UPDATED 4/11/25 due to missing text in previous update
Two weeks had already passed since the first script reading ended.
Flip.
I sat in my usual seat and leafed through the script of RUN.
It was a script I had turned through countless times already.
Thanks to that, the individual sheets had lost all stiffness and fell over limply.
Flip, flip.
Whether the pages turned quickly or not meant little to me now.
I had the entire script memorized.
The moment I first received it—before I even went to the reading—I had learned it all.And at the reading I checked how each actor digested the lines I already knew.
Checking that, too, would nourish how I would complete this grandson role.Reading with a large group again after so long had been fun.
It was hardly different from the way we used to rehearse together back at the Oscar Troupe.
Normally reporters come to readings for shows this big, but Jessica wanted everything kept secret until opening night, so press access was restricted.
Thanks to that, we finished the first reading in comfort.
Later Jo Yi‑su told me Jessica had pulled strings in advance because the cast included quite a few child actors like me.
Right. Up through the reading there had been no problems at all.
Clack.
I closed the script I had finished memorizing and analyzing.
I hadn’t been looking at the letters to read them.
I was turning the pages one by one to sort out my thoughts.
“Ah‑hyooh.”
With an involuntary sigh I swung my legs.
The place I was sitting now was not the Gwanghwamun Culture Center.
It was the artistic‑director’s office of Bisangcheolddo 777, a place I went in and out of like my own house.
Unlike Bisangcheolddo 777, Rainbow Pictures kept to its iron rule of protecting child actors.
I’d heard the actors say that America strictly regulates child labor?
Maybe because of that, during RUN rehearsals there was a cap on the child actors’ practice hours.
No matter how early I showed up, after a few hours they would send me home, saying that was all for today.
If I went in the afternoon, I had to leave early as well, so I made a point of dragging myself to the studio first thing in the morning.
Even so, I couldn’t practice as much as I wanted.
Of course, when I was at Bisangcheolddo 777, thanks to Kim Sang‑cheol’s consideration I could practice whenever I wished and rest when I wished.
When we staged The People in the House on the Roof, there were set times for group rehearsal, and I kept those rigorously.
Even then my part wasn’t very big, so the official rehearsal hours weren’t that long.
Out of regret, I would always watch the others rehearse or imitate their acting alone and play in the studio.
If I had questions I could grab Uncle or Kang Yong‑hwi and ask.
If Uncle’s rehearsal ran too late, I would come to the director’s office and nap.
Come to think of it, all of that had been possible because Uncle was with me.
But at the Gwanghwamun Culture Center I had to be kicked out on the dot after a few hours.
The first few days I was dazed.
I tried saying I wanted to do more and that I still had energy, but that didn’t work on Jessica.
“Siwoo, when you’re little you have to eat a lot, play a lot, and sleep a lot. That way you grow tall and make it all the way to Broadway, right?”
She was telling me that working hard could wait until I was a bit older.
With Jessica, the person in overall charge, saying no, I couldn’t very well stay longer at the culture center.
It was mortifying beyond words.
I was the lead, too.
And look at all those actors practicing late—yet I had to go home.
After a few days of that, I asked Mother a favor.
Once again I had been chased out of the Gwanghwamun Culture Center after rehearsal; in the car, while she was driving, I said,
“Mom, I want to go to Uncle’s troupe.”
“Huh? Should I drop you at Bisangcheolddo?”
“Y‑yeah. Is that okay?”
I felt bad about making Mother run me around.
When I hemmed and hawed, she laughed breezily.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I actually like moving around outside with you instead of staying home every day.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’ll take you right over. It’s near the house anyway.”
From then on, whenever rehearsal ended I clocked in at Bisangcheolddo 777 as usual.
On the more tiring days I’d call with the cell phone Mother had bought me and she would pick me up.
Otherwise I’d come home with Uncle, timing it for when he got off work.
Uncle, who had landed another tiny bit part in the new show, was fired up and working hard again this time.
I watched Uncle’s acting, chatted with Kang Yong‑hwi, and spent my days sitting in the director’s office reading the script like this.
“Hmmm.”
But today, of all days, I couldn’t concentrate at all.
“Ehh‑hyoo.”
For what must have been the umpteenth time, a sigh burst from my lips.
The script that was in my hands every day did not draw my fingers today.
“At this rate you’ll wear a hole in my office floor. Siwoo‑ya. What’s with that worried face on a five‑year‑old?”
Kim Sang‑cheol came into the office just then, saw me, and approached with a laugh.
“Still cute, though.”
Maybe because of the pout on my lips.
He pinched my plump cheeks lightly as though they were adorable.
And, as always, I shook my head violently.
“Eeek! Don’t do that!”
“Looks like you really are full of worries today?”
At the fiercer‑than‑usual head‑shake Kim Sang‑cheol caught on like a ghost and asked.
At his words I glanced down at the script once more and let out a deep sigh.
“Good grief, look at that script all dog‑eared. How many times have you read it now?”
“A hundred times.”
“A hundred?”
Geez, the kid’s practice load…
Muttering like that, Kim Sang‑cheol, I swallowed quietly, unable to say I’d read it more than a hundred times.
I mean, I’m the lead, so a hundred times is the least I should.
Any lead who shows up having skimmed only a little wouldn’t get a stage.
If it were Shakespeare, he might have shouted for me to leave on the spot.
He was merciless to actors who weren’t ready by opening day.
Huh?
Come to think of it, I’d heard Kim Sang‑cheol used to act himself.
And as artistic director of Bisangcheolddo 777 he must have seen plenty of actors to date.
Look at that.
Maybe he could be the perfect person to consult about my current problem.
The hmph with which I’d turned my head lasted only a moment; eyes shining, I looked up at Kim Sang‑cheol.
“Director‑nim.”
“Mm? What is it?”
“Hyoo, I have a worry. Do you have a moment?”
“Hmm? Ha‑ha, sure. I’m free enough. Want a cup of tea?”
“Yes, the usual, please.”
I nodded weakly and asked.
Kim Sang‑cheol readily said okay and stepped outside the office.
“Hyoo, what happened this morning is…”
With two steaming cups he quickly brought, we sat facing each other.
Blowing on his coffee, Kim Sang‑cheol nodded as if to say, Go ahead.
“At the rehearsal studio I…”
I began the story slowly.
It was what had happened this morning.
As usual I greeted loudly and entered the studio.
It had been two weeks since the reading and we had begun full‑scale practice.
“Today we’ll rehearse wearing mics exactly like on stage.”
At Jessica’s announcement all the actors put on head mics.
With help from the staff I, too, wore a head mic for the first time.
“Ah‑ah. Wow!”
“Ha‑ha, amazing, right? With this on your lines can be heard even in a big theater.”
While I was marveling at the mic, Jessica came over and spoke first.
“Amazing. That such technology exists… The world is astonishing.”
“Goodness, Si‑woo. Just now you sounded like a grandfather who’s lived for decades.”
The four‑hundred‑year‑old soul inside me gave a jolt, and I hurriedly shifted the topic.
“It’s just that I’ve never worn a mic like this in my life. It’s lighter than I thought.”
Fiddling with the receiver at my waist in fascination, I saw Jessica nod in satisfaction. She said I’d have to wear it at my waist every day from now on in rehearsal.
“Mm, good. I asked them to prepare the lightest one possible. You’re so small, Si‑woo.”
“I’m going to grow tall soon.”
“Exactly. Which is why you should go home early and sleep early.”
“Hyoo, how can I win against Jessica.”
I was about to nod that I understood Jessica’s ironclad insistence when a strange whispering reached me from the side.
“Ah, there he is talking in English with Jessica again.”
“If you’re Korean you should speak Korean. Because of him my mom’s on my case to study English these days.”
“Same. I’m dead tired when I get home—how am I supposed to study English?”
Young voices.
It was the muttering of the child actors playing bit parts.
Jessica was especially friendly with me.
That was inevitable.
Among the leads I was the one who could use English most fluently.
The problem was that, seeing this, the child actors’ mothers had apparently nagged their kids.
Hyoo, it’s not like I can tell them I’m actually British. No chance of that happening.
I gestured to Jessica and walked toward the group of child actors one to three years older than me.
“Hyung‑ahs, have you ever worn a mic?”
“H‑huh?”
“O‑of course! We’ve even shot under one of those long boom mics!”
I didn’t know what a boom mic was, but anyway they all said they had experience.
“Wow, it’s my first time. So, uh…”
Hostile as the kids might be, when I approached them first in a friendly way I could feel them, embarrassed, pricking up their ears to me.
They’re all hooked, all hooked.
I was about to chatter on a bit more when one kid strode up.
“What the heck? Go away. You’re not even Nam Yeon‑su… Don’t act all chummy. It’s annoying.”
The child actor double‑cast as the same grandson role as me appeared and blocked the way between me and the bit players.
Ah, what’s with him again.
I think his name was Seong Ji‑hun.
For days he’d been getting in my way like this.
“Uh‑uh, Ji‑hun‑ah.”
“We were just standing here and he came up first…”
Strangely enough, the other kids glanced at Seong Ji‑hun and edged away from me!
In the end I failed again to get closer to the others.
By the way, Nam Yeon‑su?
Who’s that?
A name I’d never heard, but evidently famous among these kids.
I didn’t know the name, but the way everyone flinched and backed off when it came up…
Still, even if that kid had shown up, I’d have been the one cast.
Tilting my head, I let out a long sigh.
It was an attempt to calm my frustrated mind even a little.
“Ha‑ha! Si‑woo‑ya, did you just sigh?”
“Ah, so cute, seriously.”
At a perfect moment the speaker system picked up my sigh and it rang loud through the studio.
After that little commotion of “So cute,” Seong Ji‑hun’s harassment for the day seemed to be over.
Except—
Thunk—
Maybe because I brushed it off too lightly.
During break Seong Ji‑hun bumped my shoulder as he passed.
Thud—
“Ow.”
Between me and Seong Ji‑hun there was a whole three‑year age gap.
At this age, children’s physical development differs enormously.
Hit by an eight‑year‑old, I, five, fell harder than expected, and the studio atmosphere turned hostile in an instant.
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