“From what Gabe tells me, I’m not sure who has the worse afternoon plans. Me doing driveway duty or you having to sit through rehearsal.”
“You don’t even know the half of it, Regina. David told me he quit the show.”
“Really? That’s a shame. I love his work,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
“Plan G. At this point, no Jacob Marley is the least of my problems. I’ll fill you in after the show opens. Maybe we can have a cup of coffee?”
“Screw the coffee, I could use a drink. But it may take a while.” She tilted her head toward the house and rolled her eyes.
“Give me a call when you’re free.” I turned to walk back toward the driveway, looking at the fence that went partially down the cliff. A stunning, dramatic view. Did the cops suspect an intruder? I supposed it was possible that someone could have gotten up the cliff from the beach. I couldn’t, but that was a low bar these days. I might have been able to five years ago. Maybe ten. Were they seriously considering the idea that it was someone outside the house? I wanted to ask, but I knew Regina wouldn’t tell me anything more. I had no information to trade. Yet.
• Four •
Although I’d planned to go to the high school, I decided to go back to our regular office instead. I had a mountain of mundane paperwork to wade through. Today’s rehearsal promised to be a quiet one: the Fezziwig party scene. Patrick didn’t need to be there, since Dimitri had reblocked the scene precisely so Scrooge merely observed rather than participated in the dancing.
I had to circle the block twice. Our theater company shared a building with several other nonprofits, including an after-school program. It made afternoon parking very difficult, navigating around well-heeled folks coming to pick up their offspring. Never mind the noise bleed we endured during the day. While we were grateful to have a place, I was starting to pin my hopes on the new production center we planned to build next spring, at the site of our outdoor performance space on the edge of the harbor.
The land for the new center was tucked away behind a large historic house, so the town had given us clearance to build without worrying about historical accuracy. Our current idea was that the center would look like a large barn and contain dressing rooms, shop spaces, and some administrative offices. Building it would be a game changer for the Cliffside. It would also be the first large-scale project the theater had taken on since it was founded.
Several years before my return to Trevorton, Dimitri Traietti—then a local personality of some note, one with more than a small amount of talent—was approached by the town council to reopen the outdoor amphitheater by the harbor, which had long ago lost its luster after its original purpose was eclipsed by band drills and troop meetings. Funds were raised to restore the theater and grounds. The council’s hope was that a performance space of a particular caliber would attract tourists who would spend money in local restaurants and hotels. In this vision, the match between the Cliffside and Dimitri proved perfect, and their hopes were realized. Although the performance season was shortened by New England weather, the reopening of the amphitheater was a triumph.
Not surprisingly, the theater’s success fed Dimitri’s monster of an ego. He needed a general manager to keep him reined in, but he couldn’t keep one on staff for more than a season. His tantrums, ego blasts, and crazed business practices wore them out.
When I heard about the job of general manager opening up once again, I felt a little tingle in my gut. It was a few weeks after my father had died, and I was lost, weighed down by grief and regret. Sometimes I wonder if my mother had orchestrated that moment. For the first time in months I saw a way to create a new life. Eric Whitehall, a Christmas-card-exchanging relative, had come to Dad’s funeral and called me a few times to check in. Even though we didn’t know each other well anymore, we fell into an easy friendship immediately, and his concern for me was sincere. So I decided to take him up on his “anything I can do?” offer and ask about the job.
“Sully, what makes you think you’d be … ”
“Able to do the job?”
“No, of course you could do the job. Not that it’s easy, mind you, but the board is strong and more than willing to help. It doesn’t pay close to what it should. But that aside, it doesn’t seem like your next step … ”
“Eric, that’s the point. I don’t have a next step. I have no idea what I want to do. I do know that some of my happiest memories were summers at the Cliffside while I was young. My mother loved Dimitri … ”
“Those were early days, Sully. Dimitri was still charming then. Now he’s a nut. A talented nut, I’ll grant you, but a nut. He gets a thrill out of making the general manager miserable. It’s his summer sport.”
“I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. I’ve dealt with some challenging characters in my life.”
“Don’t glamorize this, Sully. Dimitri may be a better class of character, but he’s still tough. The last general manager implied he was a sociopath. I don’t think he’s that bad, but he does have his moments—”
“Eric, I need to get back into life. Before I forget how.”
Dimitri may have vaguely remembered me from some of my volunteer jobs when I was younger, but he misjudged the toll the years since had taken on me. He couldn’t wear me down. He tried charm, tantrums, and threats, but none of them worked. I stayed focused on running the theater and learning my job. The board’s help was invaluable, and eventually Dimitri and I established a good working relationship. I’d like to think it was because of my business acumen, but it probably had more to do with Eric’s stories about me.
“What did you tell him?” I asked Eric one night over a shared plate of fries.
“I told him you have a hair-trigger temper, that you can kill a man with your bare hands, and that you pack a piece,” Eric said, dipping a fry into Gene’s homemade ketchup. He took a bite and closed his eyes in delight. The Beef and Ale’s fries were nirvana.
“Eric, I don’t carry a gun. Usually.” I couldn’t dispute the other two, though I was working on the temper. I had to smile. A little fear was probably healthy. Seemed to work for Dimitri and me.
I thought I’d only keep the Cliffside job until I got my life back together, but then the work became my life. I resisted this at first, but I was comfortable falling into my old patterns. Much as I liked to think otherwise, a nine-to-five job that stayed at the office didn’t suit me. I needed immersion. So, despite the odds, I proved a good match with the Cliffside.
The biggest challenge was dealing with deficit funding for the theater. During the boom times of the ’90s, a cocktail party, a couple of fundraisers, a few phone calls and these debts were easily resolved. Times had changed, and many of the private funding sources had slowed to a trickle or dried up entirely.
After my first summer as general manager, at the end of one of our more arduous budget meetings, Dimitri shared his vision for the next season: a post-apocalyptic Romeo and Juliet, with the entire theater and its grounds used as part of the set. We were sitting in our office, sharing a bottle of wine. He’d pulled a large portfolio out of his only locked drawer and was flipping through the pages of research and preliminary drawings he’d worked on. He stopped and ran his fingers over the drawings.
“Imagine it, Sully. Tanks parked outside the theater. Camouflage nets covering doorways. The staff in the same costumes as the actors. An immersive experience made all the more powerful because it supports the words of the greatest playwright … ”
The budget kept climbing as he described his dream. I’d been hatching my own plan for a moneymaker in the off-season, and decided now was as good a time as any to run it by him.
“That would require a huge budget—”
“There you go, thinking like a businessperson again. I thought we had uncovered an artist’s soul under all that—”
“Whoa! Hear me out. I have an idea I’
ve been cooking. How about doing A Christmas Carol in December? We could use the high school—lots of seats and a state-of-the-art facility.”
“I can’t imagine what could possess you to even suggest complicity with that commercial dreck.” Dimitri looked aghast.
“It isn’t dreck. It may be overdone, but it’s a wonderful story and open to interpretation.” I let those last words hang in the air for a few seconds. Nothing tempted Dimitri like an opportunity to upstage his colleagues at other theaters. “You could do your own adaptation, hone it down to the core meaning of the book. It could be a cash cow for us. I’ve run some numbers … ”
“You’ve actually given this some thought?”
“I think we can make this a win-win. At least hear me out. I listened to your ideas for Mad Max meets Romeo and Juliet.”
“You said you liked it.” It was, and still is, difficult for me to reconcile the bravado of the difficult director Dimitri with the desperation of the vulnerable artist Dimitri.
“I do like it. Really. But you’re talking about putting a tank in front of the theater. That takes money, Dimitri.” I couldn’t imagine the hoops we’d need to jump through to get a permit for a project like this, since tanks on the edge of the harbor wasn’t the charm that Trevorton was going for with its occasional tourists. I’d deal with that later.
He sulked for another minute and then said, “Okay, I’ll listen.”
“We could have high school students to work on the production as part of your class. The gross potential is impressive, given the size of their theater.”
Dimitri had been asked by the public school system to teach a theater arts class. Everyone was surprised when he’d agreed, and more surprised when he’d agreed to do it again. He referred to his students as future artists and patrons, and, in fact, the number of student interns at the Cliffside had increased dramatically since he began working in the schools. The stipend also helped him make ends meet. No one was getting rich working at the Cliffside.
“Think about how timely the story is, and what you could do with it,” I continued. “What do you think the soul of the piece is? Maybe it’s the Cratchits’ story?” I thought I saw a light of inspiration spark in Dimitri’s eyes.
“A modern version, in a city,” he mused. “Scrooge could run one of those check cashing places … Bob Cratchit would be a woman, of course … ”
Personally, I would have preferred a Victorian Christmas Carol, but if modernization got him to do it, then so be it. Nonetheless, I recognized the signs and realized that he needed to be reined in, and quickly, before our cash cow cost us more than its gross potential.
“Okay, Dimitri, here’s the deal. This has got to be a thrifty production. The goal is to make money for the summer. You’ve got to keep that in mind. Think in metaphors.” I spoke slowly, as if to a child, emphasizing each word so that I could be sure he understood. I wished I had turned on the recorder on my phone.
“But my audience expects a certain panache in my efforts.”
“Panache, but on a budget. That’s not something everyone can do. Remember your tanks. And the camouflage.”
It worked, for the first two years. Dimitri reworked the text, coming up with a version of A Christmas Carol that was both a critical and commercial success. He worked within a budget, used his pool of student talent well, and helped take some of the pressure off the summer fundraising efforts. Indeed, it worked as intended—until this year. He cast a star as Scrooge and all hell broke loose.
When Dimitri informed me he’d talked to Patrick about taking over the role of Scrooge, my gut told me to panic. I wasn’t sure why.
“Dimitri, he’s pretty well known. We can’t afford him.”
“He’s willing to work for scale. And to come up early and work with my students.” He sounded a little smug, which made my gut ache even more.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is he willing to do Scrooge in a shoestring production on a high school stage?” It was cold, I’ll admit. Our production was more than fine, and I was proud to be associated with it. That said, I’d found over the years that if I pissed Dimitri off right away and he lost his temper, we cut through a lot of crap. This time, however, he didn’t bite.
“He’s interested in doing Long Day’s Journey Into Night, possibly this summer. Don’t look at me like that. You’ve got to admit he’d make a fabulous James Tyrone.”
“Dimitri, we haven’t finalized that yet.” Getting the board to sign off on a four-hour drama at a summer theater was going to take some work. They’d “given” me a new play by a local playwright and a Gilbert and Sullivan in trade.
“Of course not.”
Dimitri and I had agreed to wait until after A Christmas Carol to commit to Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and thank heaven for that. I’d asked around about Patrick King before he arrived and gleaned that he had a difficult reputation. Difficult actors with talent were often worth the effort. But not always. Patrick King was decidedly not worth the trouble. He’d turned our simple fundraising production into a nightmare.
My gut had also told me to ask questions. Why was an actor like Patrick King available on such short notice? Why was he willing to work for so little? Why wasn’t he doing a play in New York or London, or working on a television series, or making a movie? Why hadn’t I seen him work recently? During the second week of rehearsal, the reasons for his availability came flying in at breakneck speed. They were, in no particular order: because he’s a drunk, because he’s a letch, because he can’t remember his lines worth a damn, because he had an ego the size of Utah, and because he’s lost the talent that made the ego palatable.
By the time we’d figured it out, it was too late. The run was sold out. His name was above the title. If we replaced him, we would have to offer refunds. The money already had been spent. I could have said “I told you so” to Dimitri, but it wouldn’t have changed things. He’d been a Patrick King fan.
We cancelled the classes with the students, since putting him in the vicinity of females under the age of twenty-one was a liability. I kept him away from unchaperoned interns. I thought I had it covered, until he hit on Lila Allen, aka Mrs. Cratchit, a heretofore happily married woman. She was thrilled by the attention and had, of late, taken on some of his less admirable traits. Now, according to Dimitri, they were having an affair.
Add to that the continuing attrition of cast members like David and we had a full-scale disaster in the offing. The normally copious supporting cast, most of them volunteers, had dwindled to a spartan few. There weren’t even enough Cratchit kids. Now I needed to convince Stewart Tracy to come to the rescue.
Stewart Tracy. Handsome, cocky, charming Stewart Tracy. Stewart Tracy was one of my favorite actors. He was a pleasure to work with, incredibly adaptable, and talented to boot. Stewart had been at the Cliffside for at least part of the past three seasons. The first season we became friends, with some harmless flirting that made life interesting. During the second season, the flirting started early and led to a full-scale affair. It didn’t endure past Labor Day, but I hadn’t expected it to, nor had he. Last season he’d only been in one show, and had come up with a girlfriend in tow. I was a little jealous, but mostly relieved. Our relationship had been cathartic, but it wasn’t long-term material.
I considered Stewart a friend, a very good friend, and looked forward to seeing him again. He and his summer fling had broken up, and he’d called and emailed me a few times over the past few weeks for consolation. His career required, and received, most of his emotional focus, which was difficult for a lot of women to understand. Hell, if I’d been in it for the long haul, I wouldn’t have been very happy about it either. But I’d been in the relationship for an emotional reboot, and I got a great friend in the process. I still got a stupid grin on my face every time I saw a Facebook post announcing his latest play, and I tri
ed to travel and see it whenever possible.
Stewart’s latest posts had chronicled a Broadway play that never got its legs and closed early. He was putting a good face on his forced vacation with a “the Universe will provide” Facebook post that got 426 likes and 123 comments assuring him he’d land on his feet. Stewart hated not working, which is why I’d taken the chance that he would join our merry troupe and texted and emailed him from the reception. He hated A Christmas Carol, and normally wouldn’t have come near the piece, but my email told him how desperate the situation was. And I begged. I’d give him another half hour before the full email/phone call/text assault began.
I settled down at my desk and dove into the copious administrative work of a general manager. I’d barely finished sorting the mail when there was a knock on the door.
“What?!?” It wasn’t the most pleasant greeting, but I was annoyed that my Do Not Disturb sign had gone unheeded.
It was Harry. “Just wanted to check in and see how the party went,” he said.
I smiled despite myself. “It wasn’t a party. And the reception was fine. You should have come with me.”
“I should have been with Eric. If he had any backbone … ”
“Harry, don’t. I’m not going to pick sides here.” And if I were, I thought to myself, I’d choose yours. Even though Eric was a relative, and despite the genuine affection I felt for him, Harry and I had clicked as friends from the start. Though he made a good living doing film and industrial work and occasionally working at other theaters, Harry was a staple at the Cliffside. He spent hours volunteering in the office. He did help, but we also spent a lot of time talking, gossiping, and laughing. We shared the same sensibilities, used the same cultural references, and had similar backgrounds. We both tended to refer to the Brady Bunch as if it were Jane Austen, which in a way it was for our generation. Isn’t that sad? And both of us were only children raised Catholic by happily married parents.
A Christmas Peril Page 4
