Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate a Cappella Glory (15 page)

In a few weeks the Hullabahoos would fly to Los Angeles to sing the national anthem at the Lakers game. And for the first time in recent memory, the group was thinking ahead and planning for a future beyond the next gig, beyond the next free beer. At Morgan’s request, Howard Spector (head of Ashley Entertainment) had supplied the B’hoos with a letter of recommendation for gigs in L.A. Now Patrick Lundquist picked up where Morgan had left off, courting the man who’d booked the Hullabahoos for so many lucrative gigs in the past. It started with an e-mail. “In groups like this,” Patrick wrote, “it often takes just a little boost to turn fickle success into perennial success, and you’ve given the group several big boosts over the past several years, so I just wanted to say thanks.” The Hullabahoos wanted to return to the Republican National Convention in 2008, to get back in Howard’s good graces. But for now the Hullabahoos had more pressing concerns: namely, a highly anticipated stop in Los Angeles at, yes, the Playboy Mansion.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DIVISI

Wherein the original members of Divisi return
(
disastrously
)
to prepare these new girls for the quarterfinals of the 2007 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella

Keeley McCowan had always assumed that when Divisi returned to campus after winter break, the girls would buckle down. First semester had come with its own set of problems. Divisi was essentially a brand-new group—with personality issues and inexperienced musicians—working from a standing start to do the impossible: win at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. But surely, in the face of the fast-approaching regional quarterfinals, they would prioritize, Keeley thought. Or maybe not. Maybe these girls were right to slack off. They’d inherited this vendetta, after all. And it wasn’t necessarily their war to fight.

But the problems began almost immediately. Jenna Tooley (a blond freshman with braces) took a leave from the group. “I thought it was strep throat,” she says. But this fatigue, this coughing, was something else. The doctor at the campus medical center diagnosed her with the one-two punch of tonsillitis and mono.

Keeley had her own problems. She was essentially mounting this ICCA quarterfinal concert herself. Though Varsity Vocals, the organization that sponsors the ICCAs, hires producers to run each event, the majority of the work is done in advance by the host groups. Keeley was responsible for securing the venue, selling tickets, and even finding housing for the visiting students. Sadly, Keeley was having trouble getting members of Divisi to volunteer for even the simplest tasks. She might have given up had the competition not been Divisi’s biggest source of revenue. If done correctly, the group would pocket ten thousand dollars in one night—money they’d desperately need if they hoped to travel to New York for the finals. (Varsity Vocals long ago stopped subsidizing travel for competitors.) Keeley decided to up the stakes (and potential profits) this year by holding the quarterfinal round at the Hult Center in downtown Eugene—a twenty-five-hundred -person venue that, to put it in perspective, had previously hosted the touring company of
Wicked
. Divisi would need to sell seven hundred and fifty tickets just to break even. In a stroke of marketing genius, Keeley used the posters to play up the intrastate rivalry between the competing a cappella groups from Oregon State and her own University of Oregon. The posters read: CIVIL WAR OF A CAPELLA. If a cappella was spelled incorrectly, so what. Keeley had other concerns.

Still, rehearsals were tense. Divisi, so used to talking about every emotion and hurt feeling, had finally gone quiet. The elephant in the room was Betsy Yates.

Betsy Yates grew up in Wilsonville, just outside Portland, not far from Bullwinkle’s Family Fun Center and the Fry’s Electronics store. That’s about all that goes on in Wilsonville. While most kids were working at the mall, Betsy was a singing waitress—a very pretty singing waitress at that, with thick chestnut hair that seemed to move as if it were starring in its own Pantene commercial— aboard a restaurant cruise ship that paddled up and down the Willamette River. As a senior in high school, Betsy won a statewide singing competition. These days, Betsy is easy to spot on campus. Though she is not proud of it, that’s her on the Razor scooter.

Betsy was supposed to be in Costa Rica over Christmas break. But a few days before her family was to leave for the big deep-sea diving adventure trip, Betsy’s dad broke his foot. With Betsy’s schedule suddenly clear, she decided to have her tonsils removed—which her doctor had been advising for months now. She’d had chronic tonsillitis (stuffed nose, a sore throat) and the surgery would relieve all of that, the doctor said. Betsy was worried about her voice, though—she was the soloist on “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing,” which would open Divisi’s three-song competition set. Her doctor assured her she’d be in fine form for the ICCAs in January. If anything, he said, the surgery would help: “Without two golf balls in your throat, you’ll be able to resonate.” And so just before Christmas, Betsy went under the knife. For the next ten days she didn’t open her mouth to speak, let alone sing. On that tenth night she grew restless. She couldn’t sleep. She was worried about the quarterfinals, which were a few weeks away. Late in the night, tucked under the sheets of her childhood bedroom, she started humming quietly to herself. She couldn’t sing low. She couldn’t sing high. She was terrified.

Previously, Betsy sang “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing” in full voice—big, loud, rich. But when it mattered, a week before the competition, she was still relying on her head voice, which was breathy, bordering on inaudible. The women of Divisi had their concerns, but no one dared discuss it with Betsy—not even Sarah Klein, the group’s music director. Ironically, it would be Sarah Klein’s
mom
who would broach the subject when, the night before the ICCAs, Mrs. Klein sat in on Divisi’s final rehearsal. “Betsy, I know that you just had surgery,” Sarah’s mom said. “But it’s hard to hear you.” The woman meant well. But coming on the heels of a difficult few weeks, the criticism threatened to upset the group’s delicate emotional balance leading into the ICCAs.

Not that she was the only one.

A few weeks earlier, Lisa Forkish had flown in from Boston to refine Divisi’s sound. It had been Keeley’s idea to invite some of the all-star alumni back, with Divisi picking up the tab. Finally, the girls had reason for hope. In that first rehearsal, Lisa Forkish tore them apart. Where Sarah Klein had no discernible leadership style, Lisa was blunt, firm, but still warm. When girls would talk out of turn she’d say, “I’m feeling really disrespected right now.” Some of the girls got off on the act. But for most of Divisi, this just did not flow with the lax vibe of the past six months. At least Lisa didn’t make them cry. That was Erica Barkett’s job.

Erica Barkett—who’d graduated one year earlier—had boarded a plane from New York to Eugene and for the next six hours had choreographed “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing.” Lisa stepped aside and Erica worked the choreography in a separate rehearsal. The girls certainly couldn’t sing if they were still counting numbers under their breath. “Wait, I stomp on seven, but my shoulders move on
six
?” one member of Divisi asked. It was a lot of talk like that.

The song actually opened with two couples doing the tango. “There was a lot of dancing on the beat while singing off the beat—left brain, right brain,” Keeley says. It was too complex, distracting even. But Erica kept at it. “You’re not even trying!” she shouted. “It’s never taken me so long to teach someone choreography. I flew out here because
you
asked me to come. You wanted me to help. Why am I even here? You’re never going to win.” Michaela Cordova was particularly upset by what was happening. She took it personally. She felt the alumni didn’t like her, perhaps put off by the piercings. Michaela left that rehearsal in tears. She was not the only one.

Inviting Lisa and Erica had been a mistake, Keeley admits. But in the end, it might turn out to be the thing to unite them. After that rehearsal, Keeley sat down and composed an e-mail to Divisi. She’d realized an essential truth about the group. She was tired of hearing these girls talk about the
old
Divisi. She’d perpetuated it herself, was possibly even the worst offender. But with the competition just days away, it was time to make a change.

“This fighting isn’t getting us anywhere,” Keeley wrote. “No one can make you have pride in this group. You can’t love it for the reasons the alumni love it. You have to find your own way. We need to want the same thing. If we want to win, let’s do it together. If we just want to have fun, learn a whole bunch of music, relax, and have the Spring Show be our big thing for the year, that’s fine too. But whatever we do, let’s do it together.”

And just like that, something clicked.

Divisi gathered in their dressing room at the Hult Center an hour before the quarterfinals of the ICCAs was to begin. Eight collegiate groups would compete tonight, but Divisi had drawn the short straw. They would open the show, a notoriously bad position. “We’ll just have to set the standard,” Keeley told the girls, trying to put a positive spin on it.

The heavy-red lipstick had been painted on; the fishnet stockings pulled high. The hair was pulled back, shellacked down with Aqua Net—they looked like the women in that Robert Palmer video. The women of Divisi were once again sitting in a circle, tense. The afternoon sound check had not been encouraging. Peter Hollens, the founder of On the Rocks and the producer who had recorded Divisi’s last album, offered some advice. “You can’t trust your ears onstage,” he said. “It can sound like you’re in a shoe box. Don’t worry about that.” Sarah Klein had expected the alums to call with good wishes, but few did. Lisa Forkish was in school and wouldn’t be there to cheer them on. Sarah would have to be the strong one.

Downstairs in the dressing room, Sarah Klein spoke. “I know we’re all anxious,” she said. “But there’s no need to be. We’ve come so far. Let’s have a great time. It’s about giving the audience a good show. Don’t forget that.” Finally, six months into the job, she sounded like a leader.

Divisi broke down their set. They liked to discuss each song—what the lyrics meant, what their motivation should be. Sarah began. “Our set is like a relationship,” she said, which made the girls smile. “‘Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing’—that’s our carefree song. It’s about love. Be
flirtatious
. Then ’Hide and Seek’ is the breakup. And ’You Had Me’ is about getting our confidence back.”

The girls went around the circle, many echoing what Sarah had just said. Finally it was Michaela’s turn to speak. She started. She stopped abruptly, tightening up.

“I’m not sure if I should tell this story,” Michaela said. She looked at Emmalee Almroth seated next to her. She looked down at the floor. She took a breath and then, encouraged by Emmalee, she spoke, slowly, deliberately, eloquently. “I have not been well,” Michaela said. “I’ve been a wreck.” She did not waste time. “Last year I had a problem with cocaine.” She’d quit, she said. She’d worked very hard. She’d been dating a guy, and she thought he was supportive. “But he was still using,” she says. The breakup tore a hole in her heart. She talked about “You Had Me,” about the song she’d sing tonight, about what the lyrics meant to her. No one knew quite what to say. A few of the girls wiped tears from their eyes. It was Keeley who broke the silence. “We’ll have to kill him,” she said.

Sarah brought it all back, sounding very much like Lisa Forkish. “When you’re singing ‘You Had Me’ tonight,” she said, “think about Michaela. Be her support.” And with that, Divisi moved the chairs aside to run through bits of their set. There were last-minute questions about choreography. Marissa Neitling reminded people where to put their hands during a bit of Stevie Wonder choreo. “Don’t
cup
the ovaries,” she said, “just put your hands over them.”

Divisi took to the stage, confidently getting into formation for "Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing.” Andrea Welsh, up front, crouched down with attitude. And as the song began, she kicked up her heel, shouting,
“Ee ee!”

“Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing” opens with the girls singing:
“Don’t you // don’t you // don’t you // don’t you.”
But tonight it sounded like
don’t chew, don’t chew.
Divisi had recently recorded the song in the studio with Peter Hollens. He’d wanted that massive diphthong—don’t
chew
. “It gives the track some sauce,” he’d said. But what works in the studio doesn’t always work onstage. The sound was abrasive. The audience was cold, and Divisi retreated, losing their cool. They suddently looked timid. And their fears about the choreography were confirmed— it was overkill. Distracting even. For Betsy, the slide from head voice to chest voice—as she sang
“Don’t you worry ’bout a thing-eh -ing-eh-ee-ing-eh-eeing”
—was rocky. Halfway through the song, her posture seemed to fall, betraying some sense of disappointment in herself.

“Hide and Seek” was much stronger. The choreography was intricate and precise. It was a lot of hand motions, a lot of evocative head-turns. The girls sing:
“Oily marks appear on walls // where pleasure moments hung before the takeover.”
The word
before
is strung out, the group building to fortissimo. The girls put their hands in front of their faces, pushing out toward the audience. They clench their fists. For some, the song’s lyrics never made much sense. But the choreography somehow crystallized the message, delivering the emotional punch. The intonation was flawless. The dynamics—the swelling, the softening—were perfect. But the highlight on the set would be Michaela Cordova, who stepped to the microphone for “You Had Me” with a singular focus, as if there weren’t another person in the building, let alone seventeen hundred in the crowd. The lyrics—about an abusive boyfriend and his drug abuse—well, it’s as if the song were written for her.

She sang:
“Spitting in my eyes and I still see // Tried to keep me down I’m breaking free // I don’t want no part in your next
fix // Someone needs to tell you // This is it.”
Whether it was the revelation of her drug abuse, that raw exposed wound, or merely the relief that the ladies had gotten through the most difficult elements of their set is unclear. But the song took on an entirely different feeling tonight.