Curtain Up

by Lisa Fiedler

  “Were you Annie?”

  “Actually, I was an orphan in the chorus,” I explained. “I didn’t have any lines or solos, but I still got to sing and dance, which was awesome. My big moment was on opening night, when Miss Hannigan almost tripped over me. The good news was, I got a huge laugh. The bad news was, it wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  Austin smiled. “That’s theater for ya. Even when it goes wrong, it’s still pretty incredible.”

  “Right!” That was exactly how I’d felt at the time! I couldn’t believe how much this kid “got it.”

  “So the fifth-grade adaptation of Cinderella was a bit of a step backward for you,” he observed.

  “Well, the production was a lot less professional if that’s what you mean.” I shrugged. “Not to sound full of myself, but I probably could have been cast as Cinderella if I hadn’t totally flubbed my lines at the audition. Sophia was watching my audition from the wings, and she picked that exact moment to have a sneezing fit. It totally distracted me.”

  “Interesting,” said Austin. “If I remember correctly, Sophia wound up being cast as Cinderella.”

  I nodded. “To be fair, though, Sophia really is a talented actor.”

  “Talented enough to make a phony sneezing fit sound believable, at least,” Austin joked.

  I laughed. “But the thing is, being in those plays made me realize that I wanted to do something big in the world of theater someday. I made sure I learned all I could about everything from lighting cues to costume changes. I took in every minute of it, from the overture to the final curtain call. Although, for the record, during Cinderella I wasn’t completely professional when it came time for us to take our bows.”

  Austin raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, when Sophia came out to take her bow, I couldn’t help myself—I faked a big loud sneeze!”

  This cracked him up.

  “It’s not fair that the sporty kids in our school have a whole list of teams to choose from,” I said. “And the leadership-types have student council, and there’s even a science club and a chess club, but there’s no drama club.”

  “That’s why I suggested they start one,” Austin said glumly. “But you heard Mrs. Warde. The school board cannot presently”—he gestured sarcastically with air quotes—“ ‘allocate the necessary funds’ for that kind of thing.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what ‘allocate funds’ means,” I admitted with a grin, “but if it’s anything like shelling out the cash, don’t worry about it. The club I’m thinking about has nothing to do with the school board. Or even with school, for that matter.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  I took a deep breath. “What if we put on a play ourselves?” I said, hoping to sound excited, capable, and confident all at once. “By ourselves. And not just any play, your play. Right away. This summer!”

  “This summer?”

  “Yes! Who needs some out-of-touch school board when we can put on your play ourselves? And if it goes well, we can do another one. And another one . . .” I forced myself to stop. I didn’t want him to think I was the type who got carried away.

  Austin took a long sip of his drink; his eyebrows were knit together as he mulled this over. Finally he said, “How would we do this?”

  “Well, I haven’t actually gotten that far yet,” I confessed. “The idea just came to me this afternoon, somewhere between my crash-and-burn soccer tryout and your conversation with Mrs. Warde. But c’mon, you’ve got to admit—it’s tempting, isn’t it? We can cast it ourselves, produce it, and advertise for it. . . . I bet lots of people will want to see a world-premiere play by a local playwright, starring local kids.”

  I could tell he was flattered. “I like the way you think,” he said with a crooked grin.

  The grin made my cheeks feel warm. “Thanks.”

  “I want this to be an actual theater. Our own real theater, except kids do everything. Act, direct, choreograph”—I pointed to him with my straw—“write and compose!”

  “That sounds amazing,” said Austin. “There’s just one small problem with that last part. I haven’t finished writing the play yet.”

  “Oh.” I frowned. “Well, you get straight As in English, don’t you? So, how long can it take?”

  “Maybe days, maybe weeks.” He shrugged. “Maybe even years. That’s how it is with creative writing. Some days I can barely get the words down fast enough, and other days . . . nothing.”

  This was what one might call a major glitch. Half a play was definitely not what I had in mind. “That certainly puts a damper on things.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Austin. “You’ve still got a great idea. It would be cool to put on a musical, even if it isn’t mine.”

  “You mean, we should put on a famous play, like Hairspray or Into the Woods?”

  Austin was clearly impressed at the way I’d just rattled off these titles. “Wow. You really are an expert, aren’t you?”

  I gave him a modest shrug. “Aspiring theater professional, remember?” I drank a little more soda and considered his suggestion. “I really wanted to do something original,” I said at last. “Something no one’s ever seen before, ya know? Something new.”

  “I think I can still help you out,” he said.

  My heart thudded. “That would be awesome, Austin. But how? I wouldn’t want you to rush your writing. Especially since that musical is going to be your Tour de France.”

  He laughed. “I think you mean my ‘tour de force.’ And believe me, I’d never do that. But here’s the thing about writing. Even though my big musical is probably going to be a work in progress for quite a while, that doesn’t mean I can’t work on other projects at the same time.”

  “It doesn’t?” I had no idea playwrights could be such multitaskers.

  “Nope. Which is why I think I can help you put together something that’s more suited to your needs. Something bigger than a skit but smaller than a full-on musical.”

  “You mean, like a theatrical revue?” I said. “Individual acts and numbers, like a cabaret?”

  “Exactly.”

  I liked that we agreed so easily. This seemed to bode well for our professional partnership. “Okay, so, how do we make this happen?”

  “I’ve got a pretty awesome collection of scripts and scene books and sheet music at home. I’ll just pull a bunch of songs and monologues and scenes, and assemble them into a script, writing some original stuff in between to connect them.”

  “We’ve got tons of that kind of stuff too,” I told him. “Including my Annie script from that regional production.”

  “It won’t take long to put together something pretty great,” he promised. “And it might be good for me to shift my focus for a bit.”

  It was all I could do to keep from throwing my arms around him and hugging him. I could only imagine what the high-school coffee drinkers would think of that!

  Instead we clinked bottles and finished our sodas.

  “We’ll have to start advertising right away,” I decided. “I should go home to get started on that. Not to mention thinking about the details. Great theater is all about the details.”

  “Great quote,” said Austin. “Who said that?”

  “I did,” I said, and laughed. “Just now.” My heart flipped over in my chest as I summoned the courage to ask my next question. “Do you . . . um . . . want to come over to my house and . . . um . . . ya know . . . start thinking about it . . . together?”

  “Sure,” he said, standing up and heading for the door. “Let’s go.”

  OMG . . . I just invited a boy with amazing blue eyes to come to my house.

  And he said yes!

  When we turned onto my street, Random Farms Circle, I found my little sister, Susan, hanging out with a bunch of her friends on the lawn of the old neighborhood clubhouse. It was this antique barn left over from, like, the early 1900s, when Random Farms was an actual farm. It was later renovated into
a community center for the neighborhood, and for many years it hosted bridge tournaments, rummage sales, birthday parties, and bake sales. But lately it had just been sitting there, empty.

  Susan and her friend Mia Kim were sitting under the tall oak tree on the clubhouse lawn. When they saw me approaching with Austin, they both stopped talking midsentence and stared. I could tell they were stunned by the fact that I was walking home with a boy. To be honest, I was pretty stunned myself.

  Susan was a year younger than me, which, in the kid food chain, should have made us natural enemies. But she was pretty cool, much smarter than the average eleven-year-old, so I didn’t have a problem with her most of the time. Occasionally, I actually liked hanging out with her.

  Of course, also occasionally, she drove me totally nuts. As she hopped up and came sprinting across the lawn, I was hoping this wouldn’t be one of those times.

  “Hi, Anya.” Her eyes darted meaningfully to Austin, then back to me. “So . . . what’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I said airily. “Austin’s just coming over to talk about this idea I have.” Then, before Susan could say anything embarrassing, I motioned for Austin to keep walking.

  When we reached my front porch, I said, “I’m just going inside to get my computer. Be right back.”

  Austin sat down on a porch step, and I bolted into the house.

  Minutes later I came back, laptop in hand, only to find Susan sitting beside him. “How’d the soccer tryouts go?” she asked me.

  “As expected,” I reported.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  To be honest, I’d pretty much forgotten all about my soccer disaster. My mind had been tumbling with theater thoughts the whole way home from the coffeehouse, and I was ready to start planning. All I needed was for my sister to get off the porch. But before I could tell her to leave us alone, she smiled at me.

  “Austin just told me about the theater. How can I help?”

  “By going back to the clubhouse and hanging around with your own friends,” I said a bit snippily. I felt bad as soon as I heard the words come out of my mouth, but c’mon . . . When you were planning your first official theatrical business venture with an extremely cool boy, you wouldn’t exactly want your little sister tagging along.

  “I can be helpful, Anya. You know I love theater.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But this is serious stuff.”

  Susan rolled her eyes. “Look who’s Hal Prince all of sudden.”

  “Wow.” Austin laughed. “The kid knows who Hal Prince is, Anya. I think we kind of have to sign her up.”

  “Fine,” I said with a sigh. “But you can’t goof around or anything. I want my theater to be professional.”

  “I can be professional,” she assured us. “So what show are we doing? Bye Bye Birdie? Beauty and the Beast? Urinetown . . .” She giggled. “Urinetown. Eww.”

  I cringed. Did my sister really just make a urine joke in front of Austin? So much for professional.

  “We’re going to do a musical revue,” I informed her. “Austin’s going to compile it, and I’m going to produce and direct.”

  “And I’m going to twirl flaming batons!”

  “You are absolutely not going to twirl flaming batons. This is a serious theater, not a traveling circus.”

  We agreed that what we needed first was a name.

  “Backstage Bunch?” Susan suggested.

  “Too babyish,” I said.

  “Chappaqua Youth Repertory Theater?” Austin offered.

  “Maybe a little too snobby.”

  “Yeah,” said Austin. “Maybe.”

  I frowned, concentrating. Then it hit me: “What about the Random Farms Kids’ Theater?” I said. “Except I don’t want people to think this theater is a ‘random’ thing. Because it’s not. It’s extremely not random. It’s totally intentional.” I realized I was beginning to ramble, but I was getting more and more excited by the minute. “The Random Farms Kids’ Theater is kind of a mouthful, so maybe later on we can just shorten it to Random Farms.” I bit my lip, playing the name over again in my head. “Or maybe the Random Farms Kids. Unless . . . You don’t think it sounds like a street gang or something, do you?”

  Austin smiled. “No, Anya, I don’t think it sounds like a street gang.”

  “Good, so maybe we leave Theater in the name for now so it’s clear that’s what we are. After all, the Random Farms Kids could be anything . . . a softball team, a political party, an activist group.”

  Susan was looking at me like I’d lost my mind, so I finished quickly with “We can shorten it later,” and then I shut up.

  “Advertising,” said Austin, moving on. “Super-important.”

  We came up with an ad, which I immediately posted to the community bulletin board link on the Random Farms Neighborhood Association’s website (under someone’s post about a whole box of calico kittens they were giving away for free) and which Susan (aka@soozapalooza2) instantly tweeted to her ever-growing list of Twitter followers:

  BE A STAR at the Random Farms Kids’ Theater. Actors, singers, dancers, stage crew! Reply @soozapalooza2 for info #bigdrama #theaterrules

  We also decided we might benefit from going old-school and printing out the advertisement as a paper flyer that we could distribute around town. Then we made notes about holding auditions and selling tickets, and we googled all kinds of ideas for sets and wardrobe. We also talked about turning our basement into a rehearsal space and our back deck into a terrific stage, complete with footlights and a working curtain.

  “Anya, you’re going to be rich!” said Susan.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, aren’t you going to charge the kids to be in the show?”

  “I don’t think so.” I looked at Austin. “Should we? I mean, even if we get really creative with costumes and set designs, we’re still going to have some costs.”

  “True,” said Austin thoughtfully. “We’ll definitely need some up-front money just to get things off the ground. We might have to rent lights and sound equipment.”

  He had a point. I was thinking we’d earn revenue through ticket sales, but that wouldn’t come until later. In the meantime, we’d need some sort of funding to run the theater.

  “Maybe Mom and Dad will give you a loan,” Susan suggested.

  “No,” I said firmly. “I want to do it myself. I don’t want to borrow money. From anyone.”

  Susan shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Boy, I didn’t realize there were so many do’s and don’ts for running your own theater.”

  Neither did I. Unfortunately, at the moment it was feeling like there were more don’ts than do’s. . . .

  Do’s?

  Dues!

  As in membership fees!

  “That’s it!” I cried. “We can ask the kids who join the theater to pay dues. Nothing excessive—just enough to get the ball rolling. So, we aren’t really charging them; we’re just asking them to contribute to the process.”

  “Excellent,” said Austin. “Creative set design, inexpensive costumes, and membership dues. Anya, you’re already thinking like a producer.”

  It was the best praise I could have asked for. Of course, I was also going to be the director. And I was looking forward to thinking like one of those, too.

  “I think kids will be okay with paying dues,” I said confidently.

  We decided we’d “crunch the numbers” (as Austin put it) and come up with an exact dues amount later. The more immediate concern was figuring out who might be interested in joining our theater. We needed kids with “a flair for the dramatic” (also Austin’s term).

  “Well, I know at least five girls in this neighborhood who take dance,” I pointed out. “They’d make a great chorus line. You know Mackenzie Fleisch, right?”

  Austin cocked his head. “Is she the girl who always stands with her heels together and her feet pointing east and west?”

  “Otherwise known as first position,” I said, grinnin
g, but I knew this only because I’d taken a few years of dance back in elementary school. “It’s a ballet thing. Mackenzie lives for ballet. Her mom told my mom that Kenzie’s going to be a prima ballerina someday.”

  “That’s impressive.”

  I created a new page in my theater document and typed in the names of all the girls we knew who took dance. Then we made a second list that included everyone in the sixth-grade concert choir, and a third with the names of all the kids who’d been in the fifth-grade play with me (minus Mouse Number Three, of course), and as many as we could remember who’d been in it the year before. Susan rattled off the names of the kids who’d been in it this year.

  “We’re going to need more than just performers,” I pointed out. “We’ll need kids to handle sound and lighting and stuff like that.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Austin. “My friend Deon will love this idea. He can oversee all our technical needs. He won the science fair last year for making a light bulb out of a sweet potato. Or maybe it was a can opener out of an electric toothbrush. Whatever it was, I’m sure he’ll be willing to help us out.”

  I turned to Susan. “Do you think Mia will be interested in joining?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Susan, nodding hard. “Mia’s an amazing singer.”

  “She is,” I agreed. “Little girl, big voice.”

  “Listen to you!” Austin laughed. “You sound like a real director. What are you gonna say next? ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’?”