13 - Knock'em Dead

by Fletcher, Jessica; Bain, Donald

  “But don’t blink,” Jill said.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  “No, I will,” Matt said. “That’s what agents are supposed to do, not blink when money is involved.”

  “We must get together, just the three of us,” Jill said, ignoring Matt, “providing the Broadway killer doesn’t get us first.” She laughed nervously. “I’m anxious to hear the direction you think Knock ‘Em Dead should take, Jessica.”

  “I’d enjoy that very much. I understand from Harry I’ll be spending a lot of time in New York.”

  “As you should,” Arnold said. “Give us a call next time you’re in town.” He handed me a card: Factor Enterprises.

  “I certainly will,” I said.

  When it got to be seven-fifteen, I suggested to Matt that I had to leave if I was to meet my friends for the eight o’clock curtain.

  “The car’s downstairs,” he said. “I’ll ride uptown with you.” To Vaughan: “Need a ride?”

  “That would be nice.”

  I said my good-byes to people I’d met during the party, including the Factors.

  “Nothing works on Broadway without big bucks being raised,” Matt told me as we watched the Factors make their way to the elevators. “That’s really all that Schrumm or any other producer does, raise money.”

  “Do you think there’ll be a problem with that?”

  “No. He wouldn’t have put up an advance for you if he didn’t know he had the money to mount the show. He’s too savvy to stick his neck out. Let’s go.”

  We walked to the elevators and Vaughan pushed the “Down” button. The doors suddenly slid open. The only person in the elevator was a woman. We all recognized her.

  “Good evening, Ms. Larsen,” Vaughan said.

  She smiled sweetly, stepped from the elevator, looked at me, and said, “You are Jessica Fletcher, who created that delicious character, Samantha, in Knock ’Em Dead.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you—?”

  “Playing Samantha in the stage production? I believe I am, if it’s acceptable to you.”

  “It’s—of course it’s acceptable. It’s a pleasure meeting you.”

  I introduced Vaughan and Matt to April Larsen, an actress familiar to most of America. Not that she was a star. She’d been poised on the threshold of Hollywood stardom twenty years ago after making a succession of good films. But then she faded from the upper tier of mega-star actresses—something to do with rumors that her temperamental personality made her a bad risk for big-budget movies.

  Although she had not achieved box-office status, she continued to work in lesser films, and with touring companies of Broadway and London shows. She did commercials and had a brief, unsuccessful fling as a TV talk show hostess. What impressed me was that she’d established, and sustained, a relatively positive image throughout her career despite her reputation as being temperamental. She was considered a solid, versatile actress, capable, workmanlike, lending her familiar name to whatever show in which she chose to appear and garnering for the most part solid reviews. It was my impression she hadn’t worked much recently.

  I meant it when I said it was okay with me if she played my character, Samantha, a woman in her early sixties who, while attempting to keep a dysfunctional family together, finds herself deeply involved in murder within that family. As she attempts to solve the mystery, her own life begins to unravel, to the point where she almost becomes the next victim. Some reviewers of the book said Samantha had a “Tennessee Williams quality to her,” which pleased me. Others saw her as a symbol of strength while those around her succumbed to weakness. I’d worked hard to shape Samantha into a three-dimensional, sympathetic woman.

  “I’m anxious to sit down and discuss Samantha with you, Jessica.”

  “I’d love that,” I said.

  “Not leaving so soon?” she said. “I ran late. Please stay a while.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t. I’m meeting friends at the theater.”

  “What are you seeing?”

  “The Beauty Queen of Leenane.”

  “A wonderful show. Marie Mullen is superb. The whole cast is. We’ll be in touch.”

  Matt Miller handed her his card. “I’m Jessica’s agent, Ms. Larsen. You can always reach her through me.”

  “Good. I’ll call you once it’s set that I’m playing Samantha. Harry assured me I am, but you never know in this business. Lovely meeting you, Mr. Buckley, Mr. Miller. And Mrs. Fletcher, thanks for creating Samantha.”

  “Nice woman,” Vaughan said as we made our way uptown in the limousine. “I always admire performers like her.”

  “So do I,” I said. “I think she’ll make a wonderful Samantha.”

  “I agree,” Matt said.

  They dropped me at the Walter Kerr Theatre on West Forty-eighth Street where my friends from Cabot Cove milled about on the sidewalk. It was ten minutes to curtain time. I told Vaughan and Matt I’d call the next day, got out, and waved as the limo pulled away.

  “How was the party?” Seth asked.

  “Quite pleasant. April Larsen is going to play Samantha.”

  “Didn’t know she was still around.”

  I laughed. “Very much still around, Seth. She looks wonderful and was so gracious. I’m thrilled she’ll be doing the part.”

  I looked up at the marquee where the name of the show, and of cast members, the director, and others were proudly displayed. For a moment, I imagined the marquee went blank. But then it was filled with:

  Knock ’Em Dead

  Based Upon the Book by Jessica Fletcher

  Starring April Larsen

  Produced by Harry Schrumm

  The only thing missing was the name of the director, because I didn’t know it.

  “Jessica?” Seth said.

  “What?”

  “Coming? The show’s about to start.”

  “Oh, yes. I was daydreaming. Yes, let’s get inside. I don’t want to miss a minute of it.”

  Chapter 4

  Two days after I’d returned to Cabot Cove with my theater-going friends, I received a package in the mail from Matt Miller. In it was the formal agreement between Harry Schrumm’s production company and my publisher, Buckley House, as well as papers for me to sign. Matt had cautioned me before I left New York that licensing a book for the stage generally meant a small amount of money up front. This agreement was no exception. If money were to be made, it would come later, after the play had opened and had generated enough in ticket sales to show a profit. If and when that occurred, I would receive a percentage of those profits. It’s called a back-ended deal in the business. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.

  The amount of money paid me upon signing was irrelevant, however. I was much more concerned that Knock ’Em Dead would actually be the basis for a Broadway play. My enthusiasm was heightened by certain things Matt had insisted be in the agreement. I was to be consulted about all aspects of the production, including the adaptation, casting, staging, and marketing. But there was a clause giving the playwright, Aaron Manley, and the director, still to be named, final say. I wasn’t dismayed about that. After all, I was a neophyte when it came to theater and was pleased simply to be in a position to make suggestions.

  The schedule, according to Matt, was for the play to open in March, six months from now. Such a delay didn’t faze me; I was used to extended waits between turning in a book and seeing it in the bookstores.

  I received a call from Aaron Manley three weeks after returning to Maine.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Quite well. You?”

  “Fine. I’m working on the plot for my next novel.”

  “Any chance of putting it aside and coming to New York? I’m ready to start talking about our script.”

  “Well, yes, of course.”

  “Next week? Schrumm’s office will send tickets.”

  “That will be fine.”

  We agreed upon a date and ended the conversatio
n.

  That night, I had dinner with members of the symphony orchestra’s board of directors in a private room at a new restaurant that had opened a few months earlier, Tedeschi’s Grill. Peter Eder, our conductor and musical director, gave an amusing retrospective of the first concert season. It was over dessert that talk shifted to Knock ’Em Dead being headed for Broadway.

  “If they need a musical director,” Eder said, “I’m available.”

  “A musical murder mystery,” said a board member, laughing. “That would be a first.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” Eder countered. “Turning grim subjects into musicals is all the rage these days.”

  “April Larsen is playing the lead?” someone else said.

  “The last I heard. I’m going to New York next week to begin working with the playwright who’ll be adapting the book.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Aaron Manley.”

  Blank stares all around.

  “Of course, we’ll all be invited to opening night,” Tim Purdy said. Tim was treasurer of the chamber of commerce and a member of the orchestra’s board.

  “Of course,” I said, “assuming there is an opening night.”

  “Why do you say that, Jess?”

  “These things don’t always get off the ground. At least that’s what my agent tells me.”

  Tim drove me home after the dinner.

  “Is it really possible that the play won’t be produced?” he asked.

  “I’m confident it will, but I want to be a realist. I’ve had books optioned to Hollywood studios that never made it to the screen.”

  “But this will be different,” he said. “You’ll be the toast of the Great White Way.”

  “I hope you’re right, Tim. Thanks for the lift. It was a great first season for the orchestra.”

  The following Tuesday I flew from Bangor to New York and met with Aaron Manley and Harry Schrumm at Schrumm’s offices above a Chinese restaurant on West Fifty-first Street, next door to the Mark Hellinger Theater. Besides Schrumm and Manley, there were a man and woman who were introduced as being from Scott Associates, a Broadway publicity firm that would handle the marketing of Knock ’Em Dead, and the director Schrumm had chosen, an older British gentleman named Cyrus Walpole.

  Schrumm led the meeting.

  “Aaron has come up with a very rough first draft of the show,” he said. “It’s good, needs refining, but it’ll work. Maybe you’ll have some ideas once you read it, Jessica.”

  “That certainly was fast,” I said.

  “I suggest you get together after this meeting and start working,” Schrumm said. “How long are you in town?”

  “Three days.”

  “Good. That’ll give you time to huddle with Linda, too.”

  “Who’s Linda?” I asked.

  “Linda Amsted. She’ll be casting the show. She’s already gone through her files and come up with possibilities for the husband, the two sons, the daughter, the detective—how many characters are there?”

  “Eight,” Walpole said. He was a corpulent man who carried it well. His beard was white and neatly cropped, his complexion above the beard line ruddy. He was one of those people I take an instant liking to, a gentle man who laughed easily and who didn’t seem consumed with a need to inject himself into the conversation. Of course, I knew nothing about his professional credentials but assumed I’d be given them in due time. “One of them is marginal, I think,” Walpole said. “The younger son’s lady friend.” His British accent was charming. “How do you feel about her, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “I thought she was important to the story,” I said, “in that she ends up acting as the younger son’s conscience in a sense.”

  “Yes, good point, I’d say, although Samantha functions in rather the same capacity. By eliminating the younger woman, we have a tantalizing sexual tension that could develop between mother and son.”

  “I didn’t have that in mind,” I said.

  Schrumm waved his ring-laden hand and said, “Look, this can all be worked out. Jessica, I want you to confer with Aaron for the next couple of days. I’ll set up a meeting with Linda Amsted for you to go over the photos and bios she’s pulled. I’ll need you back in New York three weeks from now for the backers’ audition.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

  “Aaron will have fleshed out some scenes by then, and Linda will cast for the reading. I’ve got Jill and Arnie Factor salivating at the thought of backing Knock ’Em Dead. You met them at Windows on the World.”

  “Yes.” I didn’t mention their less-than-complimentary comments about him.

  “They’re starstruck and filthy rich, love rubbing elbows with famous people. I’ll arrange a quiet dinner with them when you’re here.”

  “They said they’d like to get together when I’m in town.”

  “Which brings up a good point,” Priscilla Hoye, one of the publicists, said. “We’ll be treading heavily on your name value, Mrs. Fletcher, when we actually start hyping the show. We should get plenty of TV time offering you up as a guest.”

  Schrumm stood and ended the meeting. “Check in with me before you head home, Jessica. I’ll have a firm date for the backers’ audition by then.”

  A group of us left his office and stood on the street.

  “Might I suggest we retreat to dinner and continue this fruitful discussion?” Walpole said. Priscilla Hoye and her partner in Scott Associates, Joseph Scott, demurred: “We have nothing to offer until you’re further down the road,” he said. “Nice meeting you, Mrs. Fletcher. Sounds like it’s going to be a winner.”

  The next three days were intense and exhausting. Cyrus Walpole joined Aaron and me in our working sessions and had many good suggestions to offer, as did Aaron. I felt very much a third wheel, but kept reminding myself that I’d entered into a strange and alien world with which I had no experience. Still, I held my ground when a suggestion was made with which I disagreed, and both men were quick to acknowledge my ideas and consider them. But I had no illusions. As the contract clearly stated, they were the ones with the final say on all creative matters. All I could hope for was a fair hearing of my concerns and ideas, and a willingness to honor the fact that the play would be based upon what I’d created—every character, every twist of plot, every nuance of the relationship between members of my fictitious family.

  The three days in New York passed quickly, and I flew home knowing I’d soon be returning for the backers’ audition. I loved every minute of working with theater professionals whose goal was to produce the best possible stage drama from my book.

  I also realized this was going to be a lot more time consuming than I’d bargained for.

  What price fame?

  As it turned out, a lot.

  Chapter 5

  The backers’ audition was delayed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t back in Manhattan as scheduled. Instead of attending a reading at which potential backers of Knock ’Em Dead decided whether to invest, I sat with casting director Linda Amsted in a darkened, inactive theater on West Forty-ninth Street for an open casting call to which hundreds of actors and actresses flocked, each hoping to become one of the characters I’d created.

  There was something exhilarating, yet sad, about the process; all that talent vying for work but only a few standing a realistic chance of succeeding.

  Linda Amsted’s reputation as a casting director for Broadway shows and Hollywood films was exalted. I understood why after having spent two hours with her in her offices during my previous visit to New York. She had thousands of actors and actresses on her computers, their photos just a click of the mouse away, their voices stored for instant retrieval through speakers wired into the computers. I agreed with every one of her choices of actors and actresses to play the characters I’d created in Knock ’Em Dead. Of course, April Larsen had already been cast as Samantha, the lead in the story. But she hadn’t come through Linda Amsted. She’d been handpicked by Harry Schrumm
, a decision with which I wholeheartedly agreed.

  After the first dozen had read from random pages of script written by Aaron Manley—he arrived an hour later, accompanied by the director, Cyrus Walpole—I leaned over to Linda and asked, “How many people will be auditioning?”

  She laughed. “You never know with an open call, Jessica. Could be thousands.”

  “There are that many actors and actresses looking for work in New York?”

  “Tens of thousands,” she said. “A lot of them don’t have the talent to legitimately call themselves actors or actresses, but their dreams keep them going.” She lowered her voice. “I already know who I want, the ones I showed you in my office. But holding an open audition satisfies the unions.”

  That struck me as cruel.

  “Of course,” she continued, “you never know when the next Pacino or Hoffman or Jim Carrey will show up and change everything.”

  “How often does that happen?”

  “About once every ten years. But it isn’t a wasted exercise for them. I cast a lot of plays and films. They’re in my computer along with my notes about how they perform at this audition. Next!”

  The actors and actresses Linda had chosen from her files to play the roles in the play—the father, two sons, daughter, younger son’s girlfriend, and the detective—showed up at various times during the day and read as though they’d just walked in off the street. I assumed that was for show. No matter. I watched them with special interest since they ostensibly would bring my characters to life on the stage. I was impressed. Although they stood on a bare stage and read from a script, they immediately assumed the characters they were playing, becoming those people.

  The actor who would play the father was, according to the bio on the back of his eight-by-ten black-and-white glossy photo, a veteran character actor of many plays and movies. I hadn’t known his name-)oseph McCartney—but he was one of those I-know-the-face-but-I-can’t-put-a-name-to-it performers. He was sixty-two years old, quite bald but with salt-and-pepper hair at the temples, and had a commanding baritone voice.