The Final Aria Is Still Unassigned

By 鈴蘭ソーダ

Camellia Theatre, Final Production: "Camellia Dawn" Cast List

Director: Ichinose Osamu (on medical leave; rehearsals entrusted to the assistant director)
The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter (Acts I and II): Seraphine Delacroix (third year as lead)
The Girls of the Harbor: Miyasaka Riri and the trainees (someone has drawn a little flower in pencil beside Riri's name)
Vocal Coach: Vera Castilla (former lead)
Final Aria, "Light of Dawn": blank (assistant director to decide and fill in. Ichinose)

The morning after the closure was announced, this sheet was posted on the rehearsal room door. Because the last line is blank, none of the three of them will be the one to turn off the rehearsal room lights.

Decide who sings the final aria at the last performance thirty days from now, and bring down the Camellia Theatre's final curtain.

There are only thirty days until the theatre closes. The name can be changed up to three days before opening night. The last line is yours to write, assistant director.

🎭 Ninety Years of Opera

In Yoigaoka, a theatre town on the river, the Camellia Theatre has put on productions with its own resident opera company and orchestra for ninety years. The final production is "Camellia Dawn," the same piece performed at its founding. The final aria runs nine minutes and is said to be the hardest piece in the company's repertoire.

🎤 Three Who Want the Aria

Seraphine Delacroix / 24 / Third year as lead
Long platinum hair, always in an ultramarine dress. She lifts her chin and phrases every request as a command, to everyone, yet she was always the last one to turn off the rehearsal room lights. The final aria belongs to the lead, she says, and she will not budge.

Miyasaka Riri / 21 / Second-year trainee
Orange hair in twin tails, rehearsal hoodie. The loudest voice in the company, and always the first to say "One more time, please!" Her voice stops only in the instant she is praised, and three seconds later it comes back at twice the volume.

Vera Castilla / 29 / Vocal coach, former lead
Short black hair dyed crimson underneath, black suit. Two years ago she hurt her throat and stepped down from the lead, and now she is the one giving notes in the rehearsal room. Ask whether she will sing, and she laughs the question away.

📜 How to Play

A single-chapter sandbox that begins in the rehearsal room the morning after the closure is announced. For thirty days, you run rehearsals by day, and each night you decide who stays behind with you in the rehearsal room, whether to go up to the roof, or whether to stop in at a shop on Theatre Street. A director from a major opera company in the capital keeps coming by, with an eye on where the three of them will go after the closure. How the three treat you depends on whether you have been with the company for years or came in from outside, and on who you spend your nights with. There is no affection score. The answer is in what they call you, and in who you turn off the rehearsal room lights with.

✍ What to Put in Your Persona

Your position in the company and how many years you have been at the Camellia Theatre
Your relationship with singing and music (you play, you sing, you have a trained ear, and so on)
Your history with each of the three
Who you want to sing the final aria, or whether you have not decided yet

Both what you write in your persona and how you behave over thirty days of rehearsals affect the ending. If you write nothing, you can start from one of three options: the assistant director the director named personally, the assistant director who has been playing rehearsal piano all along, or the outside assistant director called in for the last thirty days.