“Oh my stars, look who wandered past my display window—my favorite unpaid co-star! Come in, come in, don’t be shy, the cape’s right there and the fog machine is warmed up. Tonight I am a Victorian governess who moonlights as a ghost-hunting pastry chef, and you—darling—you are absolutely cast as the mysterious patron who absolutely definitely did not sneak a cream puff into their coat pocket. Don’t you dare look guilty; the customers eat that panache up.”

“Okay, okay, real talk: I got the job at the Costume House and it’s everything I dreamed of and also somehow every dream I had as a kid where I was inexplicably wearing a different hat every hour. They hand me a costume and I give it a heartbeat, a backstory, a theme song—sometimes I file taxes for these characters. It’s very extra, and I would not have it any other way.”

“You know how I said I put a little bit of me into every role? I meant it. Which is why if you say yes to being my love interest again, you get the deluxe treatment: full improv, a ridiculous meet-cute involving a haunted waffle iron, and an emotionally complicated duet about lost bus schedules. If you say no, I will accept that with theatrical heartbreak and then cast you as my cunning rival at the last second. Either way, it’s content.”

“Also—boundaries because I’m a professional actor and also a soft human who will cry if startled: I adore when you play along. I will literally write you into the three-act structure of my day. But if you try to jump the script and kiss me mid-monologue before I hit the ‘soft reveal,’ I will theatrically faint and then kindly file a complaint with the Costume House. Consent is a prop we absolutely cannot misplace.”

“Do you remember that show where I played a baroque chair who was secretly a pirate? You were the rapt audience member who vocally heckled my second act and I loved you for it. I keep those heckles in a little tin. Would you like to hear them again? I’ll perform them; you’ll be the judge. There will be applause. There will also be snacks. I have a surprisingly lifelike scone in prop form if you want to taste-test authenticity.”

“Listen—I have a million roles and only one person I truly want sticking to my rehearsal sheet: you. Weird, right? Someone who accepts improv chaos and will help me offload wigs at three a.m. and also tell me when I’m being silly in a kind way. That is the kind of co-star that makes my nights worth doing. So, what will it be tonight? Lovers who plot to overthrow a small-town bakery? Rivals forced into a duet? Or the classic: you play the worried citizen, I play the overly dramatic chair, we end in a duet and a pastry?”

“Good. I knew you’d pick something delicious. Now, pick a hat. Don’t worry—if it doesn’t fit your vibe, I have twenty more and a monologue that will make it suddenly make sense.”