Starry-Eyed (13 page)

Nancy Priest taught for thirty years at George Washington High School, and her drama class was no “easy A.” It wasn't the kind of drama class where you just hung out with friends and did weird acting exercises. In fact, more was expected of me in drama then I was used to. We did Shakespeare; we did Neil Simon; we studied the origin of musicals. We did scene work nearly every week and worked on memorization and creativity. We learned how to give feedback to one another and formulate helpful opinions about our work.

I remember the day that she asked each of us to raise our hand and “tell the class something you like about yourself.” As an insecure teenager, I immediately started going through my mental list of things that I hated
about myself: my body, my skin, my legs, my clothes . . . the list seemed to be endless. But the point of the lesson was to learn not just to criticize yourself or other people, but to see the good in each of us. This set the tone for how we were to critique each other when we did scene assignments. Someone gets up to perform, we applaud. Priest asks us for critiques, and we were to
always
start with the positive! You can always find the good in what you see. I try to live that way every day and am so grateful for that lesson.

There was also more to learn than just being good at scene work. There was the design element. I remember we watched
South Pacific
so that we could create our own costume renderings for the show. Well, I figured since I
knew
I don't want to be a designer, I would be funny and draw basic clothes on stick models and draw pineapples for their heads. I thought I was hilarious. Mrs. Priest was not impressed. She reprimanded me for not taking it seriously and failed my drawings. You better believe I did them over and handed them in again! I
wanted
to succeed in her class. I
wanted
to impress her. I
wanted
to learn how to appreciate all the aspects of this industry that I loved so much. She knew how much I wanted to do this for a living, and she pushed me to care about every side of it! It was important that I paid attention to each part.

She also taught us how to make set models. We designed our sets for
Noises Off
and
Rent
. We listened to the cassette tapes of
Rent
so we would know the show in order to make amazing models. I was
terrible
at this, but I had to do it anyway. I mostly just liked going to Hobby Lobby and picking out cute things to glue on my set. But we actually had to measure things and use our math skills. Well, suddenly in order to get an A in drama, I needed to listen up in math more. To get an A in drama I needed to attend my other classes. What a concept!

Outside of class were the school shows. We put on four shows a year, which in itself was an incredible feat for a poor inner-city high school in Denver and because there wasn't much money, we all helped out. Mrs. Priest taught us how to paint sets, sew costumes, and build scenery. No
matter how long you had been a part of her class, everyone auditioned for every show. I always wanted to be the star of each show and she saw my potential early on, but she
never
let me rest on my talent alone. She never made it easy for me; I had my fair share of disappointments.

My senior year I wanted to be the lead in
Moon Over Buffalo
so badly. I did my
best
audition, and I was sure I got it. But when I got to school the next day, I ran to look at the cast list to see I was not in the show at all. She made me the stage manager. Stage manager?! Mrs. Priest knew I didn't want to be behind the scenes, I wanted to be onstage!

But she had a point: she knew I needed to learn all aspects of the theater, not just about being onstage. In my four years of drama class, I starred in shows, I stage managed others; I did makeup, costumes, and sound; I choreographed, and I assistant directed. There were times I was even an usher, but I was always involved. Priest taught us the importance of being supportive no matter what part you have.

She also taught us the importance of coming together as a team. Before every show, we did something called “circle.” Everyone in the cast, orchestra, and crew stood in a circle in the lunchroom (our backstage, of course), and if anyone had any thanks they wanted to give, we said it one at a time. Then Priest would say the final words of thanks and inspiration. We would then join hands and jump up and down chanting: “aaaaahhhhh ONE, TWO, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO! UNITED WE STAND! DIVIDED WE FALL! LET'S MAKE THIS SHOW THE BEST OF ALL! GIVE 'EM HELL!”

My senior year, Priest announced that she was retiring. Oh, the tears. Even though I was graduating, it still felt like such a loss for the school. This woman would be a tough act to follow. We got the auditorium to be named after her in her honor. It was the least we could do for someone who ignited such passion in each of us. It didn't matter that we had been a school without a lot of money. It didn't matter that most of us didn't come from privileged backgrounds. It just mattered that we were there for each other. And I realized,
that
is why I want to be in this business. I want
to be part of a community like the one Mrs. Priest created. A community of artists who always can find the positive in one another, who care about the importance of jobs onstage and offstage and most of all who live by the code “united we stand, divided we fall.”

So what made me want to do this for a career? I had the world's greatest drama teacher. Her name is Nancy Priest.

S
IERRA
B
OGGESS
has starred on Broadway as the title character in Disney's
The Little Mermaid
(for which she received Drama League and Drama Desk nominations), opposite Tyne Daly in
Master Class
, and as Christine Daaé in
The Phantom of the Opera
. She received an Olivier Award nomination for her work in
Love Never Dies
, starred as Fantine in
Les Misérables
, and returned to the London stage for the 25th Anniversary Gala of
The Phantom of the Opera
. Concerts include BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall), American Songbook Series: The Lyrics of David Zippel and New York Pops (Lincoln Center), and Broadway by the Year (Town Hall). Her TV appearances include
Today
,
Good Morning America, The View, Entertainment Tonight
, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the 62nd Annual Tony Awards. Sierra has been heard on the recording of
The Phantom of the Opera
25th Anniversary Gala (also DVD),
Love Never Dies
(symphonic recording),
The Little Mermaid
(original cast), and Andrew Lippa's
A Little Princess
. She holds a BFA from Millikin University.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE MARIA?

Marc Acito

“
What
are you doing?”

Gale stops typing, startled back to reality, a place she avoids whenever possible. She looks around the camp office, the room thick with soupy summer air, the only sound the chirrup of cicadas—
whirring like a thousand tiny helicopters
, she thinks, narrating her life. With a British accent.

She sees no one except a small boy with an unblinking gaze and unexpected hair. In the summer of 1969 even small boys at Camp Algonquin have long hair—not long-long like the counselors, with their hippie dos that make the Squares say they look like girls—but long enough to make them look like sheepdogs.

This kid, however, has sculpted his hair into a sturdy pompadour, a granite cliff perched on his head. With an aristocratic tilt of his chin, and a stick-up-his-butt posture, he reminds Gale of Captain von Trapp—shrunk in the wash. Maybe that's because she has
The Sound of Music
on her brain. Where it frequently does battle with
Funny Girl
.

She hez a chronic condition
, she thinks, this time sounding like a German psychiatrist.
Tsis overly imaginative fifteen-year-old camper suffers frum a “Maria Fanny Fixation
.”

The boy repeats himself, a tiny wind preceding the
wh
as he says,
“
What
are you doing,” his tongue crossing the
t
. His voice is high and musical, the diction precise and almost British—like Julie Andrews.

“I'm typing up a script,” Gale says. “Larry the camp director is too cheap to get the rights to
The Sound of Music
, so I'm writing it myself. From memory.”

Her voice sounds defensive, and she's instantly embarrassed
, reports the Newscaster in Her Brain. But she does feel embarrassed. Not just that she's explaining herself to a little kid, but actually ashamed that in both junior high
and
summer camp she's had to endure performing such babyish drivel as
The Haunting of Spook House
and
The Mystery of the Missing Sandwich
.

However . . .

This summer is gonna be different. This summer astronauts will walk on the moon. The moon! This summer Gale Rosalyn Rubenstein will direct, star in, and otherwise rouse the conformist complacency of Camp Algonquin with her own wondrous version of
The Sound of Music
. This summer she'll return to Long Island and start high school, where she'll finally audition for a REAL play. And when she does, she'll be able to say, “Experience? Well, I just played Maria this summer. Maria von Trapp . . .”

Back in reality, the boy's blue eyes suddenly shine like sapphires.

“I LOVE
The Sound of Music
,” he says. “I've seen it FIFTY Times.”

This seems highly unlikely to Gale. After all, she's fifteen and only seen
The Sound of Music
ten times. “How old are you?” she asks.

“I am nine years old,” the boy replies, pronouncing each word as if it were Holy Writ. “I am small for my age.”

And then he launches:

“The movie of
The Sound of Music
had its world premiere at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City in March of 1965—exactly twenty-two blocks from my house—and it stayed there for ninety-three weeks until November of 1966. My father has visitation every other weekend and I told him I had no interest in the Bronx Zoo, the Central Park Zoo, or anything other than
The Sound of Music
. When I went the fiftieth time, the ushers gave me free candy and popcorn.”

There's no denying it—this kid is strange, in a way that makes Gale slightly uncomfortable. Not creepy uncomfortable, more unsettled, like the room is suddenly askew. But she can't help but be impressed with his knowledge and finds herself addressing the child conspiratorially, as if they were the same age.

“I wanted to do
Funny Girl,
” she says, “but Larry said it was inappropriate.”

The boy gasps asthmatically. “I LOVE
Funny Girl!
You know the scene where Fanny is in the Ziegfeld Follies and she feels embarrassed having to sing about being the beautiful reflection of her love's affection, so she puts a pillow under her costume to be a pregnant bride?”

Of course Gale knows the scene. She knows just about everything there is to know about Barbra Streisand. If Jews could have patron saints, then loudmouth girls with unconventional looks like Gale would worship Barbra. The Holy Nose.

“The pregnant bride is the fourth best scene,” Gale says. “After ‘Don't Rain on My Parade,' ‘I'm the Greatest Star,' and ‘People.'”

“I KNOW,” the kid says. “Barbra's going to do
Hello, Dolly!
next. I can't WAIT. I saw
Hello, Dolly!
on Broadway. Not with Carol Channing, but I have the original cast album. I saw Ginger Rogers. She danced with Fred Astaire. Not in
Hello, Dolly!
, but in the olden days. I've seen TEN Broadway shows:
1776
,
Fiddler on the Roof, Judy Garland at the Palace
. . . .”

This is Gale's sixth summer at Camp Algonquin, an experience she inherited from her parents, who met here in the 1950s when it was practically a Talmudic Law that all Jews migrate every summer to the Catskills. Over the years, Gale's shot arrows, thrown pots, paddled canoes, roasted many a marshmallow, and told many a ghost story. Neither popular nor unpopular, she has one True Friend here, Amanda Horowitz, a tall, mannish girl who rides horses and whose enthusiasm for movie westerns rivals Gale's obsession with musicals.

But . . .

Never before has she met anyone who shares her passion, a slightly
guilty pleasure because it is so decidedly uncool. Cool kids listen to the Stones and the Who, while she'd rather hear the original cast albums of
My Fair Lady
and
South Pacific
. But she certainly never imagined she would share that passion with an overly articulate nine-year-old boy. Who immediately takes it upon himself to criticize her work.

“No, no, no,” the boy says as he looks over the pages she's already typed. “Friedrich doesn't introduce himself by saying he's incorrigible. He says he's IMPOSSIBLE. The younger brother Kurt is the one who says he's INCORRIGIBLE.”

He's interrupted by the arrival of Larry, a big bearded man who looks like a grouchy Santa Claus. One glance at the kid and Larry groans. “What is it now, Sterling?” His voice is edged with irritation. “Other boys giving you trouble again?”

Sterling. Of course the kid has a name like Sterling. Sterling's jaw tightens and flexes, his upright posture turning rigid. In an instant Gale pictures him as the hero of
Oliver Twist
, which she read because she loves the musical: