Audition Central: Xanadu JR.

Script: Calliope

SIDE 1

MELPOMENE
Calliope! Calliope? Follow me into this abandoned auditorium.

(CALLIOPE enters)

CALLIOPE
Now, Sister, I am confused. We re Muses of inspiration. What are we doing in a theater?

MELPOMENE
Come along to the center of stage, past this discarded scenery.

CALLIOPE
(licking her lips)
Oh, scenery!

MELPOMENE
Calliope! No chewing the scenery! This is where once and for all we shall put a curse on Kira and her mortal Sonny. We shall make them fall in love.

CALLIOPE
Why do mortals fall in love?

MELPOMENE
Oh, there are many reasons why mortals fall in love. For some, it is lust. For others, it is companionship. For a few in the San Fernando Valley, it is simply because the other one has air conditioning. But we shall make them fall in love in the most lethal way known. We shall make them complete one another.

CALLIOPE
Girl, you are a menace!

MELPOMENE
Off we do go! Let us hide and complete our evil mission.

CALLIOPE
Giggle!

MELPOMENE
No! Let us not giggle! Let us cackle!

CALLIOPE
How about I giggle and you cackle?

SIDE 2

KIRA
Zeus tells me he will be sending a sign. And now I must go and inspire great work!

(#7  THE MUSES MUSE (PART 3) begins. KIRA exits.)

EUTERPE
Sweet Sisters of Inspiration!

TERPSICHORE
Let us attend to our various charges!

(#8  THE MUSES MUSE (PART 4) begins. The MUSES exit, leaving MELPOMENE and CALLIOPE alone.) begins. KIRA exits.)

MELPOMENE
Calliope, hasten hither.

CALLIOPE
I m already hither.

MELPOMENE
I crave a word with you. I need not tell you, as first born, I was entitled to the position of leader of the Muses.

CALLIOPE
And yet Zeus did not grant thusly. What gives?

MELPOMENE
Achelous. [akhe-ló-os]

CALLIOPE
The river god?

MELPOMENE
He was a river god, and he was a rambling man. He left me with my daughters, Molpe [mol-pay], Peisonoe [pay-so-no-ee], Thelxiepeia [thel-ksee-EH-pee-ah]

CALLIOPE
Like a Jennifer or a Susan would have killed you.

MELPOMENE
Ah, my daughters! For years I instructed them in the lute and the flute. And now they sit by the seaside singing and playing and luring sailors to their rocky deaths. Yes, my daughters, the Sirens.