Chapter 1
The door opened and an oversized man, dressed in a light grey suit and open-necked blue shirt, stepped into the room where John and the others were waiting to learn their fate. Simon Wells, the driving force behind Shakespeare in Prospect, smiled at his audience of expectant faces, and held up the envelope in his right hand for all to see.
This was the moment in the auditioning process John didn't enjoy. He didn't mind doing whatever it was that Simon asked him to do when he was trying out for a role, but he hated missing out on parts he'd set his heart on performing. And, this year, John had set his heart on playing Hamlet, having endured a minor role in the previous year's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Simon opened the envelope with a flourish, as he did every ti
