Costumes are to a play what punctuation is to a paragraph.

Hercules will admit this is not the most perfect of comparisons, but it does the job. He loves the business, the backstage, and the drama. There is no life like the thrum of noise and movement that is backstage on opening night.

There is a lot of debate generated by greater men about what makes a play a hit: the writing, the directing, and the actors. But for Hercules, it will always be the costumes.

Seeing is believing, and if costumes aren't the ultimate visual cue he doesn't know what is. Costumes magically transform children into princesses and space lieutenants, and this process is just refined on the stage. You can be anything and anybody in a costume, and the children who hold on to that feeling of transformative magic always do the best onstage.

It takes a dreamer to slip into another's shoes and not only be someone else for a moment, but to make others believe it too.

That's why Hercules knows that one day Bea will make it on the stage. He's seen a lot of starlets over the years, but those girls got nothing on his niece. That girl has the neon signs of Broadway in her eyes, and the determination to be a part of it all, the glitz and the grit.

And from one kindred spirit to another, Hercules will help her make it there. After all, the world may be a stage, but Broadway is the best stage of them all.

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