circumstellart

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Page 1: A mustard colored silhouette enters a brick building, walking by a bulletin board where a cast list has been pinned. 

Narration text reads, “Anyone involved in theatre has heard the word ‘ephemeral’ tossed around like a given. Theatre is an art that exists for a short period of time, and once the curtain falls on closing night, it’s over. Of course, the script is fixed, and the same show can be put on hundreds of times -”

Page 2: “But it’ll never be quite the same,” finishes the narration. 

A group of silhouettes, each one a single solid color, sit around a room. We are shown the set of a play - a cluttered bar - along with a few groupings of the silhouettes in character. 

Over it all, a purple silhouette says, “So here’s my capital V vision for the show: You’re all childhood friends, reconnecting in a bar after a while apart, when one of you asks, ‘Hey, does anyone remember that game we used to play as kids about orphans and sailors and pirates and starcatchers?’”

Page 3: The purple silhouette continues, “So yes, this show is about Peter Pan and Captain Hook and all the other characters we know and love, but it’s also about you - a group of friends being kids together for a while, remembering that story and remembering each other.” 

The first two panels show the purple silhouette talking, and the latter two depict the rest of the silhouettes goofing off as a group and singing, “Tonight!” while playing instruments and raising bottles joyously.

Page 4: Narration across multiple panels reads, “I didn’t know what to expect, coming into the theatre department for the first time. I certainly didn’t go into the rehearsal process with the explicit intent to make friends. But I think it’s impossible to spend upwards of sixteen hours a week with people and not become close.” 

First panel shows the mustard silhouette at a piano, saying, “Uh...let’s just start learning the shanty and see how it goes?” 

Second panel has a mauve silhouette ask, “Can we get those ‘ahhs’ like...one more time? Maybe two,” as everyone crowds around a piano on set. 

The third panel shows everyone singing together, “Vino bianco trebbiano!” in triumphant poses.

Page 5: Multiple panels show the set and various spoons hidden throughout, two held by a red silhouette and the rest leaning in different locations. The final panel shows the purple silhouette sitting in the audience, and they say over the rest of the panels: “So [red] has the musical spoons, and then theres the small spoon, the medium spoon, the large spoon, and the giant spoon.”

An offscreen voice asks, “...Please tell me that’s all.”

“You’ll never guess what the tiara is made out of,” continues the purple silhouette.

“Is it spoons?”

“...Yes.”

Narration text starts and continues to the next page: “From collecting inside jokes -”

Page 6: “To catching each other, and learning to fall ourselves.”

In the first two panels, a green figure stands atop a chest on set, falls backwards and is caught by five others.

The second panel shows six people holding each others’ wrists, ready for a basket catch. Unlabelled voices say, “Everyone safe? Everyone ready? Yeah.”

The third panel is two silhouettes leaning back against each other while sitting on the floor.

Page 7: Narration for the page reads, “It’s hard to do a play about found family without finding a bit of family along the way. But sometimes, at the end of rehearsals -”

In the audience section of the theatre, a dark blue silhouette at a table says, “That’s 10pm, everyone.”

As people pack up to leave, a yellow silhouette says, “Wait for [orange]! Let’s walk back together.” 

“I wanna stop and see the shrimp!” says a brown silhouette.

A group of six walk into a different building and look at an aquarium tank built into a wall.

“I guess it’s not technically a crab room, per se,” says a red silhouette.

The mustard one continues, “But it is a room for crabs!”

“Don’t they look like aliens?” asks the brown silhouette.

Page 8: In the same spot, the brown silhouette says, “Hey I think that one’s dead.”

“Where?” asks the mustard one.

“That one!” says a pink silhouette, pointing.

The next panel is a bird’s eye view of a path splitting in different directions amid grass, buildings, trees, and a pond. The red silhouette continues in one direction, the other five in the other. All of them say, “Goodnight!”

Narration finishes from previous page, “I think about how the end of the show is coming up fast, and how the end of college seems to be coming up even faster.”

Page 9: The purple silhouette asks, “So...what does goodbye mean to your characters? Especially the friends in the bar?”

Over several panels showing various scenes of the silhouettes interacting with each other, the mustard one answers, “It’s definitely a little bittersweet. You’re happy that you got to see people you loved, and you fall back in with them so easily, but you only know them as who they were the last time you saw them.

“That’s not who they are, though. They’ve done a whole lot of growing while you were away.”

Page 10: Over more scenes of holding hands, hugging, and standing together, they continue, “So you say goodbye, knowing you won’t see this version of your friends ever again, but also knowing that once they leave you, they’ll grow so much more.”

The last panel zooms out to see the full set and the edges of the rows of audience chairs, all the silhouettes tiny in the middle of the clutter.

Page 11: The first panel shows the silhouettes all together against the set.

“Guys, this is gonna be one awfully big adventure,” says the green one.

“You said it!” remarks a bright blue silhouette.

A teal one says, “Alright!”

The next three panels zoom in on hands and feet as they help the green silhouette to climb up on other people. The background fades away, and disembodied voices say: “Ready? Ready. Set? Set.”

Over the page, narration says, “I honestly don’t know how many of these people I’ll see again once school is over. I hope that number is nonzero. But even though theatre may be ephemeral, the lessons we learn from each other can last a lifetime.”

The last bit of dialogue from a disembodied voice says, “Go.”

Venus: We rebuild. First, we are shattered. Fragile cloud cover is nothing against blows dealt from all sides, the overwhelming crush and clang of rock against rock. With each new collision, it seems like all the world has stopped, ended here among a torn surface pockmarked with craters and hurt. And yet - time goes on. Tectonic plates rumble under the scar-strewn crust. Volcanoes spew forth healing salve, and new lava covers old craters We are remade over and over, healing old wounds and moving forward. It is not quick, and it is not easy. But when all seems lost, we rebuild.

Earth: We shelter. In this first and only home we’ve ever known, we find safety. We are raised by others around us, planted in soil made of the tiniest bits of this place. It is easy to forget what that means, and how that feels - to be connected, alone in the universe. It is easy to forget the traces we leave behind in litter, in footsteps, in stones, in each other. We’ve built skyscrapers and lives grounded in the dirt beneath our feet, roots tunneling so deep in this chunk of rock that somehow, we feel safe, home. Above everything, we shelter.

Moon: We orbit. We are seen and re-seen and close enough to touch. Did you know that the moon gets an inch and a half further from us each year? That it is slowly drifting off, and will one day leave us entirely? For now, we watch as it grows and shrinks and changes, experience its pull on our oceans and our lives. We reach out, connect, all the while watching the moon circle and dance. We have learned each other so well, known each other so long. We were present at each other’s birth - part of each other’s birth. And one day, we will drift apart. For now, though, we orbit.

Mars: We grow. Life arises in the most unexpected of places - through the cracks in concrete, in pitch-dark caves, at the bottoms of oceans. What determines where it grows? Is there a special formula - a handful of hope, a pinch of freedom, a bit of love, and a spark, to set it all going? Life exists everywhere, both where we have found it and where we have yet to discover it - something so rare and yet something so common, that perseveres through conditions we never thought possible. Life, in some form, goes on and on, and we will always find it. Even through hardship, we grow.

Jupiter: We triumph. What do we know of greatness? How do we define it, determine it, measure ourselves up against it? Success is often quantified by magnitude - by the number of people reached, by how far a message spreads, by how large a profit is earned. Is that the right way to see it? We are constantly achieving little victories. We change lives in the tiniest of ways, and looking to the largest of accomplishments only blinds us to quieter greatness. It is not necessary to become significant - only to do significant acts. When we try at all, we triumph.

Saturn: We redefine. With rings stripped away, Saturn is unrecognizable to most. What are we known by? It is easy to find the boldest, brightest thing about us and cling to it - this is me, this is who I am. What are we reduced to? Draw an outline, with one identifying feature, and suddenly we appear. Do we choose that? Can we choose that? Our sense of self is often firm, and may not have originally been fully our own, but it is not fixed. Yes, Saturn has rings - but few know it also has hexagonal poles that remain unique and unexplained to this day. When the time feels right, we redefine.

Uranus: We re-emerge. It is much easier to see the world as a place of worry and fear when all the brightness has been stripped away. Parts of Uranus see 42 years of constant darkness, stuck in inescapable bone-chilling shadow. With the only source of light so far away, hope seems impossible to grasp. Yet - the sun returns, eventually. It lights up the sky for the same never-ending stretch of time, illuminating all that the dark has made unbearable. It makes it possible for us to breathe and see and smile, and feel the warmth of light after darkness. After what feels like the longest night, we re-emerge.

Neptune: We connect. Distance may be an obstacle, but it is possible to feel the warmth of a distant sun, to be content with a close moment once every century and a half. It certainly isn’t effortless, but it is possible. Separation hurts and excludes and prevents but it is more an emotion than a physical reality. We make do with what we can. We send probes, pictures, anything that can cross the billions of miles between us. We learn about each other and search for something to make us feel close. Despite the distance, we connect.