The Fall Musical (20 page)

The room felt like home.

Casey folded her envelope, put it in her pocket, and began to sew.

22

 

Mr. Levin's face went pale when Harrison told everyone the news. “What do you mean, Lori can't make it?” he said. “We're going up tonight! She
has
to!”

“Is it the flu?” Ms. Gunderson asked.

“It's her parents,” Harrison explained. He could barely get the words out. Lori had called him just this afternoon, a half hour after school. She hadn't shown up in the auditorium for brushups. When she told him the reason, he thought it was a joke at first. “That time she said she was sick? It wasn't because she wanted to postpone her parents' conferences. She wanted to avoid any contact between us and them. They had no idea she was involved in this show. She told them she was staying after school for tutoring. They only found out the truth today, when they saw her script.”

“Why didn't she just tell them?” Reese asked. “What's the big deal?”

Harrison shook his head. “They went through the roof when they found out. They think the script is blasphemy. Christ in a Superman shirt, songs with sexy lyrics, clown paint on the disciples' faces—they have a whole list of reasons.”

“You've got to be kidding,” Brianna said. “
Godspell
is so mainstream. Where have they been since 1972?”

“Have you Googled
Godspell
?” Dashiell asked. “I've seen this kind of stuff. People quoting scripture, foaming at the mouth. To some people, it's still very controversial.”

“Lori was in tears,” Harrison said. “She could barely speak. She kept defending them, telling me not to be mad, saying it was all her fault for leaving the script around.”

“I say we march over there and pull her away,” Brianna said. “Bring a TV news crew if we have to. Make them look like Neanderthals in public. They don't own her. She's a senior! She's eighteen!”

“Sixteen,” Charles corrected her. “She skipped fourth grade, and her birthday is in November.”

Mr. Levin was pacing back and forth. “We're not going to win this battle,” he said. “Look, people have different religious beliefs. This is America. If the parents say no, and the child obeys their wishes, there's not much we can do. And I know those parents. They do not yield.”

“Oh, please . . . ” Reese murmured.

“It's the biggest female part in the show!” Casey piped up. “We can't go on without her.”

Mr. Levin exhaled heavily. Harrison couldn't see the expression behind the glasses. “Yes, Casey. You're right. We can't.”

Harrison's cell phone was still in his right hand. He only now realized how tight his fingers had closed around it. His knuckles were white. He had the urge to throw it, to smash it against the wall, then grind the pieces to silicone dust beneath his shoes. This was beyond belief. All the hours, the days of preparation, the songs and lines and comic bits practiced to perfection, the friendships cemented and nearly lost, the gleaming Cyclone fence and hand-sewn vests—wasted!

He looked up into a circle of pallid, stunned faces. Charles had one arm around Brianna and the other around Dashiell, whose glasses were starting to fog up. Casey had begun to cry, and Kyle was pounding his right fist into his left hand.

“I—I was really looking forward to this,” Harrison said.

“I'll make a cancellation announcement for whoever is still in school,” Mr. Levin said. “Casey, can you get out an e-mail blast to the parent list, with a high-priority flag?”

Casey nodded. Wiping her eyes, she turned toward her laptop.

“Maybe when Lori's parents see that,” Charles said, “they'll come to their senses.”

But Casey's fingers hovered motionlessly over the keyboard. Slowly she shut the top. “I'm not going to send an e-mail.”

Harrison looked at her blankly. “You think we should do a phone tree?”

“We can't do a phone tree,” Mr. Levin said wearily. “There's simply not enough time and too many families.”

“I think we should go on,” Casey said simply.

The place fell silent.

“Um, Casey?” Harrison said with a weary sigh. “Let's be real.”

“Brianna knows the part,” Casey declared.

Brianna's face drained of color. She stared at Casey, stunned.

“Brianna has never
done
the part,” Harrison said.

“She's been watching every rehearsal,” Casey said. “She has a photographic memory. She's been singing these songs since she was a little girl, and she's seen the movie . . . how many times, Bri?”

“Seventeen,” Brianna said softly.

“What do you say, then?” Casey asked.

Everyone stared at Brianna, who swallowed hard. “I—well, yeah. I mean, I do know the lines, I think . . . ”

“Yyyyes!” Kyle shouted, pumping the air with his fist.

“Wait a minute!” Mr. Levin said, shaking his head. “We rehearsed Lori for weeks—blocking, lines, songs. Curtain is at seven-thirty. It's four-thirty now. We would have three hours to do what we did in all those weeks. The idea is noble but impractical. Brianna, you are supremely talented, but—”

“Three hours.” Casey held up her clipboard and began writing. “The lines and blocking in the spoken scenes are most important. We'll run them first. I can skip chunks of dialogue where Lori has no lines, and we'll cut to cues. Songs are not as important because Brianna knows them cold. We'll call the orchestra in after the dialogue and run Brianna's solo, then a cue-to-cue
only
on all the other songs, to save time. I figure if we can stay on task and stagger the dinner break, we'll be done before half hour at seven.”

Reese's jaw dropped. “Wow. Did you just think of that?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Harrison said.

“If Brianna says she can do the role, she can,” Dashiell said.

“Charles, what about the costumes?” Casey asked.

Charles eyed Brianna carefully. “Here a dart, there a dart, everywhere a dart, dart. Easy enough.”

“Please?” Reese said. “Please please please please please please?”

“What do you say, Greg?” Ms. Gunderson asked.

Mr. Levin took off his glasses and mopped his brow. With a grim expression, he looked at the wall clock.

“I say, skip dinner and start from the top.”

 

Never say never . . . . If at first you don't succeed, you weren't trying hard enough. . . . A baseball player who fails to get on base seven times out of ten is still a star. . . .
Brianna had lived by those rules all her life.

She was an idiot.

“Hold still!” Charles said, his teeth clamped around pins as he hemmed a pair of jeans she was wearing.

Vijay was fiddling with her hair. “Lori had the ponytail. But it's the wrong hair color now.”

“Screw the ponytail!”

“But the people from the shop will be in the audience, and they'll expect to see it,” Vijay said. “They didn't charge us for it.”

“Then
you
wear it!” Charles snapped.

“Brianna? You have a line here!” Casey said.

If Charles hadn't put a tight flannel shirt on her, Brianna's heart might have burst from her chest. How could she recite lines with the Charlettes pinching and pulling and touching, Casey watching her like a horse trainer with a stopwatch, and the cast members speeding through lines as if on fast-forward?

“LINE!” she screamed. “Give me the line!”

She
thought
she knew them. She could picture Lori saying
something
. But it was as if Lori had stolen the words and taken them home with her. Photographic memory? Forget it.

Mr. Levin jogged onstage and gave the script to her. “You don't need a prompter, Brianna, you need this. Look, even if you have to hold it during the performance, it's okay. I've seen professional actors do it in last-minute emergencies like this. Audiences are very forgiving. They root for the underdog. You'll probably get a standing ovation.”

Oh, right,
Brianna thought.
She can't do the job, so we bank on the sympathy vote.
Using a script in a performance was pathetic. Like doing the whole show with a rip up the back of your costume. “Thanks but no thanks,” she said.

Casey raced to her side and took her by the arm. “Take the script,” she said firmly. “It will calm you down. You know more than you think.”

“This was your idea, Casey—”

“And it's a good one. You're going to save the day.” As Casey headed back into the wings, she shouted to the other actors: “Say the lines at the normal speed, guys. Act like it's a performance and take it from the top!”

Brianna obeyed. She read directly from the page. Her eyes would instinctively dart ahead, over the familiar dialogue. Somehow,
seeing
the lines made a huge difference. It was like digging them out of a deep hiding place. By the end of the dialogue run-through she was maybe 70 percent off-book. Which may have been great for a baseball player, but it still sucked for an actor.

“We have to move on,” Casey said. “We're running ahead of schedule, though, so I'll run lines with you after we do the songs. Dashiell, are you set with the lights?”

“Roger,” came Dashiell's voice from the booth.

“Musicians, take it from the top!” Casey commanded. “ ‘Day by Day'!”

As the five-piece band started, Brianna cleared her throat. This was the biggest and most famous number in the show. Lori always nailed it each time.

“ ‘Day by daaaay . . . ' ” Brianna began.

She sounded like Prince in his squeaky phase. She could barely get above a whisper, no matter how hard she tried. Her long extended “daaaaay” sounded like “deh.” “Death” without the “th.”

“It's too low!” she finally shouted in the middle of the song.

“You sound fine,” Kyle said.

“That's because you're right in front of me!” Brianna said.

“Dashielllll!” Casey shouted. “Turn up the body mike!”

“It's as high as it'll go!” he replied. “We'll blow out the system.”

“Let's just try it again,” Ms. Gunderson said. “Band?
One-
two-three,
one
-two three . . . ”

The music began. Brianna wanted to explode. This wasn't going to work.

“Stop!” she shouted. “STOP! This was the worst idea ever.”

Barely holding back tears, she stormed off the stage.

23

“BRIANNA!” CASEY CALLED OUT, HER VOICE dying in the dry autumn night air. “
Brianna, stop
!”

She was out of breath when she caught up to her on Porterfield Avenue. “Are you okay?”

“Did you e-mail the parents?” Brianna snapped, not breaking stride.

“No,” Casey said as she tried to keep pace.

“Then it seems you have a job to do.”

“Come on, Brianna. Look, you were good.
So
good. I know you can do it. You're a total pro.”

“A professional moron.”

“What is it? Are you comparing your voice to Lori's? It's different. Yours is just as fun to listen to. I thought the rehearsal was going well.”

“Well, I think I suck,” Brianna said. “This wasn't my idea, it was yours, Casey. You got us into this mess, and if I were you, I would not want to be responsible for an audience full of parents showing up when there's no show
on account of religious reasons
!”

“Brianna, I don't
think
you can do a great job, I know it. Okay, so maybe you won't be one hundred and two percent perfect, but who is? Kyle is still figuring out his right foot from his left. Do you think anyone cares? This is such an opportunity, Brianna. You thought you couldn't act because you were student directing. And now? You can save the show. You can prevent everyone's work from being wasted. Your picture will be on the Wall. No one will ever forget this, Brianna. Especially me.”

Brianna stopped and looked right into Casey's eyes. “I live for this club. I have since long before you got here. When it looked like we had to fold, and you suggested I do the role, I agreed for the sake of the group. I tried to pull this show out of a hat. I put my ass on the line, and I have every right to take it back. I know when I can or can't handle something, Casey. I know who I am. And if you know who you are, you'll get out of my face and be a responsible stage manager.”

Casey wasn't expecting that. She felt suddenly short of breath. “Well, I guess we're very different people,” was all she could think to say.