arm and said, "You'll do great, Tina."
Tina smiled and said, "Th-thanks, you'll p-probably do b-better than me."
"Girl, you trippin'! No one plays the keys like you, sweetheart. Get real."
"No one sings l-like you, Mercedes," Tina said shyly.
It was then that Mercedes noticed Artie. She turned to him and said, "Hey. Who're you?"
He blinked. "Artie Abrams, guitar. You?"
She shot him a thousand-watt smile. "Mercedes Jones, pipes." She elbowed Tina not-so-secretly.
Tina blushed. "T-Tina Cohen-Chang, piano."
"You're good," Artie said without thinking. "At the piano, I mean."
Suddenly, the door opened and everyone froze. A small, red-haired woman with wide eyes called, "Tina Cohen-Chang?"
"Damn it," Tina whispered, jumping up from the bench and hurrying over.
"Tina, your music!" Mercedes said, waving the sheet music in the air and holding it out to her friend.
Tina blushed, grabbed it and said, "G-good luck, b-both of you!" She hurried out of the room after the red-haired woman and once again, tension filled the room.
*~*~*~*~*
Kurt Hummel stood in the spotlight on the stage, watching his judge shuffle papers. "Name?" the woman asked.
"Kurt Hummel."
"Here," the woman said, holding out a piece of paper. "Perform this, then."
Kurt walked forwards and took the paper, scanning it over. "Shakespeare?" he asked incredulously. "Hamlet's Soliloquy?" She couldn't have asked for a harder monologue for Kurt to perform.
The woman raised an eyebrow. "At MPAA, we take only the best and most talented students. If you aren't willing to be one of those students, the door is that way."
Kurt nodded and walked to the center of the stage. He'd seen Hamlet tons of times, of course; what type of play junkie hadn't? He'd just never performed it. Clearing his throat, he began. "'To be, or not to be – that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…'"
The woman stopped him halfway through. "Thank you," she said, turning back to the papers on the table. "Now… it says here that you sing. Is that true?"
"A little."
The woman held out a hand for the paper with Hamlet's Soliloquy on it and gave Kurt a second paper. "Just sing the chorus of this."
"Mr. Cellophane" from Chicago. Kurt suppressed a smile as he returned to the spotlight; he loved Chicago. "Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane, should've been my name, Mr. Cellophane, 'cause you can look right through me, walk right by me, and never know I'm there…"
"Stop there," the woman said curtly. She looked up at Kurt and said, "Congratulations. New students are to move into their dormitory on Memorial Day weekend, and classes start September first." She held out her hand with a third paper; when Kurt took it, he found it to be an acceptance.
*~*~*~*~*
Tina's adjudicator was a man approaching old age, possibly sixty or so, with white hair and a wrinkled face. He was still lean, though, and had the air of a much younger man.
Tina sat down at the piano bench and removed her arm warmers from her shaking hands, placing them on top of the piano. Then, she arranged her sheet music in front of her.
The man watched her, a slight frown on his face. "Tina Cohen-Chang," he said.
She wasn't sure whether this was a question or a statement, so she just nodded.
"What are you playing today?"
"B-Bach Concerto, in D Minor?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that a question, Miss Cohen-Chang?"
Personally she didn't think he should be talking about question-versus-statement clarification, but she shook her head and whispered, "N-no, s-sir."
"Well, then, go on now."
Tina examined the music and listened for the tempo in her head. When she'd found it, she began the piece, plunking out the notes. The music sounded uniform and she shut her eyes, trying to capture the beauty she'd always wanted to play with.
"Stop."
She did, removing her hands from the keys and sitting on them. She couldn't bare to look at her traitorous fingers, who had played this piece perfectly just moments before in the practice room and now were butchering it in front of her judge.
The man looked at her over his wire-rimmed glasses and said, "That was excellent. Congratulations, Miss Cohen-Chang. I will expect you on September first in my classroom."
Tina's jaw dropped and she grabbed her sheet music and the acceptance he was holding out to her. "Th-thank you, sir."
*~*~*~*~*
Santana Lopez and Brittany Hoffman were stretching along with the other forty hopefuls in the dance studio when the head dance instructor stalked into the room. She was a severe-looking woman, with a short blonde haircut and fit body. "Line up," she barked, "Now!"
Everyone scrambled into position and the woman turned on the stereo, smooth classical music starting. "Pirouettes, now! One at a time!"
The first girl in line started her pirouettes off-time and she wasn't spotting. The instructor grabbed her shoulder and shoved her to the door, the girl clearly eliminated. "Next!"
Santana and Britney exchanged a glance. This woman was clearly insane. Britney squeezed Santana's hand once, quickly, right before Santana started her pirouettes across the floor.
The woman watched closely but apparently found no fault in Santana's or Britney's pirouettes. This system progressed: the instructor calling out moves and eliminating people who were unable to complete them.
Finally, there were only ten people left including Santana and Britney, all of them sweating and exhausted. "September first," the instructor called. "My name is Miss Sylvester. I expect you in my dance studio by eight thirty. Go!"
*~*~*~*~*
By the end of the day, one hundred and fifty new students had been accepted. On Sunday, fifty to one hundred more would join them. For now, the stress was over. But what these new aspiring stars didn't know was that their lives were just beginning.
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