Offed Stage Left

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “And the mucked-up orchestra parts affected everyone,” Hugh pointed out. “You realize that if it wasn’t Oliver, whoever tampered with them must have come back late last night or early this morning.”

  “That’s it!” Isobel grabbed his arms excitedly. “I said you were brilliant, and you are. That’s why the person wanted rehearsal to end early—not because he or she hates tech! Our saboteur spiked the coffee with a laxative in order to sneak back in and mess with the orchestra parts. The coffee was a means to an end.”

  “Which means we’re looking for a classically-trained musician with a background in theater tech who didn’t drink the coffee.”

  Isobel giggled in spite of herself. “This is starting to sound like Airplane.”

  “What you’re saying makes sense, though. It must go beyond you and Arden,” Hugh said. “Someone wants to keep this show from opening.”

  Isobel sobered again. “And there are any number of people who might prefer this piece of dreck never see the light of day. Like those of us singing these ridiculous lyrics.”

  “Places!” Kelly’s voice echoed over the monitor.

  Isobel glanced down at her dress. “I have to change. To be continued.”

  She turned and slammed straight into a staggeringly handsome man she’d never seen before, but who looked vaguely familiar.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you.”

  “So you think the show is a piece of dreck?” he said.

  Isobel felt her face grow warm, but before she could stammer her way out of her predicament, he held out his hand.

  “Don’t sweat it. I’m Geoff Brown, Oliver’s brother. And I couldn’t agree more.”

  SEVEN

  ISOBEL WOULD HAVE FORFEITED a week’s salary to stay downstairs and quiz Geoff. Or at least be a fly on the wall to hear what passed between him and Hugh. But when the band struck up the entr’acte almost immediately, Isobel realized that any exchange between Geoff and Hugh must have been cursory at best. There was no time to change her costume. She’d have to wait until after the opening of act two. Fortunately, she was blocked toward the back of the stage, so she might get away without Thomas noticing.

  She tried to concentrate on the words to “Semper Fidelis” (“So gather around and hear the Sousa Band / They have traveled so far and wide / Their appeal cannot be denied”), but she kept being pulled back to something she’d said to Hugh. If they thought tampering with the orchestra parts was one coincidence too many, surely stage management must think the same. Perhaps it was time to go to Kelly.

  “May I present Miss Marjorie Moody,” said Chris, as Sousa.

  Why hadn’t there been a company meeting? Some kind of warning issued?

  “May I present Miss Marjorie Moody,” Chris repeated, more deliberately.

  Sunil elbowed Isobel, and she jumped.

  “Marjorie Moody? I’ve never heard of her.” The line flew from Isobel’s mouth automatically.

  “If Sousa’s got her, she must be good,” Sunil responded. Although he said the line in character, his eyes telegraphed a message to pay attention.

  Talia swept forward in a beaded lilac gown and dropped a deep curtsy. The orchestra struck up the accompaniment to “Ah, fors’è lui” from La Traviata, which, to Isobel’s ears, sounded bizarre without a string section. With one foot in the opera world herself, Isobel might have been jealous of Talia getting to sing the famous aria, except that it didn’t suit Isobel’s light lyric soprano.

  She forced herself to stay focused until the aria ended. The ensemble dispersed, and Arden and Chris began their scene. In the wings, Isobel pulled Sunil over to a quiet spot next to the props table. Before he could question her about her lapse onstage, she told him about the surprise visitor in the pit.

  “How long has Geoff been lurking around the theater?” Sunil asked.

  “Good question.”

  “And what is he doing here at all?”

  “Gloating over the failure of a property he was once deeply involved in?” Isobel suggested.

  “If he’s sure it’s destined to fail, then why is he sabotaging it?”

  “To be fair, we don’t know for a fact that he is.” Isobel tucked a stray wisp of hair under her wig.

  Sunil twirled his straw boater in his hands. “Nothing so far has succeeded in stopping the show. The masking, the coffee, even the orchestra parts—minor setbacks at best.”

  “I’m not sure Hugh would agree that the problem with the parts was minor, but I take your point,” she said.

  Sunil made a sudden move toward the stairs.

  “What? What is it?” she asked.

  “I have to change into my Pawnee costume!”

  She put a restraining hand on his arm. “That’s after the end of the international touring medley.”

  “Didn’t we just do that?”

  “No, that was the seaside concert scene.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. The touring medley is the one where Talia sings ‘Je suis Titania.’”

  Sunil let out a long, slow breath. “Jeez. Who can tell? It’s the same friggin’ scene over and over again.”

  “They are narratively redundant,” Isobel agreed. “But most shows have second-act problems.”

  Sunil raised an eyebrow. “And first-act problems?”

  “You’re getting off the point.”

  “And the point was?”

  “It was yours, actually. That these little things have been annoying, but none of them has succeeded in stopping the show. Which raises an interesting question.”

  “What?”

  “How much mischief is the person trying to make? Just enough to make this an uphill battle, or does someone really want to keep the show from opening?”

  “Does it matter?” Sunil asked.

  “Of course it matters. Because if the person’s mission is to stop the show, it remains unaccomplished.”

  Sunil shifted his weight nervously. “Meaning you think something more serious might happen?”

  Isobel felt a sudden shiver. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know. Maybe. But if someone wants to keep an audience from seeing the show, time is running out.”

  “We have to go to Kelly,” Sunil declared. “As soon as rehearsal’s over.”

  They made it through act two without a hitch, and the orchestra played Hugh’s corrected arrangements beautifully. After staging the curtain call, the company was given ten minutes to change out of costume before they reconvened in the house for notes. Ezra went first, praising their performances and giving no adjustments, which Isobel took to mean he’d given up on them. He was followed by Hugh, whose comments were necessarily limited to act two.

  “I apologize for not giving you my full attention in act one, due to difficulties with the orchestra parts. But it’s all been straightened out.”

  Arden’s hand shot into the air. “You mean we’re going to do act one with the orchestrations for the first time tonight—in front of an audience? In front of Broadway producers?”

  After a stunned silence, everyone began chattering at once. Some company members had obviously been given a heads-up and were nodding smugly at each other. Others, their faces a mix of excitement and terror, were clearly hearing this news for the first time. Isobel gave Sunil a told-you-so look.

  Kelly clapped her hands. “Enough! There are no Broadway producers coming tonight. I don’t know who started that rumor, but it isn’t true.”

  Several heads swiveled toward Thomas, who shrugged innocently.

  “Thank God,” Sunil murmured under his breath as Isobel wilted.

  Hugh smiled gratefully at Kelly and jumped back in. “I promise we will be as attentive to balance issues tonight in act one as we were this afternoon during act two. Oliver gave me a few notes, but mostly it was quite good.”

  “What was the problem anyway?” Arden pressed. “If you had an orchestra rehearsal yesterday, why did it sound like shit?”

  All eyes turne
d to Hugh, who cleared his throat. “There was…erm…” He caught Isobel’s eye, and she gave an encouraging nod. “Somebody decided to have some fun with the parts and mark in cuts that didn’t exist.”

  The company immediately began to chatter again.

  Chris’s outraged tones rang out above the others. “What kind of jerk would do a thing like that?”

  Isobel saw Hugh’s eyes flick toward Oliver, who had turned to reassure Talia. A quick glance around the auditorium confirmed that Geoff was nowhere in sight. If he had stayed to watch the rehearsal, he had since disappeared.

  “I don’t know,” Hugh answered. “Somebody having a bit of a lark, I suppose. But I’m keeping the parts with me this afternoon, so there’s no chance of it happening tonight.”

  Jethro stood up. “Hugh, if you’re done, I have a few notes.”

  A rustle of annoyance ran through the company.

  Jethro turned eagerly to the principals, who were clustered in the same row. “Chris, I don’t like that menacing tone you’re getting when you and Marissa argue about the royalties.”

  Chris darted a sideways glance at Ezra. “Um, yesterday Ezra asked us to raise the stakes. He wanted me to be more assertive.”

  “You’re John Philip Sousa, granddaddy of the march.” Jethro spread his arms in an expansive gesture, nearly clocking Heather with his clipboard. “You’re an upbeat personality and a gentleman.”

  “Even an upbeat gentleman is going to fight for his rights if they’re challenged,” Chris argued.

  Jethro ran an agitated hand through his mop of ginger hair. “Sousa’s our hero. The audience has to root for you. Nobody’s going to root for a man who berates a woman the way you did.”

  “I didn’t write the scene. You did.”

  “It’s not supposed to be an out-and-out fight.”

  “You do know that drama in Greek means conflict,” Chris said.

  “Jethro, why don’t you and I talk through any acting notes first, and I’ll pass along what I think is necessary,” Ezra said diplomatically. “Maybe you can stick to things that pertain directly to the material.”

  “This does pertain to the material,” Jethro snapped. “I didn’t write Sousa as an argumentative asshole.”

  “And Chris isn’t playing him that way,” Ezra said steadily. “He’s merely pursuing his objective in the scene, which is to protect his royalty share.”

  “He comes off like an argumentative asshole,” Jethro insisted.

  “I don’t suppose Ezra’s going to employ the ‘takes one to know one’ defense,” whispered Sunil.

  “We’ve discussed this, Jethro,” Ezra said. “It’s not up to you to give the actors performance notes. That’s my job.”

  “Which you have proven incapable of doing to my satisfaction.”

  Isobel sucked in her breath. “There’s no way this ends well.”

  “We can discuss this with Chris after—”

  “And another thing,” Jethro interrupted him. “Isobel—”

  She sat up, startled to hear her name.

  “You need to be sweeter and not too forward. Emma isn’t a sex kitten.”

  “But she and Sousa are flirting,” Isobel protested. “That’s the whole reason her stepfather wants to break them up. She’s the soubrette.”

  “She isn’t a hussy.” Jethro’s voice went up a few notches.

  “Okay, folks, we have to break,” Kelly intervened. “Equity rules.”

  Jethro waved his notebook. “I’m not done! I have more—”

  “Great work this afternoon. Everyone back at half hour for opening night,” Kelly steamrolled him. “Thank you!”

  The company scrambled to their feet and fled as quickly as they could.

  “Arden? Arden, wait! I’ve got quite a few notes for you.” Jethro hurried out after her.

  “This is bullshit!” Ezra exploded. He whirled on Kelly. “He is out of line. I don’t want him approaching my actors. If you don’t stop him, I will.”

  Kelly held up her hands defensively. “I don’t have the authority to stop him.”

  “Then I’ll go to the person who does.” Ezra stormed off.

  “Good luck with that,” Kelly muttered.

  Isobel glanced at Sunil. “Maybe this isn’t the time…”

  “There is no other time. We open in three hours.” Sunil exited their row and marched over to the stage management table. Isobel followed, excusing herself as she squeezed past Marissa, who was chewing a strand of frizzy hair and staring at the floor.

  “I’ve never seen him lose his temper like that,” Heather was saying as Isobel and Sunil approached.

  “Oh, there have been quite a few blowups between those two,” Kelly replied. “Ezra’s come close to quitting more than once.”

  “Why hasn’t he?” Isobel asked.

  “A job’s a job,” Kelly said. “What’s up?”

  “We were talking about what happened with the orchestra parts and wondering whether it might be connected to the other stuff,” Sunil said.

  “What other stuff?”

  “Well, the masking that fell,” Isobel said. “Then the fact that so many people got sick after drinking the same coffee last night. And this note.” She saw Marissa looking over curiously, and she angled her body away. She handed the script page to Kelly.

  “When did you find this?” Kelly asked.

  “Yesterday, after the first break. I’d left my script in the house. The thing is, I don’t know if it’s intended for me or Arden.”

  Kelly rattled the paper thoughtfully. “To tell you the truth, it never occurred to me that the masking was anything but an accident, and I figured there was a stomach bug or something going around. But the orchestra parts, and now this. You might be right.”

  “Maybe you should make an announcement to the company to be on their guard?” Isobel suggested.

  “Won’t that freak everyone out?” Heather said timidly. “People are nervous about opening night as it is.”

  “I’ll bring this to Felicity and let her figure out how to handle it. It’s above my pay grade. But thanks for telling me. You guys better go, or you won’t get much of a break.” Kelly slipped the note into her binder and turned to Heather. “Can we look at the cue into the banquet scene? It needs to go earlier.”

  Isobel and Sunil made their way out of the row, not speaking until they reached the aisle.

  “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t find that particularly reassuring,” she said.

  “Me neither. But I don’t see what else Kelly can do. If something’s going to happen tonight, it’s going to happen.”

  “You’re right.” Isobel’s expression was grim. “And unless we’re smart enough to figure out what it is in advance, we have no way of stopping it.”

  EIGHT

  DELPHI KRAMER WAS STUCK in traffic and furious. It was the last straw in a twenty-four-hour period that had gone from bad to worse and was now careening headlong into disastrous.

  “What the hell is going on?” she barked at the cab driver.

  He caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “There was an accident on the exit ramp from the thruway. Everyone’s detouring. It’s a big mess.”

  Delphi gave an exasperated sigh. “You couldn’t have told me before I got into your cab?”

  “What’re you gonna do, walk? It’s two miles from the train station to downtown, almost three to Livingston Stage. At least you’re sitting.”

  “I just spent two and a half hours sitting on a train—no, make that three hours, because we sat outside fucking Poughkeepsie for a half hour—and now I’m totally late!” She kicked the seat in front of her and fumed.

  “Calm down. I see a coupla cops up ahead, and it looks like it thins out after that.”

  Delphi grumbled and sank lower in the backseat. This whole plan was harebrained. Isobel was the impulsive one. Unlike her roommate, Delphi preferred to stake out a situation and calculate the odds of a satisfactory outcome. But when Carlo Alessa
ndrini, the maître d’ at the restaurant where she waited tables, had unexpectedly—shockingly, in fact—fired her last night, she had been at a complete loss. Without Isobel there to absorb the blow, Delphi had found herself channeling her absent friend, stalking the small L-shaped studio apartment they shared and regaling the indifferent furniture with the kind of nonstop, stream-of-consciousness monologue Isobel was prone to delivering. Delphi finally wore herself out, drained what was left of their Bushmills, and fell into a heavy, self-pitying sleep. When she woke up, it had taken several minutes before she remembered what had prompted her to down a third of a bottle of whiskey, and then she burst into tears—a reaction even more uncharacteristic than indulging her wounded pride the night before.

  As she soaked in the bathtub, her Botticellian blond curls piled high and secured on top of her head with a retro hot pink hair pick, she missed Isobel more than ever. Tonight was opening night of Sousacal, and Delphi knew their dress rehearsal was that afternoon, but she’d hoped she could at least get Isobel on the phone that morning. When her call went to voicemail, she realized Isobel was probably still asleep after their ten-out-of-twelve. She could have tried Sunil, but he was the last person she wanted lobbing questions at her. It was painfully obvious that he carried a torch for her, and the truth was she was on the fence about him. Delphi found talent attractive, and his smoldering good looks made him distinctly her type, but she wasn’t certain enough to jeopardize their friendship. Delphi, who hailed from a family of similarly floral-named sisters (Delphi was short for Delphinium), placed special value on platonic male friendship.

  Even so, she was feeling distinctly left out. While she had been trapped in the restaurant’s wine cellar fighting off Carlo’s aggressive advances (which Isobel had long predicted, but Delphi had never actually expected), her two best friends had been enjoying the exciting run-up to opening night of a new musical. Granted, Isobel said the show was terrible, but Isobel was a snob. Delphi was sure it couldn’t be that bad.