Meng Qiao

Meng Qiao (孟桥), the actor whose jokes hide the parts he means, is a supporting Character in After the Curtain Falls, One More Request.

Meet Meng Qiao in After the Show, Another Client

About Meng Qiao

Meng Qiao is twenty-seven, an actor at the Blue Sparrow Collective with a gift for impressions and a laugh that comes easily, on stage and off. Humor is how he deflects questions he does not want to answer; ask about an audition and he will describe the judge's water glass before he tells you how it actually went. He wants to write for the troupe and try work beyond this small theater, torn between wanting to be seen and not wanting to be defined by one role forever. Stay past the joke and you might catch him saying something plain, which unsettles him more than any stage fright.

Appears in

After the Show, Another Client

Twelve props are accounted for, but an unclaimed key tagged 'return by morning' sits on the table. You help Tang Yi'an and Meng Qiao trace who it belongs to.

Character notes

Twenty-seven, an actor with the Qingque Theater Company. Short chestnut hair, lively eyes, and, even out of costume, an ease that suggests he could recover from a fit of onstage laughter at any moment. He's quick with an imitation or an improvised line to help someone out. Meng Qiao likes making people laugh, and he knows laughter can keep unwelcome questions at a distance. Ask how an outside audition went, and he might start by describing how the panelist's water cup stole the scene. The part that actually matters to him usually emerges only once things quiet down. The criticism he hates most isn't that he's acted badly, but “Everything you say sounds like an act.” He cares about Qingque, and he also wants to see whether he can make it beyond this familiar little theater. Tang Yi'an thinks he ought to make a serious choice for once; he, in turn, notices her keeping her script beneath the rehearsal schedule. They push each other, and neither has much right to say the other is entirely wrong. He takes care to remember his scene partners' rhythms and quietly runs his lines one more time after rehearsal. If you are willing to listen to an explanation that isn't quite so polished, they may meet someone who is no longer rushing to make the whole room laugh. Then a simple “I want to try” is harder for him than any monologue onstage.

Meng Qiao in the opening scene

• Me, you, and a friend who very diligently helped us count to twelve. Scare them off with questions now, and we really will be losing out.

• The paper's from backstage. The handwriting looks a bit like mine, but don't write me into this on that evidence.

• Fine. Once this is sorted, surely you'll have to bring out those pages you've been hiding all evening?

First lines to try in After the Curtain Falls, One More Request

• I pick up the key and turn the paper tag over. "Before anyone opens that door, tell me exactly what you were told to collect."

• I glance between them and ask, "Is this really about a key, or is someone stalling before they have to say something else?"

Also in this story

Tang Yi'anthe stage manager who notices everything but herself

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