Disclaimer: Dancing Through Life 1! You know you've been dying to see a peppy Roger. Yes you have. Wicked, RENT, Not mine. -LostOzian
Maureen left the stage, and everyone else entered; Angel, Benny, Joanne, Mark, and Mimi in the Nessa chair. They were just loitering around without any purpose whatsoever, when Mark decided he should try to approach Joanne, clutching a copy of 'Where the Lilies Bloom' tightly for support.
"M-Miss Galinda?" Mark asked as the first line in the scene before Dancing Through Life. "Remember me?" Joanne looked at him blankly for a moment.
"Oh! Yes, hello, Bick!" she said with almost too much pep.
"It's Boq," Mark said, acting very well that he liked Joanne. Which was really awkward when you thought about it. Hell, you didn't even need to think about it, it was just awkward.
"Okay, now I sound pathetic," Boq said.
"Would you rather you sounded gay?" Elphaba asked.
"You're never pathetic!" Nessa tried to hug Boq, but he caught her arms and hand to pseudo-wrestle so he wouldn't get glomped. Finally, he stood up and managed to get Fiyero to sit next to Nessa, so it was Boq-Elphaba-Glinda-Fiyero-Nessa.
"Just until she cools down," Boq said, eyeing the girl on the far end of the row warily. Elphaba sent Boq a death glare for moving Fiyero away from her, but didn't do anything. Yet.
Especially since Roger was just entering as Fiyero. Collins was playing the role of the servant, which Winnie Holzman named Avaric, probably to the discomfort of Gregory Maguire, who had written Avaric as a pompous character very high in social standing. But that didn't matter. Roger was piggybacking Collins, pretending to be asleep, as the man who had spent last scene as a teacher crossed the stage.
"Here we are, sir! Shiz University!" Collins announced, giving Roger a bump for good measure. Roger jolted 'awake'.
"What, already?" he said, patting Collins shoulders and eventually getting down. Collins leaned in close, pretending to be helping Roger with something.
"Man, lose some weight already, you're heavy," he said, covered by Joanne's line about 'That's Fiyero Tiggular!'
"I'm going to kill you, Tom," Roger promised cheerily, before stretching and delivering his line.
"Don't worry, Avaric, I'll be back home soon," he said. "Won't last any longer at this school than I have at any of the others." They did a cool secret handshake with a jump at the end, and Collins ran off the way he came. Roger stood around for a minute, chilling, when Joanne approached him.
She tossed her hair. Which was kind of funny, because her hair was really short. Then Roger tossed his hair, which was really funny, because his hair was longer than Joanne's. Glinda tossed her hair from the audience, which swished Fiyero and Elphaba.
"Watch it," Elphaba said.
"Watch what?" Glinda asked blankly.
"The performance and the peroxide."
"Looking for something, or…" Joanne chose to strike a pose this time. She was leaning back a little bit, standing with hands on hips and legs about a yard apart. She looked ridiculous. "…someone?" Roger did finger guns, and pulled a crumpled ball of paper out of his pocket. Fiyero hid his head in his hands.
"He added those in!" he said. "I only did them because I thought they were New York-ish! He thinks they're Ozian!" Mark looked over Roger's shoulder, reading the schedule, which was actually an old shopping list. Collins snuck back onstage to join the student body.
"That's in the history building, which is very far away, that way," Mark took Roger's arm and started dragging him away from Joanne. Joanne grabbed Roger's arm and dragged back, winning ground against Mark.
"That class just ended," she promised. Roger looked from Mark, to Joanne, then out at the audience before spinning in a circle and freeing himself from both Mark and Joanne's clutches.
"Perfect timing," he said. Fiyero nodded approvingly. When they had first came to the loft, this guy had practically been giving off an aura of angsty loner emo-ness, but apparently his first impression had been very wrong. The actor had him so perfectly that there was no chance that he could be plagued by insane amounts of baggage, or have any sort of inclination toward drugs or suicidal women.
"So what does one do for fun around here?" Roger asked, brushing his nails on his shoulder. Joanne giggled.
"Nothing," she said, completely basing her performance off of Maureen. "Until now…"
"For the record, Fiyero, I was hoping you would take me to your room when I said that," Glinda said casually. Fiyero blinked.
"I don't get it," he said. Unfortunately, he missed Mark's studying line and picked up in the middle of his.
"It seems the responsibility to corrupt my fellow students falls to me…" Roger slung an arm around Mark's shoulders. "Fortunately, I'm up to the task. The trouble with schools is, they always try to teach the wrong lesson…" The music started up. "Believe me, I've been kicked out of enough of them to know… They want you to become less shallow, less…" Roger stopped. "Um… Um… callow!" he finally came up with the word. Joanne went into hysterics until she noticed both Mark and Roger were looking at her, Mark sadly disappointed, and Roger as if he was saying 'are you done?'. She stopped.
"But I say, why abide stressing?" Roger stole Mark's prop book and tore a page out of the back, throwing page and book offstage. "Stop studying strife…" Mark looked horrified, running away to save his Most Precious Prop, Mister Bookykins. Roger turned to Joanne. "And learn to life the unexamined life…" Fiyero could barely sit still, smiling as Roger began the signature part of Dancing Through Life, tapping out the rhythm on his knee.
"Dancing through life, skimming the surface, gliding where turf is smooth…" Roger spun, and Joanne copied him, and somewhere in the background, Angel copied him, too. Mark retrieved the book, bringing it back onstage proudly, only to have Roger steal it from him and throw it off to the other side during his next line.
"Life's more painless for the brainless, why think to hard, when it's so soothing, dancing through life!" Mark was forced to run offstage again.
"No need to tough it, when you can sluff it off as I do!" Roger spun again, and this time Joanne spun with him, and so did Angel, Collins, and Benny.
"Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters! It's just life, so keep dancing through…" Roger, Joanne, Collins, Angel, and Benny all got to do a cool little eight-count routine as Mimi sat in her chair, bouncing a little bit, and Mark retrieved the book again and stared at them, looking afraid that he would soon be enlisted to dance.
Maureen always got very, very bored during this scene, and found her special hidden paddleball paddle and started trying to find out if she could get above twenty nine for this run through.
Nessa was also getting extremely annoyed by now, because Fiyero was practically dancing in his chair to his song, and it was getting annoying. Finally, she poked him very hard on the shoulder.
"Hey, could you go tell Boq I'll calm down? I really appreciate it," she added a little edge to her voice. Fiyero blinked, yet agreed.
"And always keeping cool!" Roger was standing upstage, with everyone else kind of crouched down a bit lower than him to create the illusion of height. "Life is fraught-less, when you're thoughtless, those who don't try never look foolish!"
Fiyero returned to Boq's original seat, much to Nessa's dismay.
"He says he doesn't believe you," Fiyero said.
"No! I promise! Promise, promise, promise, swear on the shoes!" Nessa kicked one leg forward to show off the ruby slippers, as if there was any other pair of shoes she could be swearing on. Fiyero moved again.
"Woes are fleeting, blows are glancing, when you're dancing… through life!" Roger held the note, before ending it and going into lines.
"So," he said. "What's the most swankified place in town?" Joanne stood there thinking for a moment as the others pondered.
"That would be the OzDust ballroom!" Joanne offered at last, sounding insanely proud of herself.
"Sounds perfect," Roger said. Fiyero returned to Nessa again.
"He doesn't want you to swear on the shoes," Fiyero said. "Shoes are bad." Nessa's jaw dropped.
"For Oz's sake, what do I have to swear on to get him to come back?!"
Fiyero was gone again.
"Right- on- down to the OzDust ballroom!" Roger was doing a kind of disco with Joanne as everyone else was dancing like they were going to a party. "C'mon, follow me… You'll be happy to be there… Dancing through life!" Roger held the note, experimenting with the pitch a little bit.
"Down at the OzDust!" Everybody added.
"If only because dust is what we come to!" Roger spun around with a dance solo Collins taught him.
"Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters!"
"Shit! Twenty-eight!" Maureen cursed quietly, swinging the paddleball around to try to get it to start bouncing again.
"It's just… Li-i-ife!"
"So keep dancing through!" Roger was about to start headbanging when Mark walked up to him, getting in his face to make him back down. The roommates stared at each other for a moment, before finally Roger walked away slowly, starting to preen himself. Fiyero returned right before Mark started talking to Joanne.
"He wants you to swear on her," Fiyero pointed at Mimi on the edge of the stage, looking rather alone and loveless there. "He says if you don't stay calm, he's going to kill her in the middle of the performance and there'll be nobody to play you."
"Fine! I swear by her!" Nessa hissed. "I swear by the stripper! Now get Boq back here!" Fiyero was gone again.
"See that tragically beautiful girl…" Joanne was singing. Mark was still staring at Joanne. "The one in the chair!" Joanne prompted, and finally got Mark to look at Mimi. "It seems so unfair, we should go on a spree, and not she, gee!" Joanne looked up at the ceiling wistfully, hands clasped like she was some little church girl. "I know someone would be my hero if that someone were… to go invite her!" Mark stood there for a second. Then two. Then three.
"I could invite her!" he said suddenly. Joanne clapped her hands in joy.
"Oh, Bick! Really!? You would do that for me?" Mark took Joanne's hand.
"I would do anything for you, Miss Galinda," he said.
Boq returned to his seat. Nessa felt about to glomp him in joy.
"You promised to calm down," he said before she could do anything.
"I knowwww…" Nessa twitched a little in restraining herself. "You have no idea how much self-control this takes."
"Glad to know you have some," Boq said as Mark pushed Mimi offstage.
"Mean!" Nessa insisted.
"True," Boq countered.
And the argument ended. The show continued.
Microsoft Word suggested I change 'Tiggular' to 'Singular'. Doesn't it know Yero is never single:p