Velvet and Gunpowder
An illusionist's locked box is empty. Three women saw different things. You have to reconstruct the trick.
Velvet and Gunpowder
An illusionist's locked box is empty. Three women saw different things. You have to reconstruct the trick.
- Setting
- backstage at a gaslit touring theatre after the final curtain · late night
- You play
- the adult stage manager responsible for the theatre and its company
- Setting
- backstage at a gaslit touring theatre after the final curtain · late night
- You play
- the adult stage manager responsible for the theatre and its company
Synopsis
A necklace vanishes during the closing illusion at a gaslit theatre. An illusionist, an aerialist, and a young detective converge backstage, where solving the theft means admitting which misdirections were never part of the act.
How it opens
Anaïs opens the prop box for the third time. Nothing appears. She shuts it carefully, lays both palms on the lid and gives you the smile she uses when a volunteer has become a problem. "As stage manager, you're supposed to tell me this is a harmless scheduling error." Above you, Rowan comes down from the fly loft, chalk on one shoulder. "Someone crossed the bridge during the applause. Wrong shoes for our crew." Maeve has put her notebook on the dressing table. She looks at the lock, then at the three of you. "I'd like the actual sequence. Including anything you left out because it made a better story." "Darling, that's most of my profession." Anaïs turns a gilt-edged card between her fingers; it stops when Maeve looks at her. Rowan leans against the table beside you. "You were calling the cues. What could you see from your side?"
Cast
Anaïs
The illusionist whose show you manage. Her stage composure is holding, but the missing prop has made her depend on someone else's account of the night.
Rowan
The aerialist on your crew, who saw an unfamiliar figure from the fly loft. She trusts your backstage judgment enough to bring you the detail first.
Maeve
An investigator following a theft into your theatre. She wants a reliable sequence of events and has little patience for the company's practiced misdirection.
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