Dramarama (6 page)

T
HE NEXT
day, we assembled for a three-hour tour of the campus. Lyle, Candie, and Demi were in my group—but of course Lyle didn’t need the tour at all, having lived at Wildewood for the past three years. So he entertained us by muttering addendums to the information we were being given. The lakefront beach was, according to Lyle, “the site of several midnight debaucheries resulting in expulsion,” and the boys’ dorm had the “second best roof on campus, each roof receiving points for comfort, view, ease of access, and privacy.”

There were five theaters (one outdoors—which would be for
Show Boat
), and their lobby walls were lined with photographs of past student productions. We strolled across brilliant green lawns to dance studios and rehearsal rooms, and poked our heads into the Performing Arts Library, which included videotapes of famous productions, scrapbooks on theater programs, and hundreds of books on theater and dance history.

Basements of the dorms and classrooms contained practice rooms with pianos and soundproof walls (“You don’t even want to
know
what goes on down there late nights,” muttered Lyle), and the math and science buildings were small and neglected in comparison with the performing arts centers. We saw the costume studio, filled with racks of sparkly clothes and bolts of fabric, the walls covered with design sketches of elongated figures. We took the freight elevator to the lumber shop, where flats from sets for
A Doll’s House
and
Arcadia
(two spring shows at the Academy) were leaned up against each other, a cacophony of floral wallpapers.

“We don’t have anything like this in New Jersey,” Candie whispered. “I mean, my high school has like, an auditorium and that’s it.”

I knew what she meant, but I didn’t want to sound ignorant. “There are lots of programs like this,” I told her. “Interlochen, Stagedoor Manor.” I had looked them up on the Internet.

“I know,” said Candie. “I just didn’t know how big it would be; how different it would feel to actually stand here and be a part of it all.”

“Don’t be fooled by tour-guide patter,” said Lyle, coming up behind us. “It’s not all spotlights and glamour.”

“Oh, I know we’ve got to work hard,” said Candie. “Morales told us.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Lyle told her. “I meant that this place can be hard as hell to take. There’s a lot of blood spilled in the creation of musical comedy. You’d be surprised.”

“Don’t you love it?” I asked.

“Of course I do. It’s my home,” Lyle said. “But I’m not afraid to tell you: it’s dysfunctional.”

“You don’t know from dysfunctional, darling,” Demi butted in. “This place is heaven.”

A
T LUNCHTIME
, the tour finished in front of the cafeteria. “Do you see Blake?” Demi asked, looking around.

“No, I don’t, happy to say,” muttered Lyle.

“Blake is that cute blond guy, right?” Candie said to me. “Don’t you think he’s cute?”

“Certainly, darling,” I said. “But forget it.”

Candie looked crushed. “I didn’t mean he’d ever look at me,” she said, louder. “Gosh, Sadye. I know I’m not—”

“Don’t be so mean, Sadye. You’re giving the girl a complex,” interrupted Demi, putting his arm around Candie.

“I was explaining the Blake situation,” I told him.

“Sadye didn’t mean it how it sounded,” Demi said to Candie. “Whatever horrible thing she said.”

“I didn’t,” I told Candie. “Really.” And that was true.

But it was also true that I hated her neediness, her naked, naked feelings.

“Blake is . . . European,” joked Demi.

“What do you mean, European?” asked Candie, confused.

“Here’s the deal,” Demi explained kindly. “Blond Blake from Boston belongs to me.”

Candie laughed. “What, like you’re gay?” She said it as if it could only be a joke.

Demi looked at her, his face harsher. “Exactly.”

Candie looked abashed. “Oh, my gosh.”

“Don’t be shocked,” said Lyle. “This is musical theater.”

Candie was from a Christian family, I knew. Her parents were conservative. I bet she’d never seen an out gay person in her life. “I never would have thought . . .” she stuttered. “Blake is so . . .”

“Isn’t he, though?” sighed Demi. “So so so so . . .”

“Welcome to Wildewood, Candie,” said Lyle nasally. “I think you’re going to have a very interesting summer.”

A
S SOON AS
we spotted Blake in the cafeteria (in line at the salad bar), Demi was gone. And Lyle ran after Demi.

Candie and I found seats with Iz and Nanette. We ate grilled cheese with coleslaw on the side and claimed parts for ourselves in the big musicals. Iz, the mezzo, wanted Miss Adelaide in
Guys and Dolls
and Rose in
Bye Bye Birdie
, both fiery characters who get their reluctant guys to the altar by the end of the show. Nanette, also a belter, but more of a leading lady type, wanted Audrey in
Little Shop
—a buxom, vulnerable blonde with the brainpower of a pea and a heart as big as Texas. She said she’d also be happy with Julie in
Show Boat
. “But you know me,” she said, (although we didn’t), “I’ll get stuck with the little brother in
Birdie
. Because of my size. The curse of the tiny.”

Candie hoped meekly to sing a solo. When pressed, she said she’d be glad to get Grizabella in
Cats
.

“What do you want, Sadye?” Iz asked me.

I was terrified I’d end up a dancer in the background of
Cats
without ever speaking or singing a word onstage all summer. And I already felt sick at the supposedly friendly competition between us all, which (if it went on like this) might mean that none of us would ever be friends, no matter if we ate every meal together for seven weeks. No way would I land a high soprano part like Kim in
Birdie
or Magnolia in
Show Boat
. I didn’t have the vocal power for
Little Shop
, either. Rose in
Birdie
was a possibility, but my best bet was the shrieky Brooklynette babe, Miss Adelaide, who shakes her tail feathers in
Guys and Dolls
as a featured act at the Hot Box club.

So I replied to Iz’s question with an answer she didn’t want to hear: “Adelaide.”

Iz looked at me for a moment without saying a word. Then she stood up and climbed onto her chair. Standing with one foot on the table next to her grilled cheese, hip cocked out, hands fluttering around her face in comical confusion, she began to sing. “Take Back Your Mink”—Adelaide’s big number.

The cafeteria hushed. Isadora’s slightly gritty belt soared—all about a fur coat, a beautiful gown, and the no-good fella who bought them for her and then figured he’d bought himself the chance to undress her.

The song sounded good, a capella. Her voice was a jazz trumpet. It announced itself, bossy and smoky at the same time, piercing at the high notes and growling when she went low. People pulled their trays away, and Iz stepped up on the table. Her wide eyes flashed. She paraded up and down, bending to stroke the hair and shoulders of all the cutest guys, and finished the number with her legs and arms wide, triumphant.

The cafeteria exploded into applause, and Iz glowed as she stepped off the table. Then she dropped Miss Adelaide’s Brooklyn accent and turned to me: “I love that song. Don’t you?”

“You have an awesome voice,” I said. Because it was true. Because I liked Iz, even though I also hated her.

Because what she’d just done, though obnoxious, was also exciting. She wasn’t just a brassy girl who talked big. She lived big, too. Sang big. It was thrilling that someone who looked so ordinary had so much light inside her.

But could I ever win a part she’d set her sights on?

W
E HAD
the afternoon free, and the sun was out. People sat on the grass outside the dorms, singing snatches of show tunes and lying with their heads on each other’s stomachs. Everyone was lolling around, the girls showing off their legs, the boys taking off their shirts, topping each other with stories of the plays they’d done in high school, the speech competitions they’d won, the parts they aimed for someday—and bonding. All of us were dreaming the exact same dreams.

Nanette squeezed in on a cotton blanket between me and Demi and started feeding us Skittles with her tiny fingers. Iz came up and leaned on Nanette’s legs, demanding to be fed as well. Then we all lay on our backs and kicked our legs to the sky like Rockettes while trying to remember the lyrics to “All About Ruprecht” from
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
. Demi demanded we airplane him, which we did, and then he tried to fly on our feet and catch Skittles in his mouth at the same time, which ended in disgustingness.

Theater folk are like this, I realized. Physical right away. Kissy, huggy. Not like my family at all. Theater people will act like your oldest friend when you’ve just met. And they do it even while they’re competing with you.

That night, there was a dance in the black box theater: sweaty, dark, a blur. Demi got filled with testosterone as soon as he heard “My Humps,” and chased Blake all night. He was surprisingly unslick in his adoration. He pulled Blake outside to look at the “incredible moon” and gyrated next to him with ridiculous abandon. As if he were marking his territory. All the gay boys were eyeing the two of them, as well as the girls who were thus far clueless as to their orientation.

I danced, and danced, and danced. After the agonies and excitements of the day, I just moved, letting the music go through me. I danced with Demi, Lyle, Iz, Nanette, Candie, and even Blake. I danced by myself when other people got tired.

I didn’t dance with Theo, though. When I finally spotted him, he was holed up in one corner, talking intently to a girl named Bec. A Kristinish brunette with a turned-up nose.

Bleh.

Iz, Nanette, and I convened in the girls’ bathroom.

“You should ask him to dance,” Iz advised. “Guys like it when you ask them. I asked Wolf to dance at a club; did I tell you that’s how we met?” She reached over and picked up my lip gloss, spreading it on her wide mouth without asking. “My skin is like, so broken out,” she moaned, shoving her face up to the mirror. “It always breaks out when I have auditions.”

Nanette pulled out gold glitter mascara and put some on her eyelashes, then handed it to me like of course I was going to use it. “We can’t be dancing with the gay boys all night,” she announced. “It’s already been going on too long. If you ask Theo the piano player, Sadye, I’ll ask that guy in the
Rent
T-shirt.”

“What makes you sure
he’s
not gay?” asked Iz.

“I’ve got no idea. But I’ll find out, won’t I?”

“I don’t understand why Theo’s all over
her
now,” I said, going back to the subject of Bec. “One second he’s walking me back to my dorm and practically barging his way in, the next second he’s forgotten I exist.”

“He’s distracted, that’s all,” said Iz. “Straight guys here get an enormous amount of play. If you want him, Sadye, you’ve got to pounce.”

“But I pounced earlier today. I shouldn’t have to do all the pouncing. He should pounce me back.”

“He did pounce you, he tried to come into the dorm room.”

“But he’s not pouncing now.”

“Now he’s pouncing Bec,” Nanette put in. “So you have to repounce.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ll repounce if everyone pounces. Nanette, you do the
Rent
shirt guy. And Iz, you ask someone, too.”

“Okay.” Iz was surprisingly open for someone madly in love with Wolf. “I’ll pounce that crew-cut guy with freckles, did you see him?”

“With the pierced ears?”

“Yeah.”

We looked at ourselves in the mirror: Nanette, under five feet and dressed in white jeans and a white shirt, tons of makeup, and a swarm of strawberry hair curling in the humidity; Iz, curvy and broad-shouldered, wearing a red cotton sundress with a black bra peeking out; me, tall, a little androgynous, a lot glittery, in a green T-shirt that said “Natural Blonde” and my brown suede miniskirt. “We look fabulous,” I said. “Let’s pounce.”

Theo was talking to a different girl from the one before. Well, that was encouraging. At least he hadn’t proposed immediate marriage to Bec. Nanette gave me a slight shove in his direction, and I marched up and tapped his shoulder. “Come dance with me!”

“Hey, Sadye.” Theo smiled. “Give me a minute.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t introduce me to the girl.

He hadn’t said no. Right? He’d basically said yes.

But what was I supposed to do? Stand there waiting?

For how long? And how far away from where he was talking to the other girl?

I waited for a minute, about five feet away, but Theo and the girl kept talking. And kept talking. So I started dancing, on the edge of the crowd, figuring Theo could find me when he was free. But before I’d been there twenty seconds, Demi came up and started doing some ridiculous shimmy thing at me, dragging me into the center of the crowd. I shimmied back, and then we did the bump, and when I looked back for Theo—he was gone.

Later, I saw him talking to yet another girl, and another, and another, and it was pretty clear that he was realizing how few attractive straight boys there were at Wildewood, and that he really had his pick of the litter—and didn’t have to settle for gawky, geektastic me.

* * *

I
STEPPED OUTSIDE
to get some air. And there, leaning against a tree, was James/Kenickie.

We hadn’t been introduced. Iz said he’d come by our dorm, like she’d asked him to, but I had been in Lyle’s room so we never met.

“That’s a joke, right?” he said, pointing to my T-shirt.

“Natural blonde?”

“You’re not really.”

I shook my head.

James smiled. “I thought maybe you dyed it or something.”

“No. I’m as brunette as they come.”

“I saw you dancing inside.”

“I’m Sadye—roommates with Iz. She said you were Kenickie last year.”

He nodded. “They called me Greased Lightnin’ all summer.”

“I don’t think that’s so bad.”

“Not as bad as the guy they called Jesus.”

“From
Godspell
?”

“No, that was the year before.
Jesus Christ Superstar
. He got into the part a little too much, know what I mean?”

“I can guess.”

There was a lull in the conversation.

“Where are you from?” I finally asked.

“Somewhere I’d rather not go back to,” he said.

“I know what you mean,” I answered. “I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours and I feel like I’d die if I had to go back.”

James chuckled. “There’s not a lot of places like Wildewood.”

“There’s New York City,” I said optimistically. “There’s Broadway.”

He looked at me, up and down. Like he was deciding whether I was attractive or not. And then he pounced. “Do you want to dance?”

“I always want to dance,” I said.

And so we did, until the lights came up and one of the teachers barked that there were only five minutes until curfew.

T
HE NEXT
morning was the Meat Market—otherwise known as Summer Institute Preliminary Monologues and Songs, otherwise known as auditions. They took place in the Kaufman Theater, and Nanette, Demi, and I got there early. We were each given a large paper number and a pin so we could attach it to our shirts. Farrell, Demi’s hall counselor and a voice major at Carnegie Mellon, stood by the door with a clipboard and made sure that our names and numbers matched up properly. “Keep your number through tomorrow!” he barked loudly. “You’re going to need it! Don’t throw it away or you’ll have to have a makeshift one and everyone will know you lost it!”

When we had all assembled, Tamar taught the whole school an easy jazz combo, and then had us come up in groups of twenty to perform it four times, each time sending the front line to the back so new people could step up. Nanette was number fourteen, Demi was fifteen, and I was sixteen—so we were in the first group.

Nanette was good. I couldn’t see her much out of the corner of my eye, but I could tell she had years of lessons behind her.

Demi was his usual ridiculous self, sticking his butt out and wiggling it like a lunatic when he messed up the steps.

I nailed it—if I do say so myself. We took our seats again, flush with the thrill of dancing to Kander and Ebb (the song was “All That Jazz”) in front of more than a hundred people—and glad to have gone early because now we could watch the meat.

Blake from Boston was in the next group, and he looked ridiculous.

“Oh, I have to shut my eyes!” whispered Demi. “I’m losing all desire for that poor boy.”

“Maybe you should keep them open.” Lyle smirked, sitting a row behind us.

Demi covered his eyes with his hands but made a show of peeking through. “Oh, dear! Poor Blake. Maybe he can sing.”

“He doesn’t need to sing,” said Lyle. “He just needs to stand there and the part of Conrad Birdie will fall at his feet.” (Conrad Birdie is a slightly degenerate 1950s rock star—the title character in
Bye Bye Birdie
.)

“Why?” asked Demi.

“If he can’t sing, won’t they put him in the straight play?” I prodded, turning around to look at Lyle.

“They won’t want to waste those looks on
Midsummer
, that’s my prediction,” said Lyle. “Nobody really attractive gets shunted off to the straight play at Wildewood.”

“But why will he get Conrad?” I asked.

“Think it over,” said Lyle. “He can’t dance, so no
Cats
. The male leads in
Little Shop
are dorky or demented. In
Show Boat
it doesn’t matter if they’re cute or not, and that leaves
Birdie
. They need a guy a million teenage girls will wet their pants over. Singing is secondary.”

“Birdie has big numbers,” objected Nanette.

“Cute has power here,” explained Lyle. “Wildewood is not always a meritocracy. Very often, it’s a cute-ocracy. At least when it comes to the musicals.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry.” Lyle pointed at Demi. “
You’ll
do just fine.”

“Thanks a lot!” Nanette hit Lyle’s knee playfully.

“No offense,” returned Lyle. “You’re extremely cute, too. Demi can be the king, and you can be the queen of the cute-ocracy. And maybe the meritocracy, too—if what I hear about your voice is true.”

Nanette turned around in her seat, pleased.

Me, I knew better than to ask Lyle for a compliment. I’m a lot of things physically, and a lot of them are nice—but I am not cute.

“Now that he’s not dancing, he looks better,” whispered Demi, tilting his head toward Blake, who was back in his chair with his feet on the seat in front of him.

We watched dancers 41–60 go through the combination.

(click . . . buzz of people whispering, sound of piano in the background thumping out “All That Jazz” over and over)

Demi:
(sotto voce)
Ooh, you brought the minirecorder!

Sadye:
(whispering)
Micro.

Demi:
Whatever. Okay, the date is June twenty-sixth, and we’re watching the dance combinations that go before preliminary monologues and songs.

Sadye:
In other words, we’re at
the Meat Market.

Demi:
But I know what meat I want already. I want that Boston meat.

Sadye:
Gross!

Demi:
You’re right. That did sound gross.

Sadye:
Don’t get distracted by meat. Tell posterity what is happening.

Demi:
People are dancing onstage. Monsieur le petit Howard has decided not to sing “Manchester, England.”

Sadye:
You what?

Demi:
I brought extra sheet music,
in case I needed to change.

Sadye:
I would never have thought
of that. What are you changing
to?

Nanette:
(leaning in to look at
the microcassette recorder)
Is
that machine on? What are you
doing?

Demi:
We’re recording our
experiences for posterity.

Sadye:
In case we’re famous some
day.

Demi:
Because
we’ll be famous some
day.

Sadye:
It’s like a document.

Demi:
I’m a seat away from Nanette
. . . Hey, what’s your last name?

Nanette:
(no response, watching
the dancers)

Sadye:
Nanette, Demi wants to
know, what’s your last name?

Nanette:
Wypejewski, but I go by
Watson. It’s easier to remember.

Demi:
Maybe she should just be
Nanette, with no last name.

Sadye:
That’s a bit much, don’t
you think?

Demi:
Anyway, Nanette Watson is
here with us, and behind me is
Lyle, former first mate of the
Jolly Roger.

Sadye:
(watching the dancers, too)

Even the best guys lose their
appeal when you see them trying
to dance. It’s skewing my Meat
Market experience.

Nanette:
You are so right. Is that
your Theo guy?

Sadye:
Number forty-three.

Nanette:
So do you like him, or
what?

Sadye:
What do you think? Do you
think he’s cute?

Demi:
You asked me that yesterday.

Sadye:
So?

Demi:
He dances like a straight
boy.

Sadye:
That’s because he’s
straight.

Demi:
He doesn’t have to dance
like it. There’s no call for
that
.

Sadye:
But do you approve, is what
I’m saying.

Demi:
Miss Sadye, you act like
personality isn’t important. You
act like I’d judge a book by its
cover!

Sadye:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do
you think of his cover, though?

Demi:
His pants are too baggy. I
can’t see his buns. Maybe
he’s hiding something under
there.

Sadye:
Demi!

Demi:
You asked!

Sadye:
He’s not hiding anything,
sheesh.

Demi:
How do you know? He is most
certainly keeping the shape of
his buns a secret.

Sadye:
He can play anything you
want on the piano. Anything.

Demi:
I’m reserving judgment
until he wears some tighter
pants.

Sadye:
Shut up.

Demi:
I can tell you like him.
That was a test just now, to see
if you got upset. If you got
upset that meant you really
liked him.

Sadye:
Right.

Demi:
You passed, by the way.

Sadye:
I need a plan to make him
notice me. It’s like he noticed
me, noticed me again, and then
un-noticed me.

Nanette:
He un-noticed you?

Sadye:
Exactly. Reverse noticing.
Anti-noticing.

Nanette:
So now you need him to
re-notice you.

Sadye:
Yeah.

Nanette:
One thing I do when I’m
auditioning is wear this long
scarf, see? It helps give
directors a way to remember me
easily. The girl in the scarf,
if they can’t remember my name.

Sadye:
I’m not going to wear a
scarf. It’s like eighty degrees
out.

Nanette:
It was an
idea
. Not a
scarf. Something
like
a scarf.

Sadye:
Whatever.

Nanette:
Oh, there’s Kenickie.
He’s a hetero boy.

Demi:
Who’s Kenickie?

Sadye:
Number sixty-one. His real
name is James. I danced with him
yesterday.

Demi:
He dances like a Timberlake.
That’s not theater dancing.

Nanette:
He’s the one that likes
mint chocolate chip.

Demi:
What?

Sadye:
You missed it. I’m mint
chocolate chip ice cream. As
opposed to Brenton-variety
vanilla.

Demi:
So he has a thing for you?

Nanette:
Yes.

Sadye:
No.

Demi:
Which is it?

Sadye:
Iz thinks I’m his type. And
he asked me to dance.

Demi:
Oooh! The Timberlakian.

Sadye:
You’re going to turn me
off him if you keep saying
that.

Demi:
Timberlakian, Timberlakian!

Sadye:
Shut up!

Demi:
He’s okay, but I thought you
liked the one that hides his buns.

Nanette:
Kenickie has nice buns, but he’s not my type.

Demi:
What do you think, Sadye? Do
you like the Timberlakian buns?

Sadye:
At least he danced with me.

Nanette:
Go where the bread is buttered, that’s what I say.

Sadye:
No one said it was
buttered, though.

Nanette:
Iz thinks it is.

Demi:
The Timberlakian is covered in butter, Sadye! And the bun-hiding guy--he’s like dry toast,
that’s what he is.

Sadye:
(
sighing
) Let’s return to
our posterity agenda.

Demi:
Fine, if we must.

Nanette:
If we must.

Sadye:
For the record, let it
show that I am doing my
anti-Kristinish “Popular” and
Juliet, same as before. Nanette,
what are you doing?

Nanette:
“Tomorrow” from
Annie
.
And
The Bad Seed
for the
monologue.

Sadye:
And Demi, what are you
doing, if you’re not doing
“Manchester”?

Demi:
I think I have to shake it.
So I don’t get stuck with “Ol’
Man River.”

Sadye:
Shake what?

Demi:
My booty.

Sadye:
You are obsessed with buns
today.

Demi:
Not just today, darling.

Sadye:
So what are you singing?

Demi:
Wait and see.

Sadye:
What?

Demi:
That’s all I’m saying.

Sadye:
If you’re not going to tell
your audition piece to the
microcassette, I’m turning it
off.

Demi:
Ooh, look at Iz. She can
dance. Oh, and poor, poor
Candie.

(silence, with only the sound of “All
That Jazz” still coming from the piano)
(shuffle, thump, click)

I
NEVER GOT
to hear whether Blake could sing. I never heard Theo or James, either. When the dance combinations were over, we broke for lunch and returned to see Reanne at the microphone.

“Here’s the drill,” she said, pushing a strand of gray-blond hair out of her face. “When your group of twenty is called, you’ll wait in line by the edge of the stage. On your turn, you come up, give your sheet music to Robert here, and say your name and number loudly. Then start with your
monologue
. That gives Robert a moment to prep. The monologue is to be two minutes long. When your time is up, you’ll hear me say ‘Thank you,’ even if you haven’t got to the end. Don’t be offended, it’s a matter of keeping us all on schedule. When he hears that ‘Thank you,’ Robert will play the intro to your song. Sixteen bars, and you’re done. Collect your sheet music and exit off stage left, and back to your seat. If you don’t have sheet music, sing a capella. That’s no problem. And no, you can’t go back to your dorm and get the music if you forgot it. Too chaotic. Okay, let’s go.”