Mary Sloan sits in a chair, facing a wall just one metre away.

    It's a glorious Sunday afternoon in late June. In a rehearsal room on the second floor of The Guild Hall, overlooking a graveyard of props from the recently played out Dads In Bondage, Sloan is staring at a list of characters taped to the wall.

    It is audition day for The Rocky Horror Show.

    Her body language screams out against the mental gymnastics necessary to either break hearts or break the play.

    "I hate this part," she flatly declares. "I hate calling someone to tell them they don't have the part they wanted."

    As the director, this unpleasant job belongs to her alone. It's just one price to pay to have the only "glamorous" behind-the-scenes job on a play.

    It will be her vision that will be seen by Whitehorse audiences beginning Oct. 19. And it is her pleasure to present one of the great "moments" in live theatre as Frank 'N' Furter makes his entrance, an entrance that made an impact on her 23 years ago when she first saw the play in London, England.

    As a veteran performer and director in Whitehorse, she has been drawn to plays "from the absurd to the more absurd". From Annie to Hamlet to, well, The Rocky Horror Show.

    Sloan is excited by the construction of the play that whisks the audience into a "whirlpool of madness" in Act One and then to a "disturbing" Act Two that makes the audience feel uneven.

    It is a play that has wonderful music and surprises. Each oddball character can offend the audience, then, slowly, reveal their own humanity.

    If anything, this play will be a "real experience".

    It's a tall order for a performer. That is why Sloan must agonize over the decision of who to put on stage. She goes with her gut instinct and has most of the roles filled within half an hour.

    Equally as important, and not so cliched, is choosing just the right people to work behind the scenes.

    Theatre magic isn't magic at all. It is the result of many hours of hard work, imagination and a dedication to the noble gift of entertainment.

    These are just some of the people who are toiling away tonight, as they have most nights this month, to create some theatre magic:

*****

    As each performance of The Rocky Horror Show ends, there will be a 15-year-old girl waiting in the lobby watching each face of the audience as they leave.

    "Are these the faces of people blown away by one of the all-time great plays?" she will ask herself. "Did I do a good job?"

    This inquisitive high schooler, Emily Farrell, is the stage manager of the production. At her impossibly young age, she is the one person responsible to ensure all of the elements come together allowing each performer and crew member to fulfil their artistic expression.

    Applause is traditionally for the performers, but Farrell must ensure there was nothing preventing them from offering their best. So, in the end, the applause is also for her and the many people she keeps together working as a team behind the scenes.

    Performers and crew tend to get excited about a play as wild as The Rocky Horror Show. But Farrell finds herself working with many experienced professionals who already know the limits.

    But if the director wants one more wardrobe change than the dressing room can handle, she is prepared to say, "No"... even though Sloan is a teacher with her Music Art Drama program at school.

    Sloan first met her four years ago at the Shakespeare For Kids camp. Her respect for Farrell grew to the point she felt comfortable recommending her for the stage manager's job.

    Farrell has acted with MAD and Golden Horn's production of Narnia, but she didn't bring any behind-the-scenes experience to this production.

    Mike Curtis, the producer, is helping with the technical direction. Otherwise, he relies on Farrell's calmness and energy. And he needs her to be persistent, making sure all of the right things are done over and over throughout the play's run.

    Farrell says the age limit of 18 prevented her from performing in the play (she isn't even old enough to sit in the audience). Stage direction may not be glamorous, but it is still an "art".

    She just hopes she can help the audience "give themselves over to absolute pleasure". (Obviously, in spite of all her other responsibilities, she has a keen eye on the marketing side of the production, too.)

*****

    Standing in the darkened theatre five weeks before opening night, Mike Curtis doesn't "feel" the emptiness of the room. He doesn't feel the pressure to fill 90 seats each night at one end of the room and fill the other end with theatre at its wildest.

    As the general manager of The Guild, he is the producer of The Rocky Horror Show. All of the preparations revolve around him at a frantic pace and, yet, he doesn't seem excited by any of it.

    Curtis is tough to figure out. He works 14 hours a day and declares he loves theatre (albeit in a deadpan tone of voice). And yet a quick glance would peg him as a pencil-counting administrator right out of a Dilbert comic strip.

    But this is the guy who is famous for creating the sound of a baby pooping in his diapers in Dads In Bondage.

    And he is the one who found every golden-aged movie poster referenced to in The Rocky Horror Show. They'll be used for a digital slide show as a backdrop.

    Although Curtis loves acting most of all, he is staying in the background to give everyone else what they need to create.

    Besides acting, Curtis has experience with lighting, make up, set design and sound. And those are just the jobs that have convenient labels.

    Add to that the hundred little details he takes care of in any given day and you will begin to understand the job of a producer.

    He even designed the tickets and prepared them for printing. At the mention of the tickets, Curtis reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a box of tickets fresh from the printers. Full of pride, he offers them for inspection knowing full well his attention to detail will win compliments.

    It all becomes clear: Curtis doesn't just love the theatre ... he loves every little thing about the theatre.

*****

    "Janet."

    "Too nasally."

    "Janet."

    "Not nasally enough."

    "Janet."

    "Not quick enough."

    From behind his piano, Jeff Nordlund is coaxing just the right sound from a group of performers as they painstakingly examine the words and lyrics of Damn It, Janet.

    Strolling aimlessly, knitting sweaters and lounging on chairs, the singers mask a concentration that their musical director is clearly lost in.

    "Is that an octave above the pitch, or just a harmony above the octave?" someone wants to know.

    Another asks, "Is that a B Flat?"

    "That's a B Flat," he answers automatically, then a change of inflection in his voice urges another performer to "Throw it into your sinuses".

    He is rewarded with a voice of an angel belting out "Over at the Frankenstein place".

    Seemingly clumsy notes played over and over on the piano and a CD playing the Roxy Theatre's version of The Rocky Horror Show add to the din of confusion. Yet the sweetest music emerges above it all at its most bang-on professional.

    This is why Nordlund is here. Although he would rather be home with his young family, he couldn't pass up the offer to work with this cast on a great musical like The Rocky Horror Show.

    Besides, he has the opportunity to perform soul, country, honky tonk and two varieties of rock and roll -- 50's and something with a harder edge.

    Only the written music stays the same, he says. The interpretation and staging are up to the director and himself.

    The audience will be shocked by the variety of music, but that is the thrill of live theatre.

    Along with the thrill there is the challenge of performing music for a play on a small stage.

    Does the band set up in the foyer and have the music piped in through speakers while the action on stage is fed back to them over monitors? Or do they play their instruments as part of the scene or off in a corner?

    Nordlund would prefer to be "subtly seen", but these are questions for the set designer, director and stage director.

    Each play's unique challenges are just part of the territory for a musician. Nordlund has conducted high school bands, pit orchestras and combos. And, as a high school music teacher with the MAD program, he has a strong knowledge of all instruments.

    At a production meeting, he surprised everyone when he offered to play the saxophone.

    Sloan, who has worked with him for eight years, never knew he played it and suggested he should definitely play the sax for Hot Patootie.

    So, how does he play the saxophone and piano at the same time? That would have been just one more challenge for him if the idea hadn't been nixed a couple of weeks later at another meeting.

*****

    They are great people to have at a meeting.

    Polaroids of each character is passed around a meeting of the makeup and costume people and Sloan starts throwing out questions:

    "Eddie is a guy, but dead ... can you make him blue?"

    "Yeah," answers Shari McIntosh. "Do you want frost on him?"

    "Janet goes from dowdy to pretty to ..."

    "... a slut," Ariel Buchan finishes for Sloan, as she starts sketching out an idea in her notes.

    The meeting continues in the same vein: "Yeah, I can do that." "It'll be fine." "I've got some."

    Someone asks: "Can Conrad put on his own fake eyelashes?"

    "Yeah, he can," comes the dry reply.

    "Are you sure?"

    "Yeah," as good natured laughter builds around the table. "I'm sure he can."

    It is the banter of a group of professionals bringing fresh ideas and experiences to a project they are excited about.

    McIntosh has never worked on a play before, but she has done special effects for movies and television in Hollywood and here in the Yukon. As well, she owns a beauty salon in Whitehorse, Head To Toe.

    She draws on this experience to put 16 faces on the director's vision for the play. And, she says with relish, Sloan loves "wild" and the play is "crazy".

    The 16 polaroids are divided among McIntosh and three other makeup artists as they begin designing the look for each.

    They rented the movie and have watched rehearsals to see how each performer moves to come up with their ideas.

    Then the hard work begins: They have to teach each performer to apply their own makeup. But they will try to have one of them there each night to help out.

    Buchan will be there each night. Not only does she play Magenta on stage, she is also the wardrobe mistress and a dresser. She is the one who has to make sure her fellow performers don't smoke or eat while wearing the costumes and puts them away properly.

    First, however, she has to design the costumes. There is no direction from the script, so she starts by looking for elements from the play and applying them to Sloan's vision. Then she has to ensure the performer is comfortable.

    It helps that she is in the play because she can watch as the characters develop and see how the performers move.

    She volunteered for the job when she saw there was nobody else available. She hopes to add this experience to her classes at the University of Victoria's theatre studies program and the four plays she worked on in the wardrobe department.

    Besides being an interesting step in building her own freelance designing business, she says she will have fun dressing men up in women's clothes and parading an assortment of fetishes in front of a "vanilla-flavoured" Whitehorse.

*****

    She lists off the type of dances she has to choreograph for The Rocky Horror Show: Rock and Roll, Tap, Song and Dance, Rhythm and Blues, Chorus Line, Interpretative and something else that has no name (but Gladys Knight's Pips do it really well).

    But this is what Dale Cooper does for a living. Not often all in one play, but as the owner and operator of DanG Productions, she has choreographed such performances as the Frantic Follies, Wizard of Oz, Dancers With Latitude, the Gaslight Follies, Grease and many others.

    She also teaches dance and has choreographed for MAD.

    What she enjoys most about this performance is working with a "fun group". Each brings energy to rehearsals and each contributes to the choreography. Sloan has created an atmosphere of fun that gives each performer a chance to explore their characters.

    While preparing to play Janet, Cooper can focus on each character from the stage as they evolve.

    Some songs call for specific movements and the requirements of the play need them to start at one point and end at another, but everything in between is wide open to the group's interpretation.

    The stage will be built two weeks before the show opens which gives her a week to finish the choreography. She is looking forward to that moment so she will have time to start learning her own steps.