Welcome to Night Vale - 204 - Audition

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Auditions are open for "Our Town" Weather: “Yes This Song Is About You and No, I'm Still Not Over It” by Friends For Sale https://friendsforsale.bandcamp.com/ Transcript available at http://welcometonightvale.com/transcripts WEATHER SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN: https://www.welcometonightvale.com/betheweather 2022 US / CANADA / EUROPE TOUR DATES for “The Haunting of Night Vale” http://welcometonightvale.com/live Hot Night Vale merch! https://topatoco.com/wtnv Patreon is how we exist! If you can, please help us keep making this show: http://patreon.com/welcometonightvale/ Music: Disparition http://disparition.bandcamp.com Logo: Rob Wilson http://robwilsonwork.com Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. http://welcometonightvale.com Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Check out our books, live shows, store, membership program, and official recap show. Produced by Night Vale Presents. http://nightvalepresents.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy y'all. It is Jeffrey Craneer. I'm not sure which episode of Welcome to Nightville you're listening to, but I am speaking to you from April of 2026. And I'm here to tell you we're going to be in Europe. If you want to see Nightville live and you're going to be in Europe, come check us out at the end of May. We're going to be in Edinburgh on May the 27th. We will be in Manchester on the 28th, London on the 29th, and Amsterdam on May the 30th. Just go to Welcome to Nightville.com slash live to see the show dates and to get your tickets. This is. our newest Nightville live show Murder Night in Blood Forest. It is so much fun. Please come check it out. Also, coming up this month here in April, it is the return of Alice Isn't Dead, brand new episodes of our other crazy hit podcast. This is written by Joseph Fink, produced and with music by disparition and starring Jacique and Nicole. So make sure you are still subscribed to Alice Isn't Dead and go get those on April the 13th as new episodes come out. Finally, speaking of other shows, do you want to hear us talk about other things? We have three other really great chat shows. First of all, there's Good Morning Nightvale for all of your Nightvale needs. You can hear

Hal, Meg, and Symphony talk about every single episode in order of Welcome to Nightvale. Also, we have Random Horror Number Nine. That is me and Nightville star Cecil Baldwin talking about horror movies one at a time in a random order. And then Joseph and Meg do best, worst, which is a really fun podcast where they look at hit TV shows and they review the best rated. on IMDB, the worst rated on IMDB, and if you're a Patreon member, they will review the middleest rated on IMDB. So check out

all of those at Nightvillepresents.com or just wherever you get your podcast. And hey, thanks. She knows. How? Did you blam? No. The Devil wears Prada 2. He's the movie event 20 years in the making. Honestly, can't with the secrets anymore, so I think we just

we should tell her. Will you two please spit it out already? This Friday, be the first to Experience it only in theaters. In light of the recent scandal, I'm sure to restore your credibility. Oh, because we're a team now? That's a nice story. The Devil Wares Prada 2 in Theaters Friday.

Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough, but still, you know, at the bottom of the list. Welcome to Night Vale. Well, listeners, I did it. I tried out for a play. I haven't done that since college. I certainly performed in my fair share of plays and musicals back at... um... university?

We definitely did the classics like Tartouf and the Iceman Cometh, and She's All That. But we also did some more contemporary works like Tartouf, but all nude, and the Iceman cometh, but set in space, and She's All That. But we did a new adaptation where we replaced every scene with a song from the musical cats. And we were all dressed as dogs. I miss doing theatre. I, of course, love performing. And I still get to do that every day here on the radio.

But the electricity of being live on stage in front of an audience, nothing can replace that feeling. So I was thrilled this week to get a press release from the Night Vale, community players who were having auditions for their production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. It is going to be a faithful version directed by Penny Carrera, who of course, in the past has been known for more exotic dramatic pieces. She mounted a version of School for Scandal two seasons ago, set entirely in the woods. She only cast live deer, and the audience was starved for five days, and then handed crossbows, a real triumph of immersive theater. And last season, she directed a world premiere musical by Lynn Manuel Miranda.

Unfortunately, I didn't see that show. Apparently, it was a huge hit. They sold out every single performance, and everyone on Twitter hated it. But I'm thrilled they're doing Ourtown, one of my all-time favorite plays. I've dreamed my whole life of getting to play the scene. stage manager. That's the narrator of the play. Like, who is better than the voice of a community to play the voice of a community, right? So, for my audition, I chose a monologue from King Lear. His famous speech about how they don't call a quarter pounder with cheese, a quarter pounder with

cheese in France, I really wanted to showcase my good nature demeanor. The auditions were held at the old Orphium Theater downtown. It's a 150-year-old stage that was just remodeled last year. This will be the first show in the Orphium since Sondheim's Pacific Overtures in 1983, which is famous for being the most successful musical in history that no one has ever seen. While I was at the Orphium, I learned about the Ghost of Mary Mulligan. She was an actress from the 19th century, very famous in Nightvale. But one night, while performing the role of Lady Macbeth, she said the word, Macbeth, while on stage.

Now, for those who don't know, Macbeth is an unlucky word to speak aloud in a theater, which is unfortunate for those who have to perform Macbeth because it's nearly impossible to do the play without ever saying that word. Usually, everyone who performs Macbeth just agrees to rename the two leads, Scott and Lady Scott.

But Mary Mulligan, one night, accidentally said Macbeth. Then she died in the performance. Apparently, a piano fell from the fly space. Oh, it didn't hit her, but it splintered the wood floor, sending dagger-like shards in all directions, narrowly missing everyone. But causing an audience member to cough up a peanut, and Mary Mulligan was deathly allergic to peanuts.

Fortunately, the peanut landed harmlessly on the ground dozens of feet from Mary, but an usher slipped on that peanut and then fell into the curtains, pulling them down to the stage, which didn't hurt anyone, but it startled a family of bats who swarmed the stage, causing Mary Mulligan to fall into the orchestra pit, where she was impaled on a... an oboe. And to this day, she haunts the theater. Anyone who says the word, Macbeth, inside the orphium, will hear a loud, oboe-like squawk, and then they will die immediately in a mysterious Rube-Goldbergian accident. Well, we all avoided saying the forbidden word, though at one point

I overheard Joel Eisenberg tell Elizabeth Samson, I heard you just bought a new Mac, Beth, and everyone halted and waited for the ghost of Mary Mulligan to do something. But she wasn't going to bust people on a technicality. She's a ghost, not a cop. I'm not into superstitions, but I was curious about Mary's history, not only in life, but in death.

In death, she's a very active ghost. She hasn't cursed or killed anyone recently, but she's often seen walking around the dark hallways at night, moaning and howling. Sometimes she appears as a distant outline of a woman in dark corners. Sometimes she appears up close, her pale white face, black lips and eyes, and long yellow teeth, totally visible only inches from yours. She sometimes yells, boo, if she's feeling playful. Her favorite thing to do is this sustained e-sound until both of you are screaming, stuck, unable to run. But mostly, Mary Mulligan remains invisible.

Only the occasional creak of a board or the tick-tock of a clock that doesn't exist. We all can feel Mary's presence there. However, as a ghost, Mary Mulligan is somehow less frightening than she was when she was alive. Mary was an ardent churchgoer, a Puritan, who did not like any suggestion of impropriety, sexuality, dancing, or smiling at dogs. She was known to go to the Sunlight All-Day Cafe in the New Town Square back in the late 1800s and slap cough. and cigars out of diners' hands. Caffeine is the devil's ketchup, she'd shout, and then hand people a piece of paper with a Bible verse on it.

Her favorite scripture was Leviticus, Chapter 14, verse 55, which just reads, For defiling molds in fabric or in a house. I think there's some missing context there. Mary had her positive qualities, of course. She ran a school and boarding home for orphans. She cared a great deal for children, though she seemed to despise them once they became adults. And despite her popularity on the Orphium stage, Mary Mulligan hated actors. She only joined the theater company to shame the artists she considered heathens in the eyes of her God.

She berated her fellow actors every day about their sins. None of the other actors or crew cared to hear what she had to say about heaven or hell, but they did think she was an immensely talented actor. The theater critic Jonathan Murrow of the Night Vale Daily Journal in 1891, called Mary Mulligan's performance of Ophelia, quote, truly unhinged. And in 1895, he said of her take on Lady Windermere, quote, it is likely that Mary Mulligan is not an actress, but a satchel full with seagulls and set a flame inside a lady's ballgown. Yet, despite Mary's difficulty in getting along with her fellow actors, she maintained a job on the stage.

And I respect that. Everyone is different, and what better arena than art itself is there for learning to understand one another? to grow as humans. I wished I could have met Mary Mulligan in person. She would have been a fascinating, although potentially offensive, and maddening interview. But what if, I thought, what if I were to try to get an interview with her spirit? Has anyone attempted this before? In all of history, has even one person.

tried to talk to a ghost. I thought not. Maybe if we just talked it out with ghosts, they wouldn't be so spooky at all. The auditionees were all asked to wait till everyone had auditioned, and then they were going to have us do some group auditioning. Dance lines, cone drills, blood tests, things like that. But after I did my two monologues, which I crushed, by the way, I got bored listening to Joel Eisenberg absolutely butcher his audition piece from Equus. He made the text sound gritty and perverse. And I was like, Joel, it's a play about a little kid who loves horsies. Lighten up. My brother-in-law, Steve Carlsberg, also auditioned, but for some reason he thought Our Town was a musical?

So he sang both parts of All I Ask of You from Phantom. Oh, I also saw Sarah Sultan there. She's a fist-sized river rock, and I heard she was going to perform a monologue from David Mamet's Oliana, and hers was the only audition I truly wanted to see. Still, there were a dozen more people to get through. So I snuck off to the bowels of the theater, hoping to find the ghost of Mary Mulligan. I listened carefully for any ghastly noise. But nothing. I went through the orchestra pit. I searched the storage closets. I looked in rehearsal

studios. I poked my head into the green rooms. Nothing. And then I remembered the piano. It fell from the fly space. The night sheep uttered that cursed word. So I slipped behind the curtains and looked straight up into the series of pulleys, ropes, scrims, and hooks, all covered in cobwebs and dust. I found a ladder side stage and began to climb, gently so as not to create a lot of clanking noises. I didn't want the director to notice I had slipped away. Step by soft step, I climbed, looking up to the catwalk, some 30 feet above the stage below. I glanced down briefly to see how far I had gone, but that was a mistake.

My equilibrium left me for a moment, and the straight lines of ropes around me began to spiral in my vision. I lost hold of one side of the ladder, and both of my feet slipped from their rung. With only my left hand, I held tightly to the ladder's metal sides. I almost screamed for help, but I knew I could do this. I only needed to collect my breath, put my other hand on the ladder, swing my feet back up, and then it was her. It was Mary. She was hanging upside down only inches from my face. Her eyes were sunken, twisted pits.

Her teeth jagged and broken behind curled lips, and her nose, oh God, her nose was completely gone. just a triangular hole in gray bone. Her jaw stretched open, and she began to hiss, not like a cat, but like a balloon one slowly lets deflate. And that hiss tightened into a squeal, which soon became a scream. And I wanted to scream, too, but I was too scared to do anything. I watched helplessly as Mary's fingers began to pry mine loose from the ladder, and soon the last digit gave way, and I fell.

Thirty feet below me was not certain death, but something much worse. Thirty feet below me was certain pain, followed by likely death. plus the embarrassment of falling in front of the other auditionees, and the added insult to injury that my final moments would be listening to Joel Eisenberg's bike horn of a voice utterly destroy Peter Schaffer's Tony winning play. And as I fell, I thought of the last thing that has saved me so many times before, though I couldn't imagine it working here at a theater, away from my room. radio show. But just as I was about to die, I uttered under my breath. But first, the weather.

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The weather saved me. Before I hit the ground, I felt something grabbed the collar of my shirt and yank me upward, like I was a troublesome kitten. It was Mary Mulligan, or her ghost. She pulled me high into the air and threw me down onto the catwalk, her rotted skull of a face hunched over mine. She whispered, What do you know of weather? I stammered. I didn't know what she meant, like rain or temperature? Sometimes it's sunny? My dear love, Herbert, was taken from me by a great storm, she said.

I'm sorry, I said. We were to be married, Herbert and I, she growled. Well, why weren't you? I asked. He drank. He gambled. He... He danced. He fancied other men. He listened to music.

Of all things. Music. And he sometimes smoked the wicked earth. Mary was clenching her fist to her chest like a Celine Dion impersonator. He sounds fun, I said too quickly forgetting who I was talking to, forgetting Mary's strict Puritanism. He was fun, she grinned a bit, but quickly reverted back to her comic book villain's sneer.

But God did not find Herbert fun at all. The last time I saw my love, he was leaving my home to tell his family of our engagement. The rain was falling hard, and Herbert sloshed away from my door, and his last words to me were, I shall see thee soon, my love. But first, the weather. It disappeared into the night, and I never saw him alive again. That's terrible. I said.

She added, the rain became a flood, and Herbert's house was infested with black mold, deep in the dry wall, just as it predicted in Leviticus. And that's how Herbert died. God's vengeance. She sobbed, and I put my arms around her. Well, she wasn't very tangible, so it kind of hurt to keep it held up around where her shoulders appeared.

But you know, Mary? I said, I don't think God killed Herbert out of punishment. I think bad things sometimes happen to fun people. And fun things sometimes happen to bad people. I like to think there's a God who sorts all this stuff out and there probably are some pretty magical universal forces that we just don't comprehend. But there's no God who deals in pure justice. Otherwise Herbert would have lived,

and Joel Eisenberg down there would have caught another case of throat spiders before choosing to do that monologue. Mary's face turned sour again. I could see anger in those hollow eyes and gnarled teeth. But it faded into thoughtful reflection. Then consternation. Listen, I said. I also don't believe the superstitions around saying Macbeth in a theater either.

She gasped at my fatal slip of the tongue, and somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard an oboe. But honestly, it was probably a creaky pipe. There are lots of weird old noises and weird old buildings. No reason to cram every little detail into a pessence. mystic interpretation. Mary, why don't you audition? I said.

You'd be an amazing narrator. I thought that part was Taylor made for me, but your Night Vale history through and through. You're perfect. You got this part sewed up. She smiled again. And then she said, Well, I'd certainly be better than that thing you call Joel.

It's like he's never even seen a play. Yeah, you get it, I said. So, Mary Mulligan and I went down to the stage, just as Joel finished his performance. Sarah Sulton was about to begin her audition when everyone in the theater saw us. There was a collective intake of breath. A couple of people passed out.

Some started to run. Some pointed, trying to warn me about ghost over my shoulder. I turned to the director, Penny, and said, Mary would like to audition for the part of the stage manager. And so Mary did. And she got cast, though it was for the part of George's mother, which I don't think is the best fit, but I'm happy Mary gets to act on stage again. And she gets to act opposite Steve Carlsberg, who's playing George's father. Joel Eisenberg got cast as Big Knuckle Sal, the mob boss who gets gunned downed in the second scene. And if you're wondering who got the part of the stage manager?

It wasn't me. I didn't get cast at all. Oh, I'm not mad. Apparently you have to come to rehearsals in order to be in a stage play, and I put on my availability that I was unwilling to work nights or weekends or during the work day. so that's fine. But, interestingly enough, Sarah Sultan got cast as the stage manager.

And I hate that I missed her audition. Steve told me it was fire. But I look forward to seeing the play. Stay tuned next for the sound of a single oboe played somewhere in the world at this very moment. Its effect on your life? Yet to be determined. Good night.

Nightvale. Good night. Welcome to Nightvale, this production of Nightvale Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craner and produced by Disparition.

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin. Original music by Disparition. All of it can be found at disperition. com. This episode's weather was, yes, this is a song about you,

and no, I'm still not over it. By Friends for Sale. Find out more at Friends for sale.bancamp.com. Comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at night veil radio. Or ask your baby. Do you see the kitty? Do you hear the puppy? Check out welcome to nightvale.com for info about our tour, which is so soon. We get to be in a room with all of you again so soon. Today's proverb, I'm over the moon. Hi, we're Meg Bashminer.

of Think. Of welcome to Nightvale, and on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the Golden Age of Television. To do that, we're watching the IMDB viewer-rated best and worst episodes of classic TV shows. The episode of Star Trek, where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost, the episode of the X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat. And also, the really good episodes, too. What can we learn from the best and worst of great television? Like, for example, is it really a bad episode, or do people just hate women? The Best Worst. Available, wherever you get your podcasts.