Starry-Eyed (27 page)
Authors: Ted Michael
My love of performing, and dreams of being a singer and dancer, began when I was very, very young. People are surprised by that, even though I was doing eight shows a week on Broadway in
Annie
when I was a “little girl.” Most people don't know that I was pretty much raring to go not long after I popped out of my mother's womb!
When I was a baby, I'd swoon when my parents played Sinatra or Rosemary Clooney records. I'd force my little brother Michael to be part of my homegrown theatrics, and I lived for Saturday mornings at Miss Rita Rue's Dance Class.
But if I can pin it down to one moment, one exact moment when the idea of actually being a part of the creative community appealed to me most, it was when I sang at
Tony Grant's Stars of Tomorrow
on Atlantic City's Steel Pier.
While sadly Steel Pier is no longer a destination for live entertainment, at one time it showcased the likes of Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges, Bob Hope, Amos 'n' Andy, Al Jolson, Paul Anka, the Rolling Stones, Ricky Nelson, and even my favorite, Frank Sinatra! The location also presented the famous Diving Horse and was where the Miss America Pageant first was held. It was a fantasy land for a little starry-eyed girl like me!
Growing up in Northeast Philadelphia allowed us to take trips down to the Jersey shore with relative ease; it was about a two-hour drive away. Of course, as far as I was concerned, I would have traveled a thousand miles to perform for Tony Grant.
Tony Grant's Stars of Tomorrow
was a showbiz staple for thirty-two years and gave thousands of eager young performers a chance to sing in front of
live audiences. My mother saw an ad in the local Philly paper about
Stars of Tomorrow
holding auditions, and once I heard that, well, I was OBSESSED. Needless to say, the McArdle family took a day trip to New Jersey!
I can't say I was frightened singing on that stage. Yes, my heart was beating like a drum, but it was out of excitement, not because of nerves. That's not to say that I didn't get butterfliesâI STILL get them before a performanceâbut not that day, not on the stage of the Steel Pier, my own magical dreamland! My only concern was that my hair was too curly. I wanted it pulled up and backâafter all I had to look glamorous for my public! But my mother had other ideas. Little did I know “curly hair” was going to figure prominently in my future.
When they called my name, introduced me, and the band started up, I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and had the thrill of singing take me over. I felt the connection of the audience, the Boardwalk, the musicâeverything. In that moment I understood the gift of performing, of connecting and sharing. It's safe to say I never looked back, and on that sunny afternoon, I was only looking forward. A little girl with big curls and even bigger dreams that suddenly felt like they were coming true.
That day also gave me a healthy dose of confidenceâthat's a gift that every young artist should have, knowing you are part of a community of singers, dancers, and actors. Knowing that there are other people just like you out there, supporting and inspiring you along the way, is an important part of the creative journey.
A
NDREA
M
CARDLE
first captured the hearts of audiences in 1977 when she originated the title role in the megamusical
Annie
, becoming the youngest performer ever to be nominated for a Tony Award as Best Lead Actress in a Musical. She also received the Theatre World and Outer Critics Circle Awards. Andrea subsequently portrayed Annie in the West End, and played Judy Garland in the television movie
Rainbow
.
Andrea has starred in
Jerry's Girls
, the original Broadway cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's
Starlight Express, Meet Me in St. Louis, They're Playing Our Song, Evita, Les Misérables
, the original Broadway cast of
State Fair, Oliver!, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Beauty and the Beast
, and as Sally Bowles in the national tour of Sam Mendes's
Cabaret
.
Andrea has also performed in major shows in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and other large concert halls throughout the country, including Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House.
The day after Mara Crane disappeared, I chipped my front tooth on a coffee mug. A missing high school junior, a missing hunk of incisorâboth of these things were tragedies, obviously. One of them just got more press coverage than the other.
At school that Monday morning, everyone was talking about Mara. Teary cheerleaders told each other how worried they were. Choir kids traded stories about where she'd last been seen. Even the teachers were whispering in doorways. I listened, slouching in my desk, while my tongue moved obsessively over the spot where a piece of me was suddenly gone.
When the lunch bell rang, I realized I hadn't said a single word all day.
I could have said something. Even if we hadn't exchanged more than a wave in the last three years of high school, Mara had once been my best friend. I could have joined the weepy drama kids and gushed about how worried I was, helped them concoct their stories about mysterious stalkers, alien abductions, the phenomenon of spontaneous combustion. But the truth is, when I heard Mara Crane was gone, my first thought was about who would take her place in the winter play.
Maybe I was better off with my mouth shut.
Tonguing the jagged tooth, I hurried past the cafeteria, ran the gauntlet of jocks outside the gym, skirted a group of mascara-streaked choir girls, and veered right, toward the auditorium.
The auditorium is in the old part of the school, built before the era of cinderblock and plate glass. Its seats are upholstered in worn purple velvet. There's a dusty balcony with brass rails, and plaster friezes of Greek gods on the walls. You can stand in the auditorium and forget that you're in a high school at all.
This is part of why I go there so often.
Liam was waiting for me on the edge of the stage. He had switched on a row of colored spots, and their beams fell across the apron, casting his shadow in triplicate rainbows.
Liam is the school's Light God. He has a permanent pass to the auditorium, because none of the teachers understand what he does. If a teacher ever questions why he needs to skip gym classâagainâto work onstage, he says something like, “I'm prepping to adjust the lights on the first batten to hit the hot spot,” and the teacher always just nods and goes quietly away again.
If I'm honest, I don't know anything about stage lighting, either. I'm the Light God's pretend assistant. I'm the Ineffectual Lighting Angel.
Liam glanced up as I slammed through the auditorium doors.
“I chipped my front tooth on a mug this morning,” I announced, stomping down the aisle. My voice rang from the walls. “A huge piece fell off. A
giant
piece. And my mom can't afford to send me to the dentist until she gets her next paycheck, so I have to spend the next two weeks looking like a freak.”
Liam shrugged. “One more reason not to smile.”
I swung myself up onto the edge of the stage.
“What were you drinking?” Liam asked.
“Huh?”
“Out of the mug that chipped your tooth.”
“Oh.” I sat down facing Liam, cross-legged, and opened my bag lunch.
“That instant powdered hazelnut latte stuff.”
“
That's
what makes you a freak.”
“Shut up. We aren't all hardcore enough for black coffee.”
Liam smiled, running one hand through his choppy black hair. I also have choppy black hair. Liam and I have similar builds, and we're both prone to dark plaid and Chuck Taylors. We often get mistaken for brother and sister, or boyfriend and girlfriend. Or identical twins. Which is especially awkward.
People used to mix up Mara and me, back when we were both tiny brown-haired grade-schoolers, always together, acting out our made-up plays. But that was a long time ago.
I took the green apple out of my lunch bag and tried to get my jagged front teeth through the skin in a way that didn't feel like rubbing an ice cube on a nerve.
“Did you hear about Mara Crane?” I asked, gnawing off a strip of apple peel.
“Yeah. I saw it on the morning news today.”
“You watch the morning news?”
“While I'm drinking my black coffee.” Liam swallowed a bite of sandwich. “They said she vanished from her own house. Her parents and her brother were all there, and she told them good night and went into her bedroom. And then on Sunday morning, she was just gone.”
“It's crazy.” I managed to nibble off another fragment of apple. “I meanâshe's not the type to run away.”
“Why would she?”
I shrugged. There was no reason. Mara Crane could do, or get, or
be
anything that she wanted.
First, she had grown up to be gorgeous. As we left elementary school for junior high, her hair turned redder and glossier, and her skin stayed as smooth and pimple-free as something that formed inside an oyster shell. Her parents could afford dance classes in Chicago, and Mara flitted through the school halls on legs that just got longer and more graceful
while the rest of us lurched around like novice stilt-walkers. Then her parents started driving her to weekly voice lessons from some retired opera diva, and soon she was getting one choir solo after another.
I first saw the split between us when we were twelve. We signed up together for the Y's summer theater camp; it was cheap, so Mom said yes. At the end, we put on some generic fairy tale play. Mara was cast as the princess, and I wasâI kid you notâa gargoyle. Afterward, the split grew wider and wider, with Mara and her lessons and her solos and her medals on one side, and me with my stringy home-dyed hair on the other. It's been years since I could say I
knew
her. But I knew her well enough to think she wouldn't run away.
“Her brother is in my math class,” said Liam abruptly.
“I thought he was a senior.”
“He is. He just sucks at math.”
I laid down on the stage's black boards, smelling the mixture of paint and velvet and dust, letting it seep into my bloodstream. “I wonder what will happen with
Kismet
. We're supposed to start rehearsals next week.”
“Well, if Mara doesn't come backâ”
“âI'm sure she'll come back.”
“But if she doesn't,” said Liam, his mouth full, “then some other girl will finally get the good part.” The rubber toe of his black All Star, covered with geometrical scribbles, nudged me in the shoulder.
“What?” I inched my shoulder away. “It won't be me. I didn't even make the chorus.”
I flopped onto my back, staring up at the metal spiderweb of catwalks and light rods and electric cords that crisscrossed the ceiling high above. If I could sing, I might at least have gotten a small role. But that's one more thing that separates me from Mara, my life from her life. And I'd trade my whole real life for an imaginary one.
I'd spend it all onstage, changing costumes, walking through canvas rooms, getting to take on one existence after another. Never being just
myself
again.