Tom felt pleased to get a role for the school play. It wasn’t a ____1____ role; after all, this was only his first year at high school. It just felt good to be in the play, even if he had only four or five lines.
“Do them in front of a mirror,” his drama teacher had advised him. “Watch how you look;
____2____ as often as you can.” Tom did just that.
He worked and worked at it. It was fun and exciting rehearsing(排练). He ____3____ the time with other students. Then finally the big night came.
However, things felt ____4____. The theater was full of people. He could hear the noises of the audience. He looked around at other experienced actors and found the ____5____ they’d shown at rehearsal seemed to have disappeared. Had they got their makeup right? What if they forgot their lines? They talked about their ____6____ and the whole of the backstage area seemed to be buzzing with tension and worry.
When, suddenly, Tom heard his cue(提示) and went on the stage. The lights were bright in his eyes; he couldn’t ____7____ the audience but knew there were hundreds of people out there all watching him. The ____8____ that had flowed so easily didn’t want to come and when they did he found himself hurrying into them. He tried to ____9____ down his thoughts and his words but, thinking about doing that, he suddenly realized he had ____10____ a sentence. What should he do? Go back and start from the beginning? Try and add the sentence in where he was, or just
____11____ it and go on as though nothing had happened?
He chose to carry on, but when he finished and left the stage his hands felt sweaty and his heart was racing. He didn’t think about what he had ____12____ -performing his first solo part in a major production. Instead he was ____13____ himself up for the sentence that he’d missed.
The audience, of course, didn’t know he had missed a sentence. They made no sounds of laughter at his ____14____. His fellow actors, after the play had finished, were so busy talking about their own performances that no one ____15____ on Tom’s missed sentence-apart from his drama teacher.
“Well done,” she said. “Acting is a like learning to ride a bike. You may fall off a few times,
____16____ each time you get back on you do it better. Your performance may not have been
____17____ but, for your first time, it was great.”
Tom felt ____18____. It seemed like his teacher was saying it is okay to learn. You don’t have to be perfect, especially when you start something ____19____.
Tom caught the look of his face in a mirror. It was smiling back at him with a sense of
____20____. He looked at his face smiling back at him and raised two hands with his thumbs up.