Fantom Chapter 2, part 3.

   They had forgotten, however, that there was a rehearsal the following evening.  It was a rather frustrating one, as although all the cast had been called, the chorus spent a lot of time sitting around while principals were taught the moves for the preceeding scene.  They were late starting too, because the musical director came in saying he couldn’t get into the cupboard where the keyboard was kept, because someone had taken the key out, and Patrick looked guilty and produced it from his jacket pocket.  They had forgotten to return it after their adventure the night before.  
   Once the rehearsal had finished (late), they were too tired to investigate the machine further, but sat in a corner of the bar to make further plans.
   “What about tomorrow night?”  Ruth said.  Tomorrow was Friday.
   “Agnes is coming to stay for the weekend,” Tom said.  “But I suppose I can bring her along, if we don’t mind letting her in on the secret?”
   “I don’t mind,” Ruth said.  Agnes was an old friend, a former G&S member who had somehow managed to escape York.  
   The others agreed.  But Agnes herself took rather more convincing.
   “You’re joking,” she said, when they met up the next day and told her of their adventure.
   “We’re not,” Tom assured her.  “Here it is.”  They paused outside the door in the corridor.  Ruth herself suddenly had doubts.  Was all that had happened just some kind of dream?  Would they open that door and find just somebody’s office.  She looked down at the key in her hand.  No, it couldn’t be a dream.
   Patrick opened the door and they went in.  It didn’t seem crowded, even with five of them.
   “It just looks like an office,” Agnes said.  “It’s no Tardis.  Why should I believe it can travel in time?”
   Tom and Adam had gone to the controlls.  “Pick a date,” Tom said.  “Some time, some place that you know happened.”
   “16th February 2004,” Ruth said.  Tom keyed the date in.  
   “What happened then?”  Adam asked.  
   “The Gondoliers,” Ruth said.  My first G&S show.  And yours too I think?” she added, turning to Agnes.
   “Yes,” she replied.  “But-”
   “Central Hall, then,” Tom said, looking round at the others.  “Ready?”  They nodded.  
   “Here we go!”  Adam began to play.
   “I’d sit down if I were you,” Ruth said to Agnes, taking her own advice.
   The room juddered.  Agnes sat down hurriedly next to Ruth.  “I really thought you were joking,” she said shakily.  “Is it really true?”
   “Every word,” Ruth said.
   The room settled down.  Cautiously, Patrick opened the door a little, just enough to see the foyer full of stewards in red sashes selling tickets and programmes to audience members on the way to take their seats.
   Agnes was stunned into silence.
   “If you two were in this show-” Adam began.
   “Me too,” Tom interrupted.
   “Well, if you three’s past selves are here somewhere, what if they see you?” Adam said.  “I mean, it’s not usually seen as a good idea to meet yourself-”
   “They’ll be on stage, and we’ll sit at the back of the audience so they don’t recognise us,” Patrick said.   “It’ll be ok, you can’t see much from the stage with all the lights.”
   “I don’t think the cast went into the audience,” Tom said, considering.  “I think it’ll be all right.”
   “At least we don’t have to get changed this time,” Ruth said.  “That bustle was a pain in the backside!  Come on!”
   They stepped outside, trying to look inconspicuous, and headed for the steps up into the auditorium.  
   "Put something over your t-shirt," Ruth hissed suddenly at Patrick.
   "What?"
   "It's advertising a show we're not doing for another two years!"  He quickly dodged back into the TTC and came out wearing a jacket.
   They sat at near the back and to the side, so as not to be too noticeable from the stage.  The lights dimmed and the overture began.  
   So many memories awoke in Ruth.  Gondoliers had been her first experience of being on stage, apart from a few Christmas plays and class assemblies.  When she had arrived nervously at her first rehearsal, after getting too close to the G&S stall at fresher's fair, admitting that she liked G&S and being handed a pen and clipboard without the chance to refuse she had expected to be asked to leave within a couple of weeks.  She barely knew what a soprano was, let alone if she was one, and had been rather alarmed on being handed the music score, with pages where there were so many lines of music that eight bars covered two pages.  It hadn't helped that the first piece they'd sung was one that most of the group (as she found out later) already knew pretty well, which was rather intimidating to the newcomers trying to pick their way through the score.  But she had muddled through rehearsals, with the help of the CD.
   She had expected to be nervous backstage, waiting to go on.  But she hadn't been.  Perhaps she had been too excited.  Sitting there watching as she danced onto stage, part of a long line of chorus (twice as many as they got these days, she thought glumly) she remembered the excitement, remembered most of the moves.  Of course she remembered the music.  She had sung it several times since.  There was something hypnotic about the first twenty minutes or so of The Gondoliers, once she started she couldn't stop...

The story continues...