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professional. With some, you must be a dictatorial director.”
    “Couldn’t you just clout him with your clipboard?”
    “No. Although it is tempting. Do not worry. You will find a way to get through to him.” Reinhard sighed. “Now, if only we can do something with poor Otis.”
    The entire staff had taken to calling him “poor Otis.” A sweet-natured bear of man with a brown moon face and a gleaming bald pate, I’d known from the moment he stepped onstage at auditions that he had to play Oliver Warbucks. But while he had all the warmth of the Daddy Warbucks who emerges late in Act One, he couldn’t capture the self-important, multitasking tycoon we meet at the outset. Maybe because he was cowed by Chelsea and Kimberlee, the actress playing Warbucks’ long-suffering but faithful secretary. The more he rehearsed with them, the more flustered he became. Lines and lyrics went out the window. By the time he finished butchering the lyrics to “N.Y.C.,” we were both streaming flop sweat.
    I tried role-play, my old reliable “list thing,” and just talking with him, but the only thing that seemed to help was working with Amanda. Since that boosted her confidence as well as his, I gave them more rehearsals together, even if it meant reducing his time with Chelsea.
    I resisted the urge to ask Alex to give him a magical nudge. Even Rowan had used his magic sparingly during rehearsals and then, mostly to reassure us.
    When I tried out the reassuring voice I’d used on HelpLink calls, Otis asked if I was coming down with a cold. So I packed it away in mothballs and resumed my performance as The Calm Director Who Had Everything Under Control, even though I felt more like Chicken Little.

    The sky didn’t fall during our Act One run-through. Just a lot of props. As the orphans bewailed their “Hard Knock Life,” wash buckets and mops flew around the stage as if bespelled by the sorcerer’s apprentice. A wheel fell off at the top of Scene 2, literally upsetting the apple cart. In “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here,” the efficiency of Warbucks’ army of servants was belied by the clang of dropped platters, an inner tube zigzagging across the stage, a cascade of gift boxes, and an avalanche of linens. Alex got bonus points for fielding the tennis ball that bounced into the pit with his left hand, while his right soldiered on with the tune.
    Two hours later, Chelsea warbled the reprise of “Maybe” and mercifully ended things. Then we had to go through it all again on Sunday with Amanda’s team.
    I quelled my fear that the show would run longer than
The Ten Commandments
and
Ben-Hur
combined and focused on the positives. As the brainless Lily, Nora proved you could chew gum and sing at the same time. Steven made a deliciously oily Rooster, winning laughs with just an artful flip of his fedora. Debra’s “Little Girls” was a comic masterpiece of defiance and disgust, her scenes with Lily and Rooster, a triumph of sleaziness.
    I knew I’d had little to do with their success; I pretty much stayed out of their way and let them strut their stuff.
    Unfortunately, Long didn’t do the same with me. After our second Act One run-through, he trailed me to the production office, shaking his head.
    “That Otis fellow. He’s not very good, is he?”
    “It’s a demanding role.”
    “Pity you didn’t cast a professional.” When I bristled like an angry cat, he hastily added, “I’m sure you had your reasons. But he’s dragging down the whole show.”
    “He’ll get it.”
    Long turned on his megawatt smile. “Of course he will. But you understand my concern. There’s a lot riding on this show.”
    My reputation. And the theatre’s. The board was counting on a crowd pleaser. Now, I had to deliver.

CHAPTER 5
ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE
    A CT TWO WAS MERCIFULLY SHORTER and the run-through mercifully smoother. I fretted that I should have trimmed the Cabinet scene more ruthlessly as well as the dreadful