“What do we do?” Peter asked while mopping his forehead with what looked like a soaking wet handkerchief. “We can’t force him to sing louder.”
“We can’t force him to do anything!” said a man with a Texas drawl and a big belly. From his cowboy hat I assumed he was Jim Bob Wheaton, the country star who wrote the script, music, and lyrics to the show. And from the various stains on his shirt, I also assumed he used an ample amount of ketchup this morning. “He’s been hacking away at my script more than a beaver tears through a tree.”
Chase has been cutting up the script? How? I was about to ask him to clarify when I realized I was eavesdropping and needed to keep my trap shut.
Jim Bob stood up and pointed at Peter. “Why the hell did you hire him?”
Peter tried to keep his cool. “You were at his audition. He was fantastic. And he’s been fantastic.”
Jim Bob piped up again. “Been is right! For the last two weeks he hasn’t sung louder than a breeze in a meadow! I thought at first he lost his voice.”
“Me too! How on earth were we to know he was choosing to sound like that?” Peter said.
Jim turned the other way and pointed to a well-dressed woman with her designer glasses and her gray hair in a French braid. “You’re the damn producer! Why did you give him complete control of my show?”
“Jim Bob, keep your voice down,” the woman said in a whisper, which incidentally was much louder than Chase’s singing voice. “I didn’t give him complete control of the show.” She paused. “I gave him final approval of his material…and how he performs it.”
“It’s the same dang thing! He can say whatever he wants and sing however he wants!” Jim Bob hissed.
“Regardless, that was in the contract he had on Vicious Tongues and that’s what he now requires. He seemed so excited to be doing a Broadway show that I never thought he’d use his final approval to—”
“Make my show a crapfest?”
“Hey, Peter!” Chase called from the stage. “Can we keep going? I’ve got some new ideas for the opening scene I want to try out.”
I’ve never heard so many people at once mutter, “Oh no.”
“OK, Chase,” Peter said into his mic. “Resume, my good man.” He looked at the stage hopefully, but I think we all knew what was about to happen. The orchestra played the intro and once more we watched a silent movie starring Chase.
Suddenly, my phone lit up with a new text. Ah! Luckily, I had turned off the sound or else my cover would have been blown. I bent down underneath the row of seats to read it and happily saw it was from Devon asking to meet for dinner! I wrote back that I didn’t know how long my rehearsal would be, but I would text him the minute it was over. I was excited to have our first date since our first kiss, but more excited because I had a feeling he’d share in my penchant for nosiness. This Hubert mystery coupled with the Phantom note writer has gotten so bizarre, I’ve decided I need a right-hand man. And what a bonus to get one with snooping and smooching skills!
After I got Devon’s text, I watched more tech rehearsal, which was incredibly exciting.
For the first three hours.
At first it was fascinating because I was seeing real Broadway professionals in rehearsal and there was so much skill involved. Not just the great voices and brilliant dancing, but I was most riveted by the problem-solving skills so many of them had. I’ve only seen Broadway shows after they’ve opened and everything has already been worked out. It was so much cooler to witness what seemed to be an insurmountable problem and then watch it be solved. At one point, Lisa Clark Oliver (whom I remembered seeing in Chicago) is supposed to run offstage in tears. Then, seconds later, she’s supposed to enter (as her twin!) from the other side. Lisa thought she’d have enough time to exit and then run backstage to the other side for her entrance, but it took so long that the effect of seeing her come on as her twin didn’t have any magic. So, she and the director came up with this amazing idea where she starts running offstage but right away passes behind one of the trees on the set. Turns out, hiding behind the tree is a girl dressed just like her who runs offstage right while Lisa passes behind the tree. It happens so quick that it looks like Lisa passes behind the tree and continues running. As the fake Lisa runs offstage one way, the real one runs the other way, with a crowd blocking the audience from seeing her. She’s then able to reenter as her twin two seconds later. It looks amazing!
But for every exciting theatrical moment like that, I had to sit through dozens and dozens of incredibly tedious one. I hereby want to change the expression “God is in the details” to “Boringness is in the details.”
Essentially, 95 percent of the day consisted of a scene starting and then two minutes later everything stopping so one light could be adjusted. The adjusting would take five minutes; then they’d start again. Twenty seconds later, the choreographer would run onstage and move everyone a few inches to the right so they filled the stage more evenly. They’d start again but immediately stop because the lights would have to be adjusted once more due to everyone moving a few inches to the right. During a merciful break, Gary walked by my seat and told me that watching tech rehearsal is like watching someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder clean their house.
The nice part is Chase would come find me in the audience during breaks and ask me how I thought it was going. I started to tell him it was a little hard to hear him during the opening number, but he cut me off and told me it would all make sense when I saw the entire performance.
“My character comes into his own and finds his voice at the end of the show.” He smiled. “Get it? I’m gonna start the show with hardly any voice and then I’ll ‘find it’ ”—he added a few winks to make his point—“at the end of the show. Get it?”
I did get it. And it was stupid.
He ordered in lunch because he had a phone interview scheduled, but he invited me to stay in his dressing room till the interview began. I wanted to ask him all about Vicious Tongues and find out the story about who he was really dating. I’ve read that he’s been dating the lead girl off and on for years. But I also read some really dishy stuff about him being a so-called playa. However, I’m not sure if that’s true because I read that in my dentist’s office in People Español and I don’t speak Spanish. I based my conclusion on the photos and the amount of exclamation points. I was about to ask him the juicy stuff, but instead he asked me about myself.
“Justin,” he said as he sat on the couch, “have you thought about what you’re going to do after this internship?”
“Well, I have to go back to school.”
He shook his head. “I meant this summer.”
“Oh! I guess I’ll go back to musical theater summer camp.”
He looked disappointed. “After being on Broadway?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not actually on Broadway,” I said with a wistful smile, “but it is my wish more than anything.”
“Then why don’t you stay here in New York for the summer? Audition for some professional shows! See what it’s like to be an actor in the city.”
Wow. I never thought of that. Hmm…I would be in the oldest group at camp this summer. Maybe too old?
But where would I stay? Every year, Grandma Sally’s sister comes for the whole summer and there’s no way I’d stay with them. Not only would there be no room, but there’d also be no peace. Every time I think there’s no one worse than Grandma Sally, I think of Great-Aunt Rhoda and realize how lucky I am to only have to see her at Passover.
I definitely had some money saved I could put toward rent, and my parents would help me out. But where? Could I get a place for just a few months?
“Where would I stay?” I asked out loud, and then immediately regretted it. It sounded like I was asking him to give me one of his rooms in the Dakota. “I mean, I’d definitely rent something,” I said firmly, “but I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Chase dismissed me with a wave. “It’s not hard to find a sublet for t
he summer. But the bigger question is, what about after high school?”
I got nervous we were talking too long. “Don’t you have to do another phone interview or go over your lines?”
He laughed. “Look, I asked you to intern because I think it’s important that young people have someone older to help them out.” He patted the seat next to him on the couch.
What a great guy. He’s about to open in his first Broadway show and he’s taking the time to talk to me about my future.
“Well,” I said, sitting down, “I thought I’d get a college degree in acting and go right into, you know…the business.” I felt stupid calling it “the business,” so I did air quotes. Then I felt stupid because I did air quotes.
“An acting degree?” he asked. “What if you don’t get cast your first few years out of school? How are you going to make money?”
I never really thought of that. I’d assumed I’d be starring in a Broadway show the day after college graduation.
“You mean, I’d need something to fall back on? Like being an accountant?”
“Accountant?” He laughed. “You could make money playing the piano. It doesn’t have to be something boring.”
Aha! I tried to use my ESP to relay the thought, That’s right, Spencer! I’m not the only one who thinks math is boring. I waited for an ESP response but got nothing.
Chase stared at me. “What are you thinking about?”
Busted! I forced myself back into the moment.
“I was thinking…”—think of something!—“that you never have to worry about an acting job because you can always make money from modeling.”
He nodded. “You have a point, but once you become known as an actor, I think it’s bad for your career if you freelance as a model.” He whipped his head away from me and then whipped it back and gave a half smile.
“That was my famous look,” he explained.
So cute!
“I can still hit that half-smile even though I haven’t modeled in years.”
“But you haven’t left GlitZ, right?” Maybe he had some pull there and could use it to get Spencer a better internship for the summer. It would be nice if we were both in the city for July and August. I could be auditioning for shows and he could do actual accounting.
“Sort of,” Chase said. “I mean, I’m still signed with them in case I ever go back to modeling one day….”
“So, would you have any influence there?” Maybe Spencer and I could even sublet an apartment together. Becky, too!
Once they apologized, that is.
“Influence? Not at all! All agents really care about is money and I haven’t made any for GlitZ in years.” He looked away dreamily. “I do miss that easy cash, though. Stand, smile, gimme a check.” He shrugged. “No more.”
It was so cool sitting and talking with someone I’ve seen on TV every week. I had so many questions to ask but didn’t want to seem like any other fan. My resolve lasted ten seconds.
“So, are you really dating every girl on the show?” I asked eagerly.
“What?” he said. Then he wagged his finger at me. “Do you pay money for those trashy fanzines?”
“Of course not,” I said.
I make my mom pay for them.
“Why don’t you ask me something about working in show business? Maybe I can help you.”
I instead asked what I was dying to know. “Are you going to do the Vicious Tongues spin-off?” Then I pathetically added, “Please?”
He laughed. “You sound like Hubert. He really wants me to go back to L.A. and do the spin-off.”
Hubert wanted it? Now I no longer did.
He continued. “I mean, a part of me thinks ‘who am I to turn down such great money?’ But…I never wanted to do TV. I always wanted to do Broadway. Ever since high school. Like you.”
“Why’d you do the TV show in the first place?”
He rubbed his fingers together. “Money, man. You can’t imagine the cash actors get for TV.” His eyes got big. “I’m taking a huge pay cut doing a Broadway show, but I don’t care.” He laughed. “Most of the time.”
“Who’s doing your part on the spin-off?” I asked. Not that anyone could ever replace him.
“I don’t think they’ve found anyone yet.” He shrugged. “Maybe they’ll write my character out of the show. What else do you wanna know?”
I had something on the tip of my tongue I wanted to ask, but instead I went for the obvious question.
“Uh…who’s your favorite composer?”
“Stephen Sondheim. You already know I worship him.”
“Oh, right. Me too.”
Silence.
Ugh! I did have something I really wanted to talk about, but it wasn’t showbiz related.
Chase wasn’t really the right person to go to, but…I couldn’t ask advice from hostile Grandma Sally or my meddling parents and I certainly didn’t want Devon to know how bad it was with my two best friends.
Chase was being so nice, though, I decided I would take a chance and talk to him.
“This is kinda off topic, but…” Should I relate it to showbiz? “Well, it kinda reminds me of the episode on Vicious Tongues where you make your roommate move out.”
“What does?”
I sighed.
Then let loose with a stream of words. “I have a friend. Two friends, actually. Well, one’s an ex-boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend? The one you were dating when we met at Phantom?”
Wow, he remembered! “Yes! He’s great. Well, he was great. My point is they’re both mad at me. And I’m mad at them. And we’re not speaking right now. Or maybe never again and—”
“Stop right there. When did this all happen?”
“Last week.”
“Then apologize right now,” he said firmly.
“But they—”
“I don’t care who was wrong. You need to do everything you can to keep your friends.” He looked at me seriously. “Right now Hubert is my closest friend.” Then why am I taking advice from you? “But before Hubert, I had a”—he looked away sadly—“really close friend and we had a stupid fight. I probably should have apologized, but I didn’t. And now things have gotten so bad between us, it’s too late to fix it.”
“So…?” I didn’t want him to say what I knew he was going to say next.
“So, I’m telling you to fix your relationships now before they become unfixable.”
Ugh! Why do I have to fix it?
The phone rang and I knew I should go do some interning.
“There’s my interviewer.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Can you handle this for me?”
I nodded and left.
The errands were easy: a caramel Frappuccino from Starbucks and two croissants from a delicious bakery called Amy’s Bread on Ninth Avenue.
While I got Chase’s food, I thought about what he said and decided that maybe, maybe I would apologize to Becky (for real this time), but I was definitely and absolutely not apologizing to Spencer. He broke up with me! Asking for his friendship back would be one step away from asking him to be my boyfriend and that would make me look pathetic. And I wasn’t interested in that. I had Devon.
I know Spencer will eventually apologize, so the healthiest thing for me to do is force that to happen sooner rather than later. I simply have to work harder to make him see how amazing my life is without him so he’ll say he’s sorry and ask to be a part of it again. Once he offers an apology, I shall accept it.
But I will definitely not offer one first.
Hmm…how to ratchet up Operation Jealous? I dropped off the stuff for Chase in his dressing room while he was still talking and went back outside the theater. I decided the first step was a shot of me in front of the marquee that I could post on my website. Spencer needed to know that I was living it up on Broadway. I mean, I’d been writing (lying) about that every day, but now I could finally back it up with photographic evidence. It was the last afternoon of my internship, so
I needed to get as many shots as I could. I went out through the lobby doors and ran into Peter, the director, who was standing by himself, smoking. He seemed lost in his own world as he stared toward Eighth Avenue.
I thought a picture with a big-time director would be sure to make Spencer envious. I didn’t want to walk right up to Peter and ask him to pose because it seemed like he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. But I wanted that photo! I decided to make him notice me in a low-key way, so I casually walked past him and then bent down to tie my shoes right in his line of vision. I then realized I was wearing shoes without laces, so I quickly changed my tactic and pretended I had bent down to pick something up. Thankfully, I saw a receipt someone had dropped.
“There it is!” I said loudly as I picked it up. Of course, it had been on a New York City sidewalk for who knows how long and I immediately noticed it was encrusted in dirt and old food. And why were parts of it red? Gross! I feigned putting it in my pocket but let it fall to the sidewalk.
“You dropped something,” Peter said.
I turned around and saw he was pointing to the ketchup/blood-laden receipt.
Argh! What choice did I have? I smiled, bent back down and slowly picked it up again, trying to use only the top two centimeters of my thumb and third finger.
“Thanks,” I said as I put it in the pocket of my jeans that are now at the bottom of Grandma Sally’s garbage.
Peter let out a stream of smoke. “You’re the intern lad working with Chase, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” I said with a smile. Wow! A big Broadway director knows who I am!
“He is a…nice fellow,” he said slowly.
Yowtch. That was the blandest compliment I’ve ever heard. I’m sure Peter was being driven crazy by Chase’s horrible singing/acting/ideas.
“I’d love to have a picture of us together if that’s OK,” I told him.
“Of course,” he said, and stomped on his cigarette.
I took out my phone and he immediately grabbed it. I guess being a director means he likes to be in control. He held it above our heads, we smiled, and he took the picture. Unfortunately, he’s also one of those “I’m over sixty and barely know how to use anything electronic” people, so he didn’t reverse the camera image. He just estimated and held it at an angle where he thought we’d both be in the pic. He handed the phone back to me with a smile and a “Cheerio” and walked back into the theater.
The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek Page 12
