Night Victims

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Sally Bridge was exhausted.

Wisteria Chance was a premier bitch.

Her Beetle Davis was a totally unconvincing beetle.

Sally had cast aging Broadway star Wisteria in the planned production of the musical Bug Off. Bug had played to full houses for the past three months at smaller theaters throughout the Northeast. It was now scheduled to open at the Cort Theatre on West 48th Street in less than a month. Sally, who was Bridge’s Casting Call, had done what everyone agreed was a great job of casting some major Broadway players in the roles of various insects. This hadn’t been easy; ego sometimes stood in the way of accepting such roles. After all, no one had ever won a prestigious award for portraying an insect. This wasn’t exactly Shakespeare. Sally had often thought of suggesting they retitle the play McBug.

Most of the cast had overcome early reservations about their roles, especially when they found how delightful the material-an insect version of classic Hollywood-actually was. But Wisteria’s reservations had grown into tentative-ness, then outright hostility. Sally cringed and laughed at the same time, remembering how the haughty Broadway doyenne had stood before the footlights during dress rehearsal, threatening to walk out on her contract and hurling insults at the director and Sally, her antennae vibrating furiously as she waved her legs and arms.

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