The tailor was remiss when he labeled the costumes, sending a pirate coat to the actor playing a quiet librarian. (remiss: negligent, careless, inattentive) The director requested restitution for the ruined rehearsal, though the audience of three assistants had enjoyed the mistake enormously. (restitution: compensation, reimbursement, repayment) A resolute apprentice offered to repair the labels and sort the boxes before anyone began assigning permanent blame. (resolute: determined, steadfast, unwavering) Her scrupulous inventory revealed that the librarian's coat had reached the drummer, who had mistaken its pockets for a storage system. (scrupulous: conscientious, careful, thorough)
The director agreed to a reprieve from further rehearsals while the clothing found its intended owners. (reprieve: temporary relief, postponement, suspension) An actor proposed a surreptitious exchange of hats, hoping nobody would notice he preferred the costume assigned to his rival. (surreptitious: secret, furtive, covert) The apprentice's salient observation was that a hat could be reassigned openly without turning the dressing room into a spy novel. (salient: prominent, noticeable, striking) A sanguine mood returned when the tailor found enough material to make a second hat of the same shape. (sanguine: optimistic, hopeful, confident)
The stage manager could substantiate the new schedule with a list of tasks that had already been completed. (substantiate: support, verify, corroborate) The old schedule was merely a supposition, based on the hope that everything would take less time than it usually did. (supposition: assumption, conjecture, hypothesis) A resplendent jacket emerged from the repair room and briefly distracted everyone from the practical discussion of buttons. (resplendent: dazzling, brilliant, splendid) The tailor enjoyed a short reverie about applause before remembering that the jacket still lacked its left sleeve. (reverie: daydream, musing, pleasant abstraction)
An exorbitant estimate for replacing every costume was withdrawn once the apprentice identified which items actually needed repair. (exorbitant: excessive, inflated, unreasonable) The director could rescind the unnecessary order without pretending he had never signed it in the first place. (rescind: cancel, revoke, withdraw) A reliable list of completed alterations proved more useful than a confident promise that everything was probably somewhere nearby. (reliable: dependable, trustworthy, consistent) The tailor agreed to replenish ordinary thread before purchasing another decorative cabinet in which to display it. (replenish: refill, restock, restore the supply of)
The actor's surreptitious hat exchange became a running joke after he returned the borrowed hat and asked permission to use it. (surreptitious: secret, covert, furtive) The assistant offered an equitable arrangement in which both actors could try the alternatives before the final choice was made. (equitable: fair, just, impartial) Their reciprocal courtesy did not require them to agree about which hat was most flattering. (reciprocal: mutual, exchanged, shared) It required only a scrupulous distinction between borrowing an object openly and quietly arranging matters as though nobody else had a claim. (scrupulous: conscientious, careful, principled)
The repaired costumes brought a resurgence of energy to the rehearsal, even though the performance still contained several awkward transitions. (resurgence: revival, renewal, fresh increase) The director requested a succinct account of those transitions so the remaining time could be spent practicing them rather than rehearsing their excuses. (succinct: brief, concise, terse)
His apprentice offered a succinct reminder that a costume must survive movement as well as look attractive beneath a lamp. (succinct: concise, brief, terse) The tailor accepted the reproach without inventing a theory about deliberate asymmetry. (reproach: criticism, rebuke, expression of disapproval) A resilient team returned to rehearsal after resolving the mistakes instead of preserving them as personal grievances. (resilient: adaptable, quick to recover, able to rebound) The director's retrospective account of the evening included an admission that his own instructions had been less clear than he remembered. (retrospective: backward-looking, looking back, reviewing the past)