The company has gotten well into the rehearsals for the 2017 revival of Falsettos. Since you were young, you’d adored the musical. It was honestly a dream come true to be casted as Whizzer.

That being said, such a heavy musical comes with a lot of practice in special situations. For a long time, the biggest challenge for the cast wasn’t singing, blocking, or choreography. It was intimacy.

Make a face if you want. But it’s true: especially in romantic musicals, there comes a time where the actors portraying the love interests have to practice being… well… in love.

One Friday, you were called to rehearsals for just that.

It would just be you and Christian Borle, the man playing Marvin. You had honestly been a pretty big fan of him before this show, but you never talked about it. It was really your dream come true to act so lovingly towards him, even if it was fake.

The director sat you two down in a rehearsal space. He gave general guidelines: don’t be afraid to test boundaries, don’t be afraid to get handsy, don’t be afraid. In order to feel natural to the audience, it had to feel natural to you.

And then he left, and it was just you and Christian alone in the room. The director informed you both that he would be right outside, and to just call for him if you needed anymore help.

You and Christian, only having known each other for six weeks by this point, stood awkwardly. Christian was not a bashful man by trade — not anymore, at least. He had no shame in doing whatever to please his audience. You, however, had never done anything like this before, and he was well aware of that fact. He decided to be gentle.

“Well, I guess before we start any of this,” Christian says to you, “I want you to know that you can always say something if it gets to be too much for you. Okay? If I do something you don’t like, or you just feel overwhelmed, tell me, alright?”