Dramarama (3 page)

S
OMEONE WAS
playing piano in one of the studios. “Big Spender.” The song from
Sweet Charity
. It requires horns—it’s a hooting, bawdy number sung by a posse of down-and-out girls who get paid to dance with men at a seedy club—but the piano arrangement sounded pretty good. I went down the hall and looked in.

A boy my age sat at the baby grand. He was Asian American, medium weight, and looked to be about my height. Shaggy black hair and a long oval face. A wide nose that might have been broken once. Sharp eyes and a faded blue T-shirt. He was looking down at the piano in complete concentration. I could see his back muscles working through the thin fabric. He had almost no hair on his arms.

I walked up to the piano and leaned over it, watching him play.

He didn’t look up, but I could tell he knew I was there. He was sweating slightly in the heat.

I’d never seen a guy my own age play the piano. It was like sex and musical theater fused together.

A bead of moisture slid down his neck.

“I think
Charity
is one of the great underrated musicals,” I said, when “Big Spender” ended. “But I don’t know about that Christina Applegate version. I like Shirley MacLaine better.”

“They’re all too old.” The boy glanced up at me but played a few chords from what I think was “Rich Man’s Frug” with his right hand. “Gwen Verdon and Debbie Allen were too old, too.”

“Did you see Christina? I only have the album.”

“I live in Brooklyn,” he said. “I go fairly often if I don’t spend my money on pizza.”

“How was she?”

“Good. She was good. But I think Charity should be played by someone in her early twenties.”

“Isn’t it more tragic if she’s old?” I asked. “If she’s been used so many times she can’t count, and she still believes in love, still keeps hoping she can reinvent her rotten life?”

The boy considered. “Maybe. But maybe it’s even sadder if she’s been through all that and she’s only twenty-one. And then the ending doesn’t seem so self-delusional. Like maybe she
can
make a break.”

“I always want to recast
The Music Man
,” I said. “Because Marian the librarian is supposed to be this Balzac-reading rebel intellectual in this conservative town, and they always cast her as a wholesome Midwestern blonde. I think she should be homely.”

He considered. “Good point. But I’ve got a soft spot for those Midwestern blondes.”

I sighed. “All guys do, I think.”

The boy laughed. His name was Theo. He went to a private high school and played piano for all the school plays there. “I probably want to be a composer,” he said. “For the stage. But last year I tried out and ended up being Sky Masterson in
Guys and Dolls
instead of staying in the orchestra, so I came to Wildewood to see if I’ve got what it takes.”

“Me too.” I said.

“All of us.”

I asked him about New York City, and Theo told me about streets that were housing projects on one side and two-million dollar brownstones on the other. A block of nothing but Indian restaurants. A park designed for people to get lost in. Sunglasses for sale on the sidewalks, hundreds of colors, all selling cheap. He told me his parents didn’t own a car. They ordered their groceries online and had them delivered. They took the subway. His mom was a law professor, his father a picture book artist.

I told him—well, there was nothing to say about Brenton. So I told him about Demi. How we did
Godspell Pillowcase
and
Sexy Fiddler
in my living room, with me serving as director and choreographer, Demi as costumer and scenic designer, playing all the parts ourselves, and my deaf and old parents barely even noticing.

Theo listened and laughed—but he only asked a question when I mentioned my mom’s disability. “You mean you speak sign language?”

I shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Amazing.”

“I don’t know about
that
.”

“My parents always wanted me to learn Chinese, and I can speak a little, but I slagged off in Mandarin at Packer. I can’t write it.”

“Well, no one writes sign language.”

“Still, you’re bilingual.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re fluent, aren’t you?”

I am.

No one else, not even Demi, had ever put it that way. I am bilingual, I thought to myself. I am fluent in another language.

“I like watching people sign,” Theo said, running his finger down the piano keys. “I guess it comes from playing piano. I’m interested in what people do with their hands.”

“Play something else,” I told him as I sat down on the piano bench.

And he did. He played songs from
Cabaret
,
West Side Story
,
Grease
, anything I asked for.

All from memory. All without missing a note.

I thought I might be in love.

* * *

M
Y DORM
room was on the ground floor. It was larger than my bedroom at home, with dark wooden floors, an old radiator, two bunk beds, and windows looking across to the boys’ dorm. Four cheap wooden dressers and a private bathroom with bare-bones fixtures. A sign on the inside of the door read:
NO SINGING OR MUSICAL INSTRUMENT PRACTICE IS PERMITTED IN THE DORMITORIES BETWEEN 8 P.M. AND 8 A.M. THESE HOURS ARE FOR QUIET, REST, AND STUDY.

One of my three roommates, Isadora, was lying on a top bunk when I came in. “But call me Iz,” she told me. “Everyone does.”

She was wearing jean shorts and a bikini top. Her leg muscles were cut and her eyes were enormous. Strong jaw, pockmarked skin, curly brown hair.

I unzipped my duffel bag and started unpacking, stringing necklaces across the top of the mirror and hanging my sequined sweater off the end of the bunk bed for decoration, since it would probably be too hot to wear it much anyway. I had a poster from
Wicked
and another from the movie of
Cabaret
rolled in a cardboard tube. Iz lent me her tape.

Where was I from?

Ohio. Where was she from?

San Diego. Iz went to a specialized arts school and studied voice and dance. Did I tap?

Yes. Did she?

Yes. Jazz?

Yes. Jazz?

Yes. Ballet?

Not really. Ballet?

Not really! What shows?

What?

What shows had I been in?

Oh. Um. A
West Side Story
medley at Miss Delilah’s.

What shows had she been in?
Damn Yankees
,
Kiss Me Kate,
and
Born Yesterday
, last year at school. All leads.

Oh. Wow.

What were my electives?

Stage Combat and Restoration Comedy. What were hers?

Musical Theater Audition Prep and Restoration Comedy!

“I wanted M-TAP, but I didn’t get it,” I said.

“Everyone wants it,” said Iz, stretching her feet up to touch the ceiling. “This is my third year here and I had to wait three years to get in. They’re very selective.”

I was about to ask her more, when a white-blond puff of pink looked in, nodded, waved as if to say, “Don’t let me disturb you,” disappeared, and then backed into the room, lugging an enormous duffel.

Iz and I fell silent while the girl, who was stout and sweating, climbed to the top of the second bunk, pulled a large
Jekyll & Hyde
poster out of the tube, and taped it up on the ceiling—presumably so she could look at it before she went to sleep.

Eeww.

I mean, it’s one thing for me to have
Wicked
and
Cabaret
on the wall by the dressers, or for Iz to have Harry Connick, Jr. in
Pajama Game
up on one side of our bathroom door, and Hugh Jackman in
Oklahoma!
on the other—because those shows are all great. Hugh and Harry are both hot. But it is quite another thing to have a bizarre split-personality half-monster guy biting a prostitute. Which is what the
Jekyll & Hyde
poster was. I hadn’t seen the musical, but I read the book in English, so I knew that Dr. Jekyll turns into a limping hunchback murderer whenever he drinks a magic potion, and that he is absolutely
not
the person you’d want staring down at you from above your bed.

“I’m Sadye,” I said to the new girl, after she had finished taping. “And this is Isadora.”

“Candie.” Her pink tank top made her damp, flushed face appear even pinker, and she had the slightly hysterical look of a white toy poodle.

“Iz,” I said. “Take a wild guess. What’s our new roommate’s favorite show?”

Isadora closed her eyes and pretended to think deeply. “Umm . . .
Jekyll & Hyde
?”

Candie nodded.

“I thought it closed ages ago,” said Iz.

“In 2001. But I saw it, even though I was only eleven.” Candie touched the poster gently. “It was my birthday present. Then I saw the tour, which was Chuck Wagner, you know, the guy who worked on it before Bob came on? He was amazing. I have all the different recordings.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. She spoke as if this Bob guy were the president or Liza Minnelli or something.

“I saw Chuck do it twice. And last year I played Emma at school.” Candie’s face brightened. “We had to do extra performances; it was really popular.”

“Nice,” I said.

“I wanted to be Lucy, of course, everyone wants to be Lucy—that’s the best part—but I was happy with Emma.” Candie looked up at the creepy picture of the split-personality half-monster guy with love in her eyes. “My boyfriend played the lead. At least, he was my boyfriend during the show. Not that we’re still together.”

As we soon discovered, Candie’s dominant characteristic was that she had no filter. She would lay out her whole life before total strangers. She was obsessed with the whole ex-boyfriend,
Jekyll & Hyde
experience, and had no ability whatsoever to think that maybe she’d want to present herself as seminormal to the people she’d be living with.

Foremost in her mind upon arriving at Wildewood was finding a good place for her Jekkie memorabilia— of which there were several other items now making their way out of her duffel—and she was unable to think of anything else until she’d finished setting them on her desk. Sheet music, several albums,
Playbill
s, a karaoke CD, the program from her high school production, and an autographed photo of “Bob” that she told us she had bought on eBay.

She was from New Jersey, exit number eight, ha-ha-ha, that’s a New Jersey joke. She was the youngest child of five; her electives were M-TAP and Costume Design, her ex-boyfriend and she were meant to be and she knew he would come back around in the end because it was fate; she wanted to lose ten pounds—no, maybe fifteen; she hoped we’d all be best of friends; she was nervous about the dance classes; her mom took her into “the city” a month ago to see
Phantom of the Opera
; and what were we singing for the audition tomorrow?

Because she was singing “Memory” from
Cats
and she was so nervous she couldn’t even see straight.

Truth was, Candie was acting exactly the way I
felt
. Thrilled, agitated, curious, a little stupid. But Candie was so wide open, her neediness was so real and sweaty—that my impulse was to pull away.

I was going to be Big at Wildewood. Not a gaping wound of need.

“I’m a mezzo belter,” Iz was saying. “I’m never gonna get those high soprano leads so I don’t even try. I’m doing ‘Sandra Dee’ from
Grease
.”

“Oh, that’s so great,” said Candie. “I love that show. What are you doing, Sadye?”

“‘Popular,’” I told her, applying eyeliner in the mirror. “From
Wicked
.”

“You’re a soprano, then?” she asked.

I didn’t know.

What was I doing?

How could I not know?

“We did
Grease
and
West Side Story
here last year,” said Iz, before I could answer. “And both times I was the feisty sidekick to the soprano lead. That’s my luck. To be a sidekick forever.”

“You played Anita?” I had entertained myself through many a boring math class by imagining myself as Anita in
West Side Story
.

“Yeah. I had a dress cut down to here—” Iz indicated a spot an inch or two above her navel.

“Va voom.”

“But Rizzo was more fun, actually.”

“Wait, you were here last year?” asked Candie.

Isadora nodded. “This is my third summer. The first year I was only fifteen, so I got little parts.”

“Like what?” I asked, thinking, How bad does it get?

“I was an orphan in
Annie
—they made all the youngest kids be orphans ’cuz we were short—and I sang ‘Turn Back, O Man’ in
Godspell
.”

“Oh, but that’s good!” I blurted.

“It was okay,” said Iz. “The second year was better.”

“Why were you in two shows?” asked Candie. “I thought we were all in one.”

“
Godspell
and
Grease
were ten-day wonders,” answered Iz.

“Okay, stop everything,” I declared. “What is a ten-day wonder?”

Iz walked me and Candie down through the green lawns and red-brick buildings to a small beach that bordered a lake at the south edge of campus, and explained how Wildewood functioned. Which was scary.

We’d have an orientation lecture that night, and the next day a tour of the campus, free time to get to know each other, and a dance. “Then the craziness begins,” said Iz. The next two days would be spent in public auditions, technically called Preliminary Songs and Monologues. We’d all go through a dance combination, then sit in the red velvet seats of the Kaufman Theater and watch each other do our sixteen-bar numbers and two-minute speeches. Jacob Morales was the head of the summer institute. He would give the lecture tonight and preside at the auditions—and (according to Iz) he was brilliant. A Broadway director, fresh off the smash of last season’s
Oliver!
revival.

(At this, I wanted to squeal, though I managed to hold it in.
Oliver! Oliver!
that Demi and I had been listening to all morning! Why hadn’t it occurred to me to Google the institute faculty?)

Iz had had Morales for acting class two years in a row, and he’d directed her in
Godspell
and
Grease
. “He always does the ten-day wonder,” she said. “That’s why it’s good to get cast in it. I learned so much from him.”

“Like what?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. By now we were taking off our shoes to walk in the sand, and she bent down to unbuckle her sandals. “The ten-day wonder is because they want to get people out in front of an audience,” she explained. “The directors want us to have a play of our own right away, before any of the other shows are ready. To get us into the spirit of performance.”

“Okay.”

“After the auditions, everyone’s in a show. And your show rehearses in the afternoon. But some people are in the ten-day wonder also, and then you have rehearsals at night and don’t go to evening rec. You even get out of classes some mornings, because you’re putting up this show as fast as you can.” Iz smiled happily. “It’s so, so stressful.”

“That’s how you did
Grease
?” Candie dipped one curvy toe into the icy lake water. Her feet were cute and decorated with sparkly white polish. Dancers never have cute feet.

“And
Godspell
,” said Iz. “The night after the auditions, Morales and the other directors all meet and argue over casting. They stay up all night—because in the morning, before breakfast, they have to post a cast list for every show.”

There were four musicals, she explained, plus the ten-day wonder, plus a classic straight play, usually Shakespeare. “But you don’t want to be in the straight play,” she said. “Trust me. It’s like the catchall for people with no talent.”

Candie moaned. “If they put me in
Hamlet
I’ll die.”

“Wait. Did you hear they’re doing
Hamlet
?” Iz asked, looking intent.

Candie shrugged. “How would I know? I meant I don’t want to talk Shakespeare,” said Candie. “I can never understand what they’re saying.”

“You have to be able to do Shakespeare if you’re going to be an actress,” I said.

“Say
actor
,” corrected Iz. “That’s what they say here. Boy. Girl. Everyone’s an actor.”

“Shakespeare’s the greatest dramatist ever,” I told Candie. “You can’t be scared of him or you’ll never make it.”

Candie shook her frizzy curls. “I just want to do a show with music. I wish I could dance.”

“Well,” I said. “Do you take classes?”

“No.”

“You don’t take dance classes?”

“I said no.”

“Then you haven’t tried. You have to study it for years before you can seriously complain that you can’t dance. Otherwise you’re making excuses.”

I was being awful to Candie, I knew. Condescending. Something in Candie’s naked fear and strange obsessions—something in her awkward, apple-shaped body—made me afraid.

Afraid of being lumped in with her.

I knew I could dance. And yet I also felt like Candie did: I didn’t know if I’d be good enough. And I hated the way Iz had corrected me—“Say
actor
, that’s what they say here.” Reminding me how little I knew. And it was so, so irritating how Iz’s definition of a bad part was one I’d kill to have (“Turn Back, O Man”) and how she was completely confident of her own worth. “Everyone knows me here,” she said at one point. “You don’t play Anita and Rizzo in one year and not have the teachers know you.”

I don’t mean to make it sound like Iz was horrible. She wasn’t. It was more like she was bursting with stories and tips and excitement, and it was all spilling out of her, the way she knew so much and had been in so many shows. She was helping us, really. She was being generous, but at the same time every sentence she spoke reminded us that she was a longtime veteran, sure of hefty parts in two showy musicals, while we were scared newbies who didn’t even know what a ten-day wonder was until she explained it to us.

There on the beach, what Iz was really telling me and Candie was that she was so good, and so experienced, there was no way we could ever compete with her. And I was telling Candie she hadn’t worked as hard as I had and didn’t have the drive she needed. And Candie was still oblivious to the status game, letting all her insecurities hang out.

Yes, I was mean to Candie.

Yes, I would have been nicer person if I had opted out of the competition and just let Iz ramble on about how talented she was. But that’s not what I did.

I hadn’t come to Wildewood to back down at the first sign of a challenge. I had come to show what I could do, right? To let the Bigness out.

I stood on my hands in the sand and split my legs in the air. A perfect 180-degree split into a front walkover.

Then I did it again.

It shut Iz up.

But only temporarily.

O
UR FOURTH
roommate was brushing her hair when we returned to get ready for dinner. Her name was Nanette, and she was a strawberry blonde with a pointy chin and a body so small you’d have thought she was twelve. We hadn’t even reached the cafeteria before we learned that Nanette had played Chip in
Beauty and the Beast
on Broadway when she was seven, followed by a touring production of
Annie
in which she understudied the lead. She then played Jemima in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
, back on Broadway, did a revival of
A Little Night Music
in Los Angeles, and since then had been traveling the West Coast in a nine-month tour of
Fiddler on the Roof
. Although she was sixteen, she was so tiny she played the youngest of Tevye’s daughters.