The Amateur Revival Ch. 02

This is the second chapter of the Amateur Revival story. This chapter starts where Chapter One ended. While I hope this chapter can stand by itself, it will make more sense if you read Chapter One first.

This story is a work of fiction. Some real places and institutions are mentioned or alluded to, but they are used fictitiously. Insofar as the author knows, no real person affiliated with any of those places or institutions has done anything akin to what is described in this story. Any similarities between any character in this story and any real person are coincidental and unintended. I encourage comments on this story, both favorable and unfavorable. Thank you for reading.

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Over Carol's objection, I put my pants on that Saturday evening long enough to pay the girl who delivered our pizza. We both got dressed to go to the supermarket on Sunday morning to get things for breakfast and dinner. Otherwise, Carol and I stayed nude until she dressed to go to work Monday morning. We made love enough times over that day and a half that we were both sore. It was a good sore.

Our next rehearsal was to learn the "group dance." Kim's dictum was "if you're going to perform nude, you rehearse nude." We also had to learn it nude. I'm not sure it was truly a dance, more a series of movements to music. The scene started with us standing bunched together at center stage with our arms in the air, a pose taken from the original show. When the music started, we began running around the stage, doing things like cartwheels and rolls that had to be choreographed so we didn't hit each other. That was followed by each guy picking a girl up from behind under her shoulders and spinning her around. The women had to keep their legs spread. "Show some slit," Kim instructed. The "dance" ended with us lining up boy-girl-boy-girl and leapfrogging over each other until we were all offstage. Seeing this written description, it sounds a little goofy, but it was fun to do.

Another development at this next rehearsal was the presence of Kim's boyfriend Luke, clothed of course. "Luke's my second set of eyes," Kim told us. Luke would attend all the remaining rehearsals.

We spent almost three hours getting the "group dance" to the point where we weren't running into each other. Kim finally called a break. "We'll start on the couples' dances next. I'll e-mail each couple when I want to work with them." In addition to the group dance, each couple would do a dance by themselves.

Again, I don't know whether what Carol and I did was really dancing. Our dance started with the two of us standing back-to-back at center stage. When the music started, we each ran to the side of the stage we were facing. The bulk of the dance was the two of us running patterns across the stage in which we came very close to each other but never touched. The dance ended with Carol going into the stage left wings. I stood slightly right of center stage facing left. Carol was to run at me and leap with me catching her legs and lifting her in an upright position until her knees were level with my face. I was to hold her in that position and do a 360 degree turn. Kim was emphatic, "I want you to hold Mom high enough that the audience can see her mound above your head and your dick below her feet." When I completed the turn, Carol was supposed to slide down my body with us embracing "passionately" when her feet hit the stage floor.

Wisely, Kim started with us practicing the end of the dance. More wisely, Kim had borrowed some thick gym mats for us to practice on. The tricky part was for Carol to time her jump so I could catch her and use her momentum to lift her up. That meant she couldn't jump too far from me or too close to me. In practice we did both. When Carol jumped too early, I could catch her but couldn't lift her. The result was I usually dropped her. When Carol jumped too late, she usually knocked me over and the two of us landed in a heap on the mat. It took a lot of time, but we finally mastered it. The rest of our dance was easy.

The only parts of the original show which Kim had retained were the opening "taking off the robe" scene and the final scene which ended with the cast in the nude "daisy chain" line across the stage that was an iconic image from the original show. Consistent with the show's original formats, Kim had included a few skits.

In the sequence of the show, my first skit was with Sarah and Derrick, called "Circumcision." Sarah came onstage in a suit and began a monologue about male circumcision. When Sarah said, "Let's look at an example of a circumcised dick," I walked onstage nude and stood beside Sarah. I am circumcised. Sarah took my dick in her hand and began talking about it. A camera mounted over the stage projected an image of my dick in Sarah's hand on a large screen upstage.

When Sarah finished talking about my dick, she said "Let's look at an uncircumcised dick." Derrick then walked onstage nude and stood on the opposite side of Sarah from me. Derrick was not circumcised. Sarah took Derricks dick in her hand and talked about it while an image of Derrick's dick in Sarah's hand appeared on the screen. The scene ended with Sarah facing the audience and saying, "The most important question is whether a circumcised dick or an uncircumcised dick provides greater stimulation in the vagina. I need to research that further." All three of us then faced upstage. Sarah put an arm around each of our bare backs we walked upstage together. A curtain came down behind us.

The most interesting, and longest, part of Kim's re-written show came in the middle. The portion had no script. Instead, the couples came onstage nude, one couple at a time, and simply talked about their experience of being nude onstage in front of an audience and why they were doing the show. The idea was to say what you were thinking and what we said was meant to change from performance to performance. Beyond establishing the order in which the couples would appear, Kim never rehearsed this segment.

We moved into the theater for rehearsals the second full week of April. Even Sarah, Maria, Aaron, and Antonio had gotten comfortable going nude in the room we had used on campus. Sure, Kim and Luke were there clothed; but the rest of us were nude and there was no one else coming and going. It had become like our own locker room.

Walking onto the stage naked for the first time, in front of the auditorium full of empty seats, gave all of us, I think, a strong sense that we were naked in a place where people are supposed to wear clothes. The sense of exposure was heightened by the fact we who were nude were a minority in the huge room. During that first rehearsal in the theater, there were probably twenty clothed people working on lights, sound, the few sets, and setting up storage of our few costumes. We were also introduced to the two theater students who would be the stage manager and assistant stage manager: Clarissa and Doug respectively.

At first, our nudity attracted a lot of attention from the crew. Carol, LaTonya, Sarah, and Maria drew most of the attention, of course. After some initial hesitance, all four women reconciled to the idea that they were there to be seen nude. I never quite got over the feeling I was doing something naughty when I walked out of the dressing room, across the hall, and through the door into the backstage buck naked.

We opened on the first Thursday night in May. Our "dress" rehearsals were the preceding Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, we got a shock: make-up! I don't think any of us had thought about wearing make-up. I hadn't known that bare skin doesn't look natural under stage lights. We needed a base all over our bodies to appear to have natural skin tones. We would also need facial make-up so that lips and eyebrows didn't wash out. Kim also wanted us to use make-up to make our pubic hair stand out a little. It took a couple of hours on Tuesday for one of Kim's classmates to teach us about make up and for us to be made up that first time. Getting make up on all parts of our bodies became a collaborative effort. That was fun and created a sexy mood for the rehearsal, which may have been part of the plan.

Carol told me that the theater's maximum seating capacity was 350. About a dozen clothed people, including Kim's faculty advisor, were sitting down front for that first "dress" rehearsal. While we'd gotten comfortable being nude with each other, that first dress rehearsal again put us through the anxiety, and excitement, of being nude in front of strangers. I think we were all having fun with it by the end of the rehearsal.

We had to wash the make-up off our bodies after rehearsal. The dressing room had a tiled shower room with showerheads mounted around the walls, and two individual shower stalls that afforded privacy. No one used the stalls. After the rehearsal, we all showered together.

Kim had a videographer and still photographer come to the second dress rehearsal. Carol and I still have copies of the video and the stills from that rehearsal. The video is fun to watch every now and again. Kim had also gotten reporters from the daily campus paper and the weekly Cambridge newspaper to attend. Both women were, I think, shocked and then fascinated. Each cast member, still nude, was interviewed by one or the other reporter. However, the advance stories in the Thursday student paper and on the weekly paper's website were disappointingly brief.

I awoke that Thursday morning and went to Carol's kitchen to make coffee while Carol got dressed for work. She had a client meeting that morning. Carol walked into the kitchen looking gorgeous, even in a business suit. I had yet to put anything on. "I see you're ready for this evening," Carol teased as she took a mug of coffee from me.

"You look great," I said, "but you look better in costume."

Carol took a slug of coffee. "Tonight's the night," she said.

"Are we ready for this?" I asked.

Carol let out a sigh. "Talk about conflicted," she said. "Part of me can't wait to get naked and prance around showing everyone everything and another part of me hopes the show is cancelled at the last minute. I'm glad you're going to be there with me."

"I'll go anywhere and do anything with you," I replied.

"I know," Carol said and hugged me. "You don't realize how happy that makes me." We held each other tight for a few moments until Carol said, "I have got to get going."

"Pick you up here at 4:00?" I asked.

"Perfect," Carol replied and went into the garage. The show didn't start until 8:00 p.m. Carol and I were going to be at the theater ridiculously early. It didn't matter if we were the first. Carol had a key.

The weather was typical early May, cool at night but comfortable once the sun came up. I drove home, changed into running gear, went to the nearby state park, and ran trails for a couple of hours. As I ran, I thought about what it would be like in several hours when I was standing onstage in front of an audience naked. I thought about Carol standing naked next to me. I visualized LaTonya, Sarah, and Maria standing onstage naked too. I wondered how they would feel at that moment. I was getting myself excited. I'd have to be very careful about that.

When I picked Carol up, she had traded her business suit for a pullover top, slacks, and flats. She carried a light jacket and a small bag. Raising the bag up, she said. "I'm sure I won't need any of this, but I'll feel better having it." To me at least, Carol looked very beautiful.

As I reached out to open the stage door for Carol, she said, "Oh boy." The door was unlocked. I followed Carol in. Kim, the stage managers, and the crew were already there doing whatever they did. Clarissa saw us and gestured towards a cardboard box in the corner. "Programs in there," she said. "Help yourselves."

The show wasn't using a traditional booklet program, both because of cost and because some cast members didn't want written evidence that they were in the show. The program was a single, one-sided sheet listing the scenes in order (there was no intermission). At the bottom was a line, "Produced and directed by Kimberly Dwyer." Another line beneath that said, "We thank the City of Cambridge and the Old High School Theater Group."

After walking around idly for a few minutes, I followed Carol into the dressing room. "We might as well get our clothes off," Carol said. We walked to a locker with a bench in front of it and began undressing. By that time, Carol and I had undressed together dozens of times, in private and with others. This time was different. We were both eager and hesitant at the same time.

When Carol was nude, she took a small step away from me and asked, "How do I look?" I ran my eyes along her full breasts, slightly rounded tummy, down her slightly fleshy thighs to her shapely calves. I looked back up at her mound with its close-cropped blonde hair. I looked further up at her gorgeous face and bright blue eyes framed by her naturally blonde hair.

"You look exquisite," I said. We hugged, tightly.

We were still holding each other when LaTonya and Derrick walked in several minutes later. "Already in costume," Derrick said when he saw us.

"Now, now," LaTonya said in mock scolding. "No messing around before the show. People can tell." LaTonya and Derrick stripped off. Carol gave Derrick a hug and I hugged LaTonya.

Sarah and Aaron came in a few minutes later. They both seemed very nervous. Oddly, that put Carol and me more at ease. I think we were trying to show we were blasé about the whole situation.

Maria and Antonio didn't show up until after 6:00 p.m. Once they were in the door, Maria announced, "we almost didn't come tonight, but we realized that would be unprofessional."

In a very exaggerated accent, LaTonya said, "Unprofessional? We getting paid for this? Shit, I've missed my checks." That passed for funny at the time.

Clarissa's voice came over a loudspeaker in the dressing room. "6:30. Cast start make-up."

"We've got to get our clothes off," Maria said urgently to Antonio. Carol and I started putting base on each other.

Over the loudspeaker, Clarissa gave us a countdown of sorts: "One hour to showtime," "thirty minutes to showtime," "crew to stations." Finally, the dressing room door opened. Doug said, softly but distinctly, "take your position in the wings." Doug held the door as we walked, single file and nude, out the door, across the hall, and through the door Clarissa was holding for us.

Walking out of the dressing room nude was a moment of truth. It was suddenly very real: we were going to be standing onstage naked in front of God knows who. Whomever bought a ticket and came to the theater that night would see our bare asses, pubes, and tits. I felt like I was stepping off the edge of a cliff, but I was also excited about what was to come. Carol reached out and squeezed my hand.

Doug walked across the stage (the curtain was down) while Clarissa put on her headset. Into her headset, Clarissa said, "lower robes." A curtain made of something like vinyl came down far upstage. It had hooks evenly spaced along it. Each hook held a buff-colored robe.

Clarissa gave the instruction "kill houselights." A moment later, Clarissa said "up curtain." As the curtain went up, the five-piece combo in the pit started playing an almost spooky tune. After a few bars, Clarissa looked at us and said "go!"

No stage lights were on, but we could see clearly as Sarah led us onstage in single file. A sound from the house told me the audience could see the stage well enough to see we were naked. In unison, we turned our backs to the audience and put on our robes. We turned around and walked to center stage, where we formed a tight circle. We put our arms in the air. A dull red light came on pointed down at us.

We held that pose for several beats until the music changed into something more seductive. The lighting changed so that the stage was illuminated, not brightly, in a sort of purple color. With Sarah leading again, we marched about as far downstage and formed a line. We were each doing dance-like moves, dipping our shoulders and swaying our hips. After a few bars, we started working with our robes, flashing a bare shoulder or thigh. The pace of the music picked up and we took our flashing further, lowering the robe to show a bare breast or turning and raising the robe to show a bare ass.

That was the point, at least for me, that the anxiety largely fell away. People came to see my nude body. I was going to show it and sell it.

The music changed key. We each turned to face our partner. We were opening and closing our robes, flashing each other. Carol looked happy and excited.

The music changed key again and sped up. We turned to face the audience and flashed our robes open and closed at them. That was my first good look at the auditorium. My first impression was that no one was there. Looking a second or two longer, I saw some people, but guessed there were fewer than 100.

The music stopped. We turned our backs to the audience and raised our arms again, grabbing ahold of our robes to lift them up and show our asses to the audience. We held that pose until a bell sounded once. The drummer played drumroll during which we whipped our robes over our heads. As that reached a crescendo, we spun around to face the audience and threw our robes down on the stage. Bright lights came on. We were fully illuminated, standing naked in a line facing the audience.

I heard a gasp. We stood still, posing, for about thirty seconds. That was when I realized I was enjoying the hell out of this. I was amped and into it. The lights went out again and I used the darkness to steal another look at Carol. She was breathing harder. Her nipples had firmed. Even in the relative dark, her eyes were sparkling. It was a very sexy moment.

A spotlight lit up Antonio at the stage right end of our line. He stood for a moment before slowly turning around. The idea was to show all of each actor's nude body, one at a time. The spotlight shifted from Antonio to Maria. She did her turn. The spotlight moved to Carol. She had an expression of joy on her face. She slowly did her do her turn. To me, she'd never looked more desirable.

Suddenly, the bright (and hot) spotlight was on me. I looked straight ahead, unable to see the audience for the light. After a couple of beats, I took a small step right with my right leg to free my balls a bit. I lifted my arms slightly and turned both palms out in a "this is me" gesture. I held that pose for a beat before doing my turn. The light stayed on me for a beat after I finished the turn before moving to LaTonya.

When Sarah finished her turn in the spotlight, the stage lights retuned to dull purple. Leaving our robes in the stage floor, we walked backwards upstage, trying to keep the line even. When we reached a point about two-thirds of the way upstage, a curtain came down ending the scene.

We walked offstage silently. Derrick and LaTonya were doing the first couples dance next. They stayed in the wings. The rest of us very quietly walked back to the dressing room where we could hear the show over the loudspeaker. Instantly, when we were in the dressing room, Carol hugged me very tightly. "That," she said loudly, 'is the most fucking exciting thing I've ever done!" We kissed. I could see Sarah and Aaron kissing too. Maria and Antonio were holding hands.

Over the music on the loudspeaker, we heard Clarissa call "ready Maria and Aaron." They quickly put on clothes and left the dressing room. They were doing a skit on the premise of two strangers trapped in a very hot elevator. As the elevator car supposedly got hotter, they began disrobing until they were both nude. At that point, they basically forgot about the heat and began exploring each other. The skit took several minutes. After a while, Clarissa called "Derrick ready." Derrick put on a fireman's coat and hat and left the room. The skit ended with Derrick playing a fireman rescuing the stranded strangers and finding them naked in an embrace.