Dramarama (5 page)

“Aha.”

“Aha, indeed. You check out the talent, sure— but there’s not much you can do about that. Morales is going to pick who he picks, and the rest will get the leftovers, and that’s that. So what auditions are for is— romance.”

Lyle spoke like an observer, not like a participant. He was plump and a bit hairy for someone our age, and he wore those black-rimmed glasses and vintage clothes with such an aggressive awkwardness it was geektastic.

“How come you’re such an expert?” I asked.

“I go to Wildewood year-round,” he said. “And this is my second summer. I went through this whole melodrama last year.”

I plunked myself on Blond Blake’s bed. Lyle was chatty. He told me how last year, Iz had stepped into the part of Anita when the girl playing it was caught sneaking off campus for the third time and got sent home, and before that she had only been in the chorus. How Blond Blake from Boston did push-ups in the middle of the dorm room here on the first day, as if he couldn’t skip a single twenty-four-hour period of bod-buffing. How he (Lyle) had been Smee in
Peter Pan
last summer, and the guy playing Captain Hook had to wear tight red latex pants, but no one had thought to explain to him the proper underclothing. How he (Lyle again) was from a small town in Vermont and his mom was a boozer, so he was glad to be sent to boarding school because “sometimes it got ugly in the evenings.” How he’d gotten into Wildewood by doing Richard III for his monologue at the age of thirteen. He’d read Royal Shakespeare Company star Antony Sher’s book about playing the part and cribbed all the details of Sher’s performance (as he imagined them) for his audition.

I asked him about going to Wildewood full time, and he said it was more boarding schoolish: do your homework, be on a sports team, lots of people studying classical music, classes in theater history, scene study in Ibsen and Chekhov. “For the summer institute, Morales takes over,” he explained. “You know he directed the revival of
Oliver!
that’s on Broadway now?”

I nodded.

“It was amazing. A group of us took the bus in to see it. Anyway, with him in charge, Wildewood’s all about show biz.” Lyle flashed jazz hands at me. “The straight play is just a requirement the school insists on to keep the classical training rep.”

He was a great raconteur, Lyle. Full of Lurking Bigness.

It was like that at Wildewood—nearly everyone I met, no matter how ordinary or subordinary their physical appearance, seemed to have that light inside them. Lyle walking down the street would be practically invisible. But Lyle talking—waving his hands and doing funny voices—I couldn’t look away.

Lyle, Theo, Isadora, Nanette—all of them were huge personalities. Personae, even. The way Demi was. Convinced of their own fabulousness and eager to show it to the world.

And if they weren’t like that, they were like Candie. People whose inner lives flashed across their faces with startling transparency, whose hunger was so strong you could feel it when you looked at them, and it made you want to look away. There were quite a few of these raw types at Wildewood, though not nearly so many as there were the fabulositons. The raw types were the ones who got beat up in high school. Who felt like there was no one at home who understood how they felt. The ones who escaped into theater, hoping it would save them from themselves—and sometimes it did.

When people like Candie came to the summer institute, even if they weren’t popular, even if they weren’t beautiful, even if they couldn’t dance, even if they got a lame part in an even lamer show—they felt like they’d come home. Because it was a world where they could live and breathe theater, and they wanted nothing else so badly as they wanted that.

Now that I think of it, maybe Demi was more like them than I knew.

I
’D BEEN
talking with Lyle for forty-five minutes when Demi poked his head into the room, looking for me. I had so forgotten my reconnaissance mission that I was surprised to see him.

“Miss Sadye,” he scolded, swishing in wearing his favorite silver shirt and brown leather pants, glitter splashed across his cheekbones, “are you going to orientation in that tired old skirt? Because I know you can do better.”

Orientation started in ten minutes in the Kaufman Theater.

“Lyle, meet my friend Demi, from home,” I said. “Demi, meet Lyle: genuine full-time student at Wildewood, Shakespearean heavy-hitter, former sidekick to Captain James Hook, and wearer of excellent pants.”

“Hey,” said Demi.

“Hey,” said Lyle.

And I could tell. From the way Lyle looked down at his hands after they were introduced. From the way he snuck another look at Demi in his most flamboyant mode, dragging me up off the floor and tsk-tsking at the low quality of my outfit. Lyle said, “Sadye, why don’t you go change, and Demi and I will come pick you up outside your dorm in five minutes?”—and anyone could tell.

I could. Demi could.

Lyle had a crush.

* * *

F
OR ORIENTATION,
we assembled in the Kaufman Theater. Lyle, Nanette, Demi, and I arrived early and got seats middle center. We put our feet on the chairs in front of us and watched the parade of Wilders come into the space.

By and large, people were dramatic. Ridiculous, even. Thrift store dresses and too much makeup, ballet shoes with street clothes, hair streaked blue or pink. Eighties throwback shirts with the necks cut out; riots of color. But one thing was like Brenton: nearly everyone was white. There were maybe six African American girls and only three guys, one being Demi. Then maybe four other people of color, including Theo, who sat way down front and seemed like he didn’t see me.

“Point out Blake,” I whispered.

“I can’t see him.”

“He must be here somewhere.”

Demi swiveled. “Way in the back, there. Don’t look! Don’t look. Okay, now!”

Blake turned out to be tall, with male good looks, like he was carved out of rock: cleft chin, corn-silk hair, muscles. Not my type at all, but I said “Ooh la la” anyway.

Demi giggled. “I know! Stop looking, stop looking! He’s going to see us!”

I turned back around.

“Don’t look at him again! I am being nonchalant,” Demi whispered, surveying the room, which was now nearly full. “Oh, baby. If those other black boys can’t sing, I’m gonna be stuck with ‘Ol’ Man River.’”

(“Ol’ Man River,” in case you don’t already know, is a famous number from
Show Boat
; it’s a big, slow song for a black man with a large, deep voice, where he symbolizes the American South in a philosophical and somewhat hokey but also beautiful way.)

“That wouldn’t be too bad,” I said, though I was thinking Demi’s voice wasn’t low enough for “Ol’ Man River.”

“No way,” said Demi. “I don’t want to play some old symbolic guy. There is way too much sex appeal in this body to be stuck Ol’ Man Rivering just because I am the right color.”

“Maybe they have color-blind casting.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it. Not for ‘Ol’ Man River,’ anyway.”

I didn’t want to get too deep into the race issue just then. Honestly, I never did. Demi and I had talked about it before, but whenever it came up—his blackness, my whiteness—we were talking about the only thing that separated us.

Most of the time we felt the same. We
were
the same. We were together. Boy/girl, gay/straight—those divisions were invisible to us, because we were the geektastic drama queens of Brenton, destined for Broadway—and that was what mattered.

But when the black/white difference came up, as it did every now and again, I could feel a break between us. Like there was something about me that he’d never understand all the way, and something about him that I wouldn’t either.

And when I felt separate from Demi, I felt lost. So I didn’t want to go there. “Let’s talk about me,” I said with exaggerated drama. “Let’s think of some lead parts for tall skinny flat-chested girls with big noses!”

“
Funny Girl
,” Demi answered off the bat. “And maybe
Victor/Victoria
.”

“You’re good,” said Nanette, who had been quiet up to this point. “How about for girls under five feet tall? I’m such a shrimp, I’ll be playing children forever.”

Oh, so irritating. And a perfect example of what everyone was always doing at Wildewood. Because when Nanette said, “I’ll be playing children forever,” though superficially she was self-deprecating, she was also reminding us of her vast professional experience playing kids, and her assurance that she had a long career in front of her. And, as if to prove me right, this was what she said next: “They’re reviving
The Secret Garden
at La Jolla Playhouse next fall, then maybe moving it to Broadway. I have an audition in a couple weeks.”

“Where?”

“The theater’s near San Diego but the audition’s in L.A. The director goes up to L.A. and sees actors from all over.”

“You’re flying cross-country for an audition?”

“My dad thinks I should go. I guess the director saw me in
Night Music
and wanted to call me in.”

Demi sighed, and I knew he felt like I did: Nanette already had what we both wanted. She’d had it for years.

“Don’t say shrimp,” I told her. “Say Kristinish. Kristin has opened up doors for shrimpy women everywhere. You could play anything.”

There was a tap on the microphone stage left. We settled into silence. There behind a podium stood a white woman with prominent teeth, fluffy gray-blond hair, and a dress of indistinct shape. She informed us that we should settle down now, and welcomed the group to Wildewood’s Summer Institute. Her name was Reanne Schuster. “I’ll be teaching Acting and the Classical Monologue elective,” she announced. “And I’ll direct an ensemble production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare.”

A ripple went through the crowd. Rumors had been flying about what shows we’d be performing, but this was the first formal announcement. Nanette tipped her head at me as if to say “See? My information comes from the top.”

“And now, without further ado,” said Reanne, “I present you with the Summer Institute’s artistic director: the inimitable, the wonderful, the Tony-winning— Jacob Morales.”

We clapped, and I was a bit surprised to see the disheveled man from the auditions—the one with the beard who had snorted at my Juliet—mount the stairs and take the microphone in his hand.

Morales wore a wrinkled white shirt, baseball cap, khaki shorts, and sandals. I could see the shine on his forehead, and his ankles looked thick and unhappy, somehow. “Welcome,” he said in his thin, high voice. “We are all here to create. Yes? To make something out of nothing. This summer, you will be bringing words on the page into vivid life. You will turn scatterings of musical notes into songs full of expression and meaning. You will also work harder than you’ve ever worked before.”

He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “When I was directing
Oliver!
this past fall,” (shouts and whistles from a few in the audience) “many members of the cast were younger than you are. My star was only eleven, and he carried a Broadway show every night.”

Nanette, on my right, whispered: “They have two kids doing that part on alternate performances. I know it for a fact. Nobody that age can sustain an eight-show schedule with a five-show weekend.”

Morales went on: “I watched you audition myself, in cities across the country. I saw each and every one of you perform, and so I know I’m right when I tell you that you, too, have the talent it takes to do that. To carry a show. There is terrific talent in this room. Star-level talent.”

Another cheer.

“However, your talent may be buried, or it may be undeveloped. It may be clouded by ego and the desire to show the world what you can do. Here at the Wildewood Summer Institute, we help you develop your physical instrument: the voice, the breath, the body. We give you techniques for both self-expression and transformation. And then we bring it all together and put on some of the greatest shows anywhere.”

More cheering.

Morales gestured for Reanne (in the front row) to bring him her bottle of water, which she did. “However,” he said, after taking a long drink, “you must remember that an essential aspect of an actor’s craft is humility. And the eradication of the ego for the good of the show will be an essential part of our philosophy here.

“I mean this in two ways. First of all, to truly embody a character, to truly
act
, involves releasing yourself from the mannerisms, tics, fears, and foibles that are part of your own character. To become someone else, you must let go of yourself, and to do that, you must be humble.

“It is also true that not everyone can be a star. Not in a single summer with only six productions. You may not love the part you get. You may not even like it. You may think you should have a lead, or a chance to shine in a different way. But what you must do, what you
must do
if you are committed to the craft of the theater, is to release yourself from those complaints and join together with your fellow cast members to make the show you are in the best show it can be.

“When you leave the room tonight, I want you to take a stone from the dish in the lobby. We have one for each and every one of you, and I want you to treasure that stone this summer, and come back to it when your sense of ego, when your sense of your own importance, is getting in the way of creating good theater.

“Theater is a collective effort, a community endeavor. I am pleased to be going on this journey with you,” he said. “And I look forward to another spectacular summer.”

The students erupted in applause as Morales made his way back to his seat.

“He’s amazing,” I whispered to Demi. “I hope I get him for acting.”

Demi nodded. “
Oliver!
got phenomenal reviews. I can’t believe we’re here.”

“Me either.”

He squeezed my hand. “You’ll see. We’ll take this place
over
.”

“What happened to ‘eradicate your ego’?”

“Oops! I already forgot.” Demi giggled.

“Maybe he meant confidence and ego are different,” I whispered. “Like you need the confidence, but you have to leave the ego behind?”

“He’s the man, that’s all I’m gonna say. Whatever that guy wants, that is what I’ll do.”

From the front row, a tall, narrow woman— obviously a dancer—with a shock of pink hair rose to take the stage. “I’m Tamar,” she announced, “and I’ll be choreographing two of the shows and teaching advanced dance classes. I’m here to announce the productions we’ll be doing this year.”

A murmur ran through the audience. “That’s his girlfriend,” whispered Nanette.

“Whose?”

“Jake’s.”

Jacob Morales.

“My agent told me his girlfriend was a choreographer with pink hair.”

It was less hard to believe than it had been before I’d heard him speak. Morales was physically unattractive and had a strange voice—but he had charisma.

Tamar announced the shows. They were just as Nanette had told us they would be:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Bye Bye Birdie

Show Boat

Little Shop of Horrors

Cats
and
Guys and Dolls
(the ten-day wonder).

W
E ALL TOOK
stones from the bowl on our way out. Mine was smooth and hard and black. Demi’s was pinkish with white flecks. I put mine on my dresser at curfew, or at least I think I did. But in the morning, I couldn’t find it.

* * *