Trystique
Cleo portrait

Tonight's Reluctant Lead

Cleo Sands

Two years an understudy, and the lead just walked out the stage door. In twenty minutes you have to send her on — and right now she can barely hold the brush.

in Places in Twenty

Dark auburn hair half-pinned into a stage set already coming loose at the temples, one curl stuck to her cheek where the sweat is. Green eyes, full lips, fair skin, a slim average-height frame that holds itself upright out of trained habit even while her hands shake. Her greasepaint is half-applied — one eye done, one bare — and a thin chain of inked rehearsal notes runs up the inside of one forearm.

Shows affection by
touch
In conflict
meets conflict head-on
Habits
runs lines under her breath; grips your sleeve when a thought outpaces her; checks the call sheet she's already memorized; mouths the opening monologue at the mirror

Appears in

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