Sweeny Todd: The Demon Nation of Hetalia Street
Chapter 1: And the curtain rises…
SWEENY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
AUDITIONS.
This is going to be the most awesome show ever! The only thing it needs to be more awesome is you! So come and audition, or sign up to help out with stage crew! Everyone who auditions is guaranteed a role, no matter how small! Don't be shy! If you've got theater experience, you can add this famous Sondheim play to your resume! If this is your first time, it's a great play to start with! So, if you're interested, you've got no excuse not to come!
Auditions are September 21, 22, & 23, at 2:30 in the band room!
The signup sheet is in the main office!
-Gilbert Beilschmidt, Director
Gilbert grinned as he put up the last of his notices. With his AWESOME posters up all over the school, (with permission, each initialed in the corner by the principal) they were sure to get an awesome turn out for the play. Now all he had to do was track down Toni, and the two of them could get out of there.
¡Rico tomato! ¡Rico tomato!
Muy rico, ¡Uh!
Tomato.
Sube el rojo,
Baja amarillo.
¡Toma toma tomato!
Gil laughed, hearing is friend's voice singing out. Turning in the direction it came from, he saw it's owner dancing down the hall toward him. "Yo, Toni!"
The Spanish girl's trademark smile grew brighter (if that was even possible) as she lay eyes on her friend. Then, fast than most would have thought possible, she tackle hugged him. "I got all my posters up, Gil! ¡Esto va a ser tan divertido! I hope Francis auditions! Then all three of us will be in the play! Plus, hopefully mi pequeño Lovinito will agree to be my assistant stage manager, and maybe he'll bring Feli in on it and she'll bring Ludwig! ¡Entonces todos estaremos juntos!"
Gil, used to his friend's ramblings and random Spanish phrases, got the basic concept of her speech. "Yeah, I hope they get involved, too. That would be awesome! Speaking of mein bruder, we need to get home or he'll freak."
Antonia nodded. "Mi madre, tambien. Ever since mi padre" the word was accompanied by a look of disgust foreign to her face, "left, ella es muy nerviosa, como lo dejaré demasiado. Sí, let's go."
"We have an awesome weekend to plan!"
The Next Monday…
Ivan Braginski stood in front of his locker, staring at the yellow flyer taped to it. 'The school musical?' He considered the idea. He had always enjoyed theater, and had been told he had a good singing voice. Maybe he should audition. Now what was this play about?
Natalya peered over Ivan's shoulder. What was her darling Vanya looking at now? A flyer for the school musical? Is he going to audition? Well, he is sure to get the lead because he is so amazing, but I can't let just anyone play his leading lady! I am the only one worthy of acting across from him! I must audition for this, too! Having made up her mind, she walked off to her first period, which, sadly, was not with him.
Maddie Williams didn't know who she had expected the person leaning against her locker to be, but it certainly hadn't been him. Although he was her former foster brother, Arthur Kirkland usually didn't even remember her name, much less where her locker was. And he certainly didn't wait for her there.
"H-hi, Arthur." She stammered out as she reached her locker. A faint blush touched her cheeks, which she did her best to hide. She knew her crush on him was silly, and most definitely unrequited, so it would be better for everyone involved if he never found out.
"Hello, Maddie!" She looked up at his words and found him smiling kindly at her. That was new.
She turned back to her locker, grabbing her books as she asked, "Um, do you need something from me?"
"Can't I just say hi without an ulterior motive?" She didn't dignify that with a response. "Okay, so you're right. I was wondering if you saw the flyers for the school musical.
She gave a quiet snort. How could she have missed them? They were taped up every two feet all over the school. She would have to be blind to have missed them.
"It's not lady-like to snort." Arthur corrected automatically, before continuing, "Well, I was thinking about auditioning and was wondering if you were, too. If I remember correctly, you really liked Sweeny Todd when you were living with me."
Maddie's surprised gazed locked with her brother's curious one. Arthur interpreted her look correctly and responded with a snort. "I do notice things, unlike a certain American I could name."
She smiled, but couldn't resist a small retort. "It's not gentlemanly to snort."
Arthur chuckled. "You still haven't answered my question."
"You never asked a question."
"Don't be a smart ass."
"It's also not gentlemanly to swear."
"Are you going to audition for the play or not?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Why so curious?"
Arthur copied her shrug. "I remembered you liked it, and you're a really good singer."
"Do you want me to audition?"
His smiled returned. "It would be nice to do something together again, wouldn't it?"
She couldn't say no to him. "I guess I'll do it, then."
"Great!" He glanced at his watch. "Oh, shoot! Class!" He ran off.
Maddie began to hurry to her class, too, when a call from Arthur turned her around.
"Will I see you later?"
She nodded and waved, a tentative smile on her face, before hurrying off to her class.
Perhaps this time things would work out.
Alfred Jones had Gym first period, and, fortunately for him, he was one of those people who likes that. He really liked sports, and he was good at them as well. He had better be, seeing as he had been on both the baseball and basketball teams last year. A lot of his friends were in his class with him, and he was glad to have someone familiar to face off against on the basketball court. Since it was only the third week of school, the gym teachers just sort of let them choose what they wanted to do, as long as it was some sort of physical activity.
Alfred chose to play some one-on-one basketball with Im Yong Soo, his best friend from South Korea. He was currently getting his ass handed to him by said best friend.
"Hey, man, take it easy on me! I haven't played in a while!"
"Dude, if you plan on making the team this year, you better get in shape! You can bet none of the other guys will have taken it easy over the summer!"
"Maybe I'm not planning on making the team this year."
Im Yong Soo dropped the ball, and Alfred snagged it and scored.
"Al, please tell me you just said that so I would drop the ball."
"I would, but I was taught that lying is wrong."
"Dude, why? You were great last year! I mean, you weren't the best, but you were still really good!"
"I want to check out other things, y'know. Leave my options open."
"For what?"
"I dunno. Maybe I'll audition for the school play."
"Dude, are you seriously going all Troy Bolton on me? I hate that movie!"
"NO! I hate it too! But I really liked the musicals we went to when the Kirklands fostered me, so why not audition for one?"
"I'm going to." The two boys turned their heads at the unexpected comment. It came from Li Xiao, or Leon, Chung. He had transferred to their school from Hong Kong last year and had also been on the basketball team.
"You guys are both abandoning me for a musical?" Im Yong wailed.
Alfred rolled his eyes. "You can try out, too, y'know."
"Man, I can't sing to save my own mother's life!"
"There's stage crew." Li Xiao offered.
"Maybe." Im Yong still looked unhappy.
"And I hear Yue Wang is auditioning."
"Big sis? This is sounding a bit better."
Aiming to distract him, Alfred stole the ball out of his hands and dribbled up the court, calling back over his shoulder, "Get your head in the game!"
Im Yong groaned. "I thought you said you hated that movie!"
"I had to see it to hate it!"
"Loser!"
Im Yong focused on the game, dropping the subject of the play. That was good, because nothing he said would change Alfred's, or for that matter Li Xiao's, mind on the matter.
At the end of class, Tori Laurinaitis ran over to Eduard von Bock's desk and quickly shoved the paper in her hand at him. He looked at the flyer in his hand, then up at the girl who gave it to him. His cousin looked at him eagerly. "Tori, why have you given me a flyer for the school musical?"
His other cousin, Raivis Galante, looked up from his poetry book with wide eyes. "We have a school musical?"
"Yes, Raivis, we do. It's Sweeny Todd." Eduard turned back to the eager Lithuanian in front of his desk. "Again, why did you give me this?"
"I thought it would be fun if we all participated in this!"
Eduard raised his eyebrow, about to tell her he knew that reason was bull shit, when Raivis piped up, "I agree! Can't we, Eduard?" The tiny Latvian gave his Estonian cousin his best puppy-dog eyes.
Unable to disappoint those eyes, Eduard nodded. "Fine. But Tori, you hate going out in front of a crowd."
Tori smiled happily. "That's why I'm doing stage crew!"
Raivis had English next, while the other two had History, so they parted ways outside the classroom.
Once the other was out of hearing range, Eduard turned on Tori. "Why did you really bring me the flyer?"
"Well, um, I, um, might have, um, ,thinking…"
"Slow down and repeat that."
"I saw Ms. Natalya looking at it before she went to class, thinking about auditioning."
"I thought so. Why can't you give up on that girl? She clearly has no interest in you!"
"I wasn't lying about thinking it would be fun! I really do think it will be!"
"…Well, I already told Raivis we'd do it, so there's no turning back now."
He was surprised by an enthusiastic hug from his usually timid friend. "Thank you, Eduard!"
Now, all she needed to do was persuade Feliks to come along for the ride, which should be easy enough.
At the end of the day on Tuesday, Gilbert, Antonio, and Francis stopped by the office to pick up the signup sheets. They were not disappointed by the number of students on the lists.
Auditions
Francis Bonnefoy
Ivan Braginski
Yue Wang
Xiao Mei Ling
Arthur Kirkland
Tina Väinämöinen
Berwald Oxenstierna
Natalya Arlovskaya
Bella Janssens
Li Xiao Chung
Alfred F. Jones
Eduard von Bock
Raivis Galante
Ralph Smith
Maddie Williams
Mikkel Densen
Stage Crew
Im Yong Soo
Lovino Vargas
Kiku Honda
Feliks Łukasiewicz
Tori Laurinaitis
Lukas Bondevik
Emily Steilsson
Feliciana Vargas
Ludwig Beilschmidt
"Mi pequeño Lovinito signed up! And I've got a good list of people for the stage crew!"
"Hey, mein bruder signed up, too! Awesome! And look at this cast! Holy crap, is that really Ivan Braginski? What the fuck?" The secretary glared at him. Gil grinned. "Oops, sorry."
Francis smiled. "Well, mon amis? Are you happy?"
"Sí!"
"Ja! Now let's go set the audition schedule and get these people their notices tomorrow!"
Author's Notes: So begins another adventure! I will try and update this as regularly as possible, probably alternating between this and my other fic, Studying History. So, the credit for the inspiration of this fic is in several places. One, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler for writing Sweeny Todd, two, Hidekaz Himaruya for creating Hetalia and the Delicious Tomato Song, and three, webcomix for writing World Wide Story and giving me the idea of casting a play with Hetalia characters.
By the way, I will be writing this based on the play not the movie. For those of you that don't know, there are some differences between the two. However, the movie is the reason why I cast Sweeny Todd, and not another play, which I won't name in case I decide to go back to that later. R&R, people! And Hasta La Pasta!
-Hikari