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Program
SCENE 1 The New Girl
SCENE 2 Penelope Periwinkle’s Guide to Great Acting
SCENE 3 Toothpaste and Zombies
SCENE 4 Not Freaking Out
SCENE 5 Break an Egg!
SCENE 6 Lima Bean Sad Faces
SCENE 7 Gabby Messes Up
SCENE 8 Practically a Star
SCENE 9 Taking the High Road
SCENE 10 The Gummy Bear Triangle
SCENE 11 Curtain!
SCENE 12 The Cast Party (with Extra Cheese and Pepperoni)
About the Authors and Illustrator
To my family, friends, and fans, for the love and continuous support
—Q. W.
To everyone at Belle Sherman Elementary School
—N. E. O.
To my mother, who always made it possible for me to do what I love
—S. M.
SCENE 1
The New Girl
Shai Williams slipped on her sunglasses and strolled into drama class.
“Please, no photos!” she said in her best movie-star voice. She believed in making an entrance.
Everyone cracked up . . . except for a girl in a green sundress who just looked confused. Shai had never seen her before. Who was she, anyway?
“Shai!” Emmie Harper, Shai’s best friend, stage-whispered. “Stage-whispering” was something Ms. Gremillion had taught them in class last week. It meant whispering kind of loudly—like the way Shai’s parents did whenever she got restless in church or slipped food to Sugar under the table.
Shai took the seat next to Emmie. As she set her turquoise backpack on the floor, her rhinestone initials glittered in the sunlight—SRW, for Shaianne Rosa Williams. “Shaianne” was pronounced “Shay-Anne,” although it often got mispronounced as “Shy-Anne.” Still, Shai loved her name, which was a mash of her parents’ names, “Shaquille” and “Annemarie.”
“Nice entrance,” Emmie said, complimenting her.
“Thanks,” Shai stage-whispered. “Who’s that girl in the green dress?”
“She’s new. Libby heard a rumor that she’s a professional actor,” replied Emmie.
Shai whipped off her sunglasses. “Excuse me?”
“Libby thinks she’s been on TV. Oh, and guess what else she heard?”
Emmie continued to talk, but Shai had stopped listening. She was still stuck on the part about the new girl being a professional actor.
The Sweet Auburn School for the Performing Arts was all about becoming a professional actor or a musician or a dancer . . . someday. It was an elementary school for kindergarten through fifth grade, and Shai and the other students were just starting to learn those performance skills.
So, what was a professional actor doing here? “Professional” meant having jobs; it meant already having serious acting skills.
“. . . on This Island! Wouldn’t that be amazetastic?” Emmie was saying.
“It’s not like I’m jealous or anything. Besides, it’s just a rumor, so it’s probably not even true,” Shai said with a shrug.
“Huh? Shai, did you hear what I just said? About the third-grade musical?”
Ms. Gremillion walked into the room just as the bell rang. The students fell silent and pulled their notebooks and pens out of their backpacks.
“Good afternoon, boys and girls,” said Ms. Gremillion.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Gremillion!”
Ms. Gremillion paused dramatically and scanned the room. “Dramatic pauses” had been another recent lesson. It meant being quiet in an interesting way so that your audience listened carefully to whatever you said next.
“Before we begin, I want to make two quick announcements,” she said. “First, our musical this year will be Once on This Island. If you’re interested in trying out, the auditions will be this Friday.”
Emmie grinned. “See, I told you!” she stage-whispered to Shai.
Shai jumped to her feet. She couldn’t help it—she was really excited! Once on This Island was one of her favorite musicals. She had seen it last summer at the Little Theater four whole times because her aunt MacKenzie, a.k.a. Aunt Mac-N-Cheese, had played Ti Moune, the lead of the show.
“Shai, do you have something you’d like to share?” asked Ms. Gremillion.
“Yes! I mean, no! I mean, I want to try out for Ti Moune!” Shai blurted out.
“That’s great, Shai,” Ms. Gremillion said.
The new girl sat up very straight and gave a little wave.
Ms. Gremillion nodded at her. “Yes, Gabby, you’re my second announcement. Class, this is Gabrielle Supreme. She and her family just moved here from Los Angeles, California.”
“Hollywood, actually,” Gabby said as she flipped her hair.
Hollywood? Shai scrunched up her face so hard that her nose hurt. Hollywood was where they made movies and TV shows.
So maybe Gabby was a professional actor after all?
Not that Shai was jealous or anything.
In any case, there was no way Ms. Hollywood was going to replace Shai as the best actor in the third grade. Did Gabby own a shiny gold trophy that said future oscar winner? An Oscar was one of the biggest awards in the acting world. Granted, Shai’s family had given her the trophy for her birthday, but so what?
The new girl didn’t stand a chance.
SCENE 2
Penelope Periwinkle’s Guide to Great Acting
Shai sat cross-legged on her bed, reading Penelope Periwinkle’s Guide to Great Acting. Sugar was curled up next to her, thumping her tail and blinking her big brown eyes. She looked super-cute in a sequined ballet tutu and polka-dot hair ribbon.
Penelope Periwinkle’s Guide to Great Acting was an amazetastic book packed with useful information about acting. Shai had found it at the bookstore last month and had bought it with her allowance money.
The book would help her win the role of Ti Moune—not that she needed a lot of help in that department. She already knew Ti Moune’s part really well because of Aunt Mac-N-Cheese. Also, she had tons of stage experience. Last year she’d played nasty old Miss Hannigan in Annie. The year before, she’d played Ray in The Princess and the Frog.
Shai took her craft seriously—she wanted to be a movie star when she grew up. And a dentist, too, because she thought teeth were cool. Plus maybe a veterinarian like her mom. Her dad, who owned a pizza restaurant, liked to call her a “triple threat in the making” because of her three future careers.
Mostly, though, she wanted to be a movie star, and Penelope Periwinkle had lots of smart advice about that.
Shai turned to the chapter about breathing.
A Great Actor must have excellent breath control, stated Penelope Periwinkle.
Shai took a couple of quick, panting breaths, like Sugar did whenever she wanted a Bitty Bites puppy treat. Shai pictured herself as Ti Moune, breathing very excellently as she rescued Daniel, the wealthy boy from the other side of the island, during a terrible rainstorm.
To develop your breath, try this exercise. Lie down on a flat surface. Place something light on your stomach.
Shai glanced around her room.
Her lava lamp? Too heavy. Her dinosaur tooth collection? Not heavy enough.
Her gaze landed on Sugar. Hmm.
Shai reached over and picked up the little Morkie. She lay back on her satiny turquoise bedspread and balanced Sugar on her stomach. She held up the book with both hands.
Breathe in and out deeply and slowly, Penelope Periwinkle instructed.
Shai breathed in and out deeply and slowly. Sugar blinked at her.
As you breathe, watch the object on your stomach go up and down, up and down.
Sugar went up and down, up and down.
The next time you breathe out, say, “Ahhhhhh!”
“Ahhhhhh!” said Shai.
“Woof!” barked Sugar.
Now breathe out the sound “Eeeeeee!”
“Eeeeeee!” said Shai.
“Woof!” barked Sugar.
Breathe out the sound “Ooooooo!”
“Ooooooo!” said Shai.
“Woof!” barked Sugar.
The door opened, and Patches trotted into the room. Patches was part collie and part German shepherd and part a bunch of other things. She squatted by the bed and stared up at Shai and Sugar. “Aoooooo!” she howled.
A few seconds later Noodle the Poodle came in too. “Aooooooo!” he howled.
Soon all five dogs were in the room howling, Sugar included. Shai’s family had a lot of pets because Momma was always bringing home strays from the veterinary clinic.
“You guys are interrupting my process!” Shai scolded them.
“Whatcha doing, Shai-Shai?”
Her little sister, Samantha, stood in the doorway swinging her purple dragon, Mr. Firebreath, by the tail. She had dressed him up in a tiny doll apron and baby booties.
“Are you conductoring a dog orchestra?” Samantha asked.
“Conducting. And, no—I’m practicing for a very, very important audition. Didn’t you see the sign on my door?”
Shai made a stern-teacher face and pointed to the piece of paper taped to her door. She had scribbled “DO NOT DISTURB” on it in big letters. But someone had covered most of the letters with shark and princess stickers. Only the U and R and B were visible.
Jacobe had struck again. . . .
“Urb,” Shai grumbled.
“What’s the addition for? Can I addition too?” asked Samantha.
“Audition. And, no, you can’t. You’re too little.”
“I am not too little. I’m five and one quarter!”
“It’s the third-grade musical.”
“So? Kindergarten is almost third grade!”
“Kids! Time to wash up for dinner!” their dad called up the stairs.
Footsteps pounded down the hall. Jacobe ran by Shai’s doorway wearing nothing but a diaper and a feather boa. Their older brother, Jamal, chased after him. One of the marmalade kitties, either Purrball or Furball, trailed after Jamal. The dogs scrambled out of Shai’s room and followed the group, yipping and barking.
“Daddy! Are we having ’paghetti with red sauce for dinner? Can I have super-duper-quadruple Parmesan cheese?” Samantha shouted.
Shai squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears. How was she supposed to study Great Acting with all this noise?
And then she remembered something Penelope Periwinkle had written in chapter one.
A Great Actor must be able to focus even through chaos.
Shai nodded to herself, feeling very wise. “Chaos” was crazy stuff happening all at once. Chaos hadn’t kept Ti Moune from being a brave heroine. Chaos wouldn’t keep Shai from being a Great Actor . . . a super-duper-quadruple Great Actor.
SCENE 3
Toothpaste and Zombies
On Wednesday, Ms. Gremillion had a special acting lesson for the class.
“Today you will be improvising scenes with a partner,” she explained.
Shai caught Emmie’s eye across the aisle. She mouthed, Partners?
Emmie grinned and gave her a wiggly two-thumbs-up. Partners!
Gabby sat up front near Ms. Gremillion. As the teacher started the lesson, Gabby began taking careful notes in a glittery green notebook and doing a lot of hair-flipping. Shai frowned and began writing in her notebook too. She didn’t want Ms. Gremillion to think she wasn’t a good attention-payer.
She wrote:
“We’re going to start with an unstructured improvisation exercise. Can anyone tell me what we mean by ‘unstructured improvisation’?” Ms. Gremillion asked.
Rio Garcia raised his hand. Shai would have raised her hand, except that she was too busy drawing exclamation marks and smiley faces in her notebook. Plus, she had no idea what “unstructured improvisation” meant.
“Yes, Rio?”
“Well, ‘structured’ means that something is organized. And ‘improvisation’ is making stuff up, like scenes. So ‘unstructured improvisation’ means making up scenes in a not-organized way?”
“That’s right. With structured improvisation there’s a prompt or direction, like, ‘improvise a birthday party scene.’ With unstructured improvisation there are no prompts or directions. One partner just starts acting, and the other partner has to respond on the spot.”
Funsies! Shai thought. She and Emmie already did this anyway. Just that morning in science she had pretended to be bacteria while Emmie had pretended to be an amoeba.
Ms. Gremillion peered around the room. “Libby, you’ll partner up with Julia. Ben, you’re with Nick. Let’s see . . . then Ruby and Garrett, Nya and Sarah, Glenn and Jay, Molly and Isabella, Capone and Ezra, Rio and Emmie. That leaves Gabby and Shai.”
Wait, what? Shai thought. Did Ms. Gremillion just pair her up with Gabby? It had to be a mistake. She and Emmie were always partners.
She raised both hands so that she could get her teacher’s double attention. “Ms. Gremillion? Did you mean Emmie and me?”
“No, Shai. I meant Gabby and you, Emmie and Rio.”
Emmie made a pouty face at Shai. Shai made a pouty face back. She felt a secret twinge of worry, too. What if Gabby was better at this unstructured improvisation business than she was?
“Partners, please get together and decide who’ll go first,” said Ms. Gremillion. “Partner number one will think of a character to play and improvise some dialogue. Partner number two will improvise back. Got it?”
Gabby pranced up to Shai. “I guess we’re partners!” she said with a big smile.
“Yup, I guess we are.” Shai forced herself to smile back. Gabby didn’t seem too scary up close. Shai thought about something her grandma Rosa often said: “Have the courage to be nice to people.” Maybe Shai should make an effort to be nice. She could do “nice” really well; she was an actor, after all.
Although . . . what did courage have to do with being nice? She reminded herself to ask Grandma Rosa about that.
“So! Gabby! Welcome to our school! How do you like it so far?”
“Meh. It’s okay for a small-town school. Have you ever done unstructured improvisation?”
A small-town school? “Um, no. Have you?”
“Of course. I’d better go first, then, since you’re just a beginner.”
Just a beginner?
Gabby closed her eyes and squeezed her hands into fists. Then she opened her eyes and flung her arms out wide, almost knocking down a music stand.
“Mother, you cannot hold me back!” Gabby said in a loud, dramatic voice. “It is my dream—my destiny!—to move to New York City and become a Broadway star!”
Shai stared at Gabby. Seriously? Still, she had to admit that Gabby had delivered her weird lines really well.
“That’s your cue, Shane,” Gabby stage-
whispered.
“It’s Shai.”
“Whatever.”
Shai closed her eyes and squeezed her hands into fists too. She took a bunch of deep breaths. She would show Gabby that she was a Great Actor, not a beginner.
“Ahhhhh,” Shai breathed. “Eeeee. Ooooo.”
“Huh?” said Gabby in her reg
ular Gabby voice. Then she switched to her drama voice. “I mean . . . Mother, are you ill?”
“Broadway just called,” Shai improvised, “and they want me, not you. So you’re going to stay behind and take over our family’s cat litter company!”
“What?”
“I must go pack for my trip now. Good luck with the cat litter!”
“But—”
Ms. Gremillion blew a whistle. “Okay, class. Take a sixty-second break, then switch places with your partner, please!”
Shai and Gabby turned to face each other.
“Nice work, Shane,” Gabby said in a fakey-sweet way.
“You too, Grabby!” Shai said in an even faker, sweeter way.
“Hey, Shane! Are you really trying out for the part of Ti Moune? You might want to think about trying out for an easier part. Like maybe one of the forest animals?”
“Excuse me?”
“Besides, I’m trying out for Ti Moune too. I’ll probably get it because I have tons of acting experience. Did you know I was in a movie? I played a talking french fry in The Attack of the Zombie Potatoes 4. And I was one of the singing teeth in the Smile More toothpaste commercial.”
Shai opened her mouth, but no words came out. Grabby Gabby wanted the role of Ti Moune too. And it turned out she really was a professional actor.
Would Shai be able to compete against that?
SCENE 4
Not Freaking Out
“Gabby is so full of herself. And she called Atlanta a small town. And she kept pronouncing my name wrong!” Shai complained to Emmie.
“Lots of people mispronounce your name,” Emmie pointed out.
“No, not ‘Shaianne.’ ‘Shai.’ She kept calling me ‘Shane.’ ”
“That must have been super-annoying. Um, can we get back to page sixty-three now?”
The two friends were in Emmie’s backyard, preparing for their Once on This Island auditions. Emmie had decided to try out for the role of Erzulie, the Goddess of Love. And, of course, Shai still planned to try out for Ti Moune.
Shai & Emmie Star in Break an Egg! Page 1
