Bit Players, Has-Been Actors and Other Posers: A Must-Read for Fans of Glee, High School Musical and Twilight Read Online Free PDF Page B

Fyedka, the Russian soldier – his first big part. Lucey was supposed to be Tevye’s wife Golde, but she gave up the part to be one of the three sisters, alongside Jocelyn and Kristina. Insane, I know. Personally, I think she didn’t want to look old and haggard like Golde. The role ended up going to Emily. I didn’t get it. When I went to Mr. Ellison in tears, he said I was the best character actor and Yente was a key foil by which the play commented on early twentieth-century Russian society. Then he told me my voice wasn’t quite strong enough for Golde and Emily had done better in the audition.
    After crying myself to sleep for a week, I buckled down again and gave Yente every ounce of tragicomic passion I could muster.
    This year, though, had to be different. This had to be my year. I had worked intensely on my vocal range and power at summer theatre camp, and the director told me I made huge progress. I deserved a lead by this time.
    I snapped my attention back to the auditorium when I heard Mr. Ellison say something about this year’s show. He made his annual half-hearted plug for a straight drama, knowing we would argue against it. We quickly convinced him that as a relatively new program, we still needed to rake in the money, and tickets for musicals sold much better than contemporary existential drama or even Shakespeare. To placate him, I suggested we do a second show in the spring, a drama.
    As we’d done the past two years, we trawled through the list of standard shows performed by high schools across America: Seussical, Anything Goes!, Anne of Green Gables, Bye Bye Birdie, My Fair Lady, and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Nothing got universal support.
    More modern musicals like Hairspray were tossed around, with Jason and Foster arguing over which of them would be the mother, since Jason had the girth but Foster the personality. Mr. Ellison interjected that we didn’t have enough cast members to carry off the separate social classes integral to the plot, which really meant that other than Foster and a sprinkling of Asian and African-American kids, we didn’t have any minority students. Hairspray was eliminated.
     The show couldn’t have a lot of male leads because other than Lindsay, Foster and Ben, we were short on male talent. But, as Adrienne suggested, if we did The Wizard of Oz , girls could play the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion. That show was shot down as too juvenile.
    As happened every year, the talk turned to recruiting other students to CDC, to beef up our options.
    “I know a guy who will do it,” Lucey purred, like the cat that swallowed the canary.
    “Don’t torment us, Miss Landau, just tell us who you have in mind,” Mr. Ellison said drily.
    “Nigel Leightly, the AFS student,” she said proudly, getting the desired gasps in reaction.
    “No way, Lucey, do you really think he’d do it?” Kristina asked breathlessly.
    “Kris, I know he will,” she smiled, “if I ask him.”
    While I pondered how the hell she had wrapped Nigel around her pinkie finger in three short days, the others talked excitedly about the thrill of adding another male to the cast, and one with a cool accent at that. Even the guys were into it, because the better our cast, the more choices of show we had.
    “That would be good,” I said loudly, cutting across the chatter, “since Alex ditched us this year.”
    Blank faces turned toward me. “He’s not doing the show? I figured he just couldn’t come today. Won’t he be here next week?” Adrienne asked.
    “I don’t think so. He’s a serious jock now, didn’t you know?” Adrienne’s jaw dropped at my sarcastic tone, but everyone else resumed talking, unfazed by my report of Alex’s defection.
    Mr. Ellison soon interrupted the conversations, even though we hadn’t accomplished anything, because it was getting late.
    “We’ll pick this up again at next week’s meeting. Same time, same place.”
    “And kids,” interjected Mr.