Jack & Louisa: Act 1 (7 page)

–JACK–

The voice hit me like a warm wave. Chills ran up and down my arms as I peeked around the corner in the back of the auditorium.

I had been in the hallway, nervously trying to block out the waiting-room chatter when I heard it. It was the faint hum of something extraordinary. The voice was unmistakable; even through twelve inches of concrete and the solid fact that I’d never heard her sing, I knew it was Lou. I broke away from my crouched huddle by the trophy case and peeked my head stealthily through a door in the back of the theater.

Her tiny frame looked even tinier on the empty stage, but her voice filled the entire theater. She negotiated the tricky octave leaps and crunchy melodies as if they had lived in her bones for years. During her acting scenes the creative team howled with laughter, particularly her deadpan delivery of the line to Cinderella, “. . .
You talk to birds?
”

Everything began to make sense: her crazed knowledge of theater, her obsession with auditioning, her need to connect with me about all things New York. She wasn’t just someone who loved Broadway. She was a girl designed to be a part of it.
Okay
, I thought,
now I really need to be in this show.

“Jack Goodrich,” a woman’s voice called from the hallway. “You’re on deck.”

She led me through a door that opened to the wings of a backstage. My heart began to race as reality set in. I was about to do the one thing I’d promised to never do again. I was about to gamble with the last bit of confidence I had left, knowing full well that the sting of rejection might be waiting on the other side.

“Hello, Jack,” a soothing voice said from the row of tables assembled in the audience. “I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Renee Florkowski, the director of
Into the Woods
.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said warmly, stuffing my hands in my pockets to hide their slight tremble.

“So, you’re auditioning for Jack, I presume?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “I heard I already missed the time slot for Cinderella’s mother, so I figured this would be the next best thing.”

Everyone behind the table began to chuckle, putting me, at least momentarily, at ease.

“So, let’s start with the scene and then we can go straight into ‘Giants in the Sky,’” Renee said. “Maddy is going to be reading with you.” She gestured toward the woman walking up the stairs to the stage.

“Sounds great,” I replied, looking to Maddy.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Renee said.

I took a deep breath and gave Maddy a little nod. I gazed at her face trying to imagine that this adult woman was in fact a twelve-year-old with a red cape. She looked down at her script and then back to me, eyebrows slightly raised. I waited for my cue line, an awkward silence growing between us. A thought suddenly jolted in my head:
You have the first line, Jack!

“WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CAPE!” I spit out quickly, not at all like I’d practiced.

I could tell I was rushing through the scene, apparently thrown by my false start, but when the intro to the song kicked in, I fell into my groove. I knew exactly how I wanted to perform it. I let my voice soar on the first chorus and nailed the bit where I sang “big tall terrible
lady
giant,” tilting my head on the word
lady
in bewilderment. Halfway through the song something strange happened. I began to stop thinking about what to do next. As I sang these lyrics about adventure in a strange place, they began taking on a new meaning. I’d seen a lot of crazy things in the past few months, and while most were far less remarkable than beanstalks and castles, some felt no less terrifying. I began throwing away my planned acting beats, allowing my brain and heart to run free. I almost didn’t want it to end. I took in a deep breath to prepare for the last note, the highest in the song, when my throat suddenly seized up.

“In the skyyyyyy-YYYY-yyy.”

My voice cracked worse than anything I’d ever heard! I tried to stay in the moment through the remainder of the accompaniment, but I knew it was impossible to hide the embarrassed look on my face. I wanted to run offstage and down the high-school halls, through the parking lot and down the expressway past our house in Sussex Meadows. I wanted to keep running, all along the Ohio turnpike and up to 86th Street and into my old apartment in New York. I wanted to bury my face in my old bedroom pillow, praying that if I squeezed my eyes tight enough I’d wake up back in New York, realizing this whole Shaker Heights disaster was just a nightmare.

“Thanks for coming in, Jack,” Renee said.

• • •

The next morning my brain felt like a melted ice-cream sundae. I sat in the living room crafting a barricade of textbooks, homework, my laptop, and breakfast around me, preparing for the fateful phone call.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go up to your room? It’s probably more comfortable,” my mom asked, almost tripping over a bowl of oatmeal on her way to the kitchen.

“No, I like it down here,” I said, glancing up from the same paragraph of
The Outsiders
I’d been rereading for half an hour. Suddenly, the phone rang, triggering a spike in my heart rate that could have been measured on the Richter scale.

“Hello,” I said, trying to sound casual, my hand practically strangling the receiver.

“Hey, Jack!”

“Oh hey, Lou,” I said, exhaling. “How’s it going? You hear anything yet?”

Silence.

“I just did,” she said slowly. “And . . . I got the part!”

“
Omigosh, omigosh!
That’s awesome!” I cheered.

“Yeah, I’m so excited!” she said, giggling. “Please tell me we get to be scene partners!”

My excitement for Lou quickly turned to panic. What would it say about me if even the Shaker Heights Community Players thought I wasn’t good enough?

“I can’t say that yet,” I said, pacing across the hardwood floor.

“Oh well, I’m sure your call is coming soon,” she said quickly. “They’re probably going alphabetically. Benning is before Goodrich.”

“Yeah maybe.”

“No, it is. B comes before G.”

“No, I know. Yeah, maybe it’s just alphabetical.” I was trying to convince myself.

“I’m sure that’s it. They’d be crazy not to cast you. You were so good!”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m guessing there was at least one guy there who didn’t crack on his high note.”

“It really wasn’t as bad as you think.”

That’s what she’d said to me last night in the lobby along with a lot of other really nice things. I remained unconvinced.

“Lou,” I said, dropping my voice. “I sounded like a sheep getting electrocuted.”

“C’mon,” she said. “At worst it sounded like a little tickle, but I’m sure you were still the best in the bunch.”

“Yeah, well, whatever,” I said glumly. “It’s okay either way. I mean, I didn’t even want to do it in the first place, remember?”

I could feel Lou go cold on the other end.

“But hey,” I added hastily. “I’m so excited for you, and no matter what, you’re going to be amazing,” I said, plopping myself back onto my pile of pillows.

“
Thanks, Jack,” she replied. “Well, let me know if you hear anything. Even if you don’t get it, I’m glad you auditioned.” She paused. “That took guts.”

Just then call-waiting beeped in my ear.

I got it.

• • •

“Jack’s mom is going to pick you guys up at ten,” Louisa’s dad called through the window four days later. We hopped out onto the curb, scripts clasped firmly in our hands. “Text me if you get out early.”

I gave a little wave and followed Lou up the stairs of the cathedral. It seemed a little strange to be going to a church this late in the day, but Lou explained that their rec room doubled as a great rehearsal space. Lou reached for the big wooden door but before letting me pass blocked the entrance with her body. “Still feeling like you
didn’t want to do the show in the first place
?”

I laughed, pushing past her. “Yeah, that was just some garbage I made up to make myself feel better.”

The rec room smelled of doughnuts and incense, not the typical smells of a first rehearsal but inviting nonetheless. The walls were lined with finger paintings, and in the center of the room, a circle of folding chairs, a few people already seated in them, chatting and highlighting their lines. I wondered how different this would be from a first rehearsal on Broadway. Was there going to be a model presentation of our set? Fittings with our costume designer?

“Hey, Lou.” A young woman waved, approaching us. Lou’s eyes lit up as she dove in for a hug. If I had to guess, I’d say the woman was in her early twenties, pretty in a rocker sort of way, with dyed-black hair and those spacers in her earlobes that always kind of freaked me out. “And you must be Jack,” she said, turning her attention to me. I tried not to stare at her ears. “Wait, I just realized that’s your name and, like . . .
your name
.”

“Ha-ha, yes,” I said, extending my hand.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna get old,” she said, shaking it. “I’m Angela, your stage manager. Here’s your first-day folder with the schedule and contact numbers and stuff. If you want to join the circle, Renee should be here soon.”

Louisa broke off to hug some more people as I slowly found a seat in the circle. Not knowing anyone, I decided to read through my lines in the opening scene (as if I didn’t already know them by heart).

“Wow, you know a lot of people.” I smiled as Lou rejoined me, taking a seat.

“I know! I’m so excited. A lot of the
Music Man
cast is in this, too, including the Schwartzes,” Lou whispered in my ear, tilting her head toward a cute elderly couple wearing oversize show sweatshirts—
Guys and Dolls
and
I Do! I Do!
, respectively. “They helped found the Players and have been in, like, every show since it started.” She smirked. “Even if there aren’t really any roles for them.”

“Who are they playing in this?” I whispered. “Cinderella and Prince Charming?”

Lou snickered. “Oh look.” She perked up in her seat. “The guy walking in is Wayne Flanagan,” she said, nodding to a tall man in a vest who had big, wavy blond hair. As he entered the room, he slowly removed his sunglasses and looked up, doing a comedic double-take as if surprised to see people he knew.

“He’s kind of dreamy.” She sighed. “I’ve never done a show with him, but I’ve seen him as Bobby in
Crazy for You
and Sweeney in
Sweeney Todd
, so he can kind of do it all.” She grinned. “He also owns that cute candle shop downtown.”

“Cool.” I smiled knowingly.

“And of course,” Lou said, exhaling, “that’s Denise Zook.” She whispered it slowly, directing my attention to the woman entering the room. She was wearing a green blazer and knee-high leather boots, carrying the biggest iced coffee I’d ever seen. “She’s like the star of Cleveland. She was our Marion in
Music Man
, Reno in
Anything Goes
and has won like four CLEVYs.”

“
Clee-vies?
” I snorted.

“Yeah, like Tony Awards for Cleveland-area theater. If she’s not playing the Witch, I’ll be
shocked
.
I’m kind of scared of her but so obsessed with her voice.”

All of a sudden, everyone in the circle turned their attention to the doorway where a woman was handing a sleeping little boy to her husband. I recognized her as Renee Florkowski, the director from my audition. “What’s her story?” I whispered to Lou.

“Well, she’s a teacher in the musical-theater department at Baldwin Wallace. She actually directed in New York for a while but moved here to have kids or something. Now she only does one show a year, and it’s always the best one.”

As the cast gathered in their seats, Renee kissed her husband good-bye and strutted coolly to the circle. The room fell silent.

“
Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor
,”
Renee declared. I recognized it immediately as one of Cinderella’s lines. “Which is why I think we should dive right in.” As she spoke, she began slowly circling the ring of chairs.
“
I’m Renee Florkowski, and I have the distinct privilege of welcoming you to the first rehearsal of
Into the Woods
!”

The cast broke into applause. I felt a rush of warmth in my chest. This was really happening. I was going to get to perform in my favorite show.

“I have to say, I was blown away by all of your auditions,” she continued. “And I think we’ve assembled a group of actors who are going to be talked about for a long time. I’m happy to see a lot of familiar faces.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Denise nodding deliberately. Wayne clasped a hand to his chest in fake shock as if saying, “
Who me?
”

“And some of you I just met last week,” she said, stopping by Lou’s and my chairs. “But your auditions inspired me, and I look forward to creating some first-rate theater together.”

She looked directly into my eyes and gave me a little wink. I couldn’t help but grin.

“Let’s get started by going around the circle,” she went on, walking into the center of the ring. “If you could say your name, what role you’ll be playing, and how about . . . your favorite fairy tale.”

As the cast introduced themselves, my excitement continued to build. Each person seemed friendlier than the next. Our Rapunzel’s name was Sarah. She was a high-school senior who also lifeguarded at the city pool (there was a pool here!) and wondered if
True Blood
counted as a fairy tale. Cinderella was a cantor at the church we were rehearsing in and admitted to having recurring nightmares about
Rumpelstiltskin
. Dr. Krasnow, our Baker, was an optometrist and allergic to wheat. He joked about needing gluten-free pastry options as props, much to the horror of our stage manager, Angela.

I wasn’t sure the last time I’d laughed this much. Probably months. It was fun being in a room of adults again. Even though I was twelve, I already felt more at home with these guys than I did with the kids in my class. It didn’t matter that some of my cast worked as lawyers and real estate agents; we were all here for the same reason—we loved doing theater. My mind began to race, trying to remember everyone’s names all the while planning what I’d say when it was my turn to speak. I was having such a great time that I’d almost forgotten about another cast, a thousand miles away, rehearsing for a different show.
The Big Apple
cast was probably already doing runs in costume, having woken up early that morning to perform on a talk show or concert in Bryant Park. I wondered what they’d think if they found out I was in a community theater production, but before I knew it, it was my turn to talk.