Bit Players, Has-Been Actors and Other Posers: A Must-Read for Fans of Glee, High School Musical and Twilight (13 page)

“Not bad, Kristina,” Ben said to general head nods and sounds of support from the rest of us, except Lindsay.

“‘Grew a tail’,” he mocked.

“We’re getting closer, aren’t we?” Lord said, not expecting an answer. “A modern, upbeat song that an audience might actually want to see performed. Does it work for the show?”

I voiced the nagging thought I’d had since Kristina set up her song for us. “The only problem is that it’s about the love triangle between Bella, Edward and Jacob, and that doesn’t happen until
New Moon
.”

Kristina tossed her hair. “How was I supposed to know what our show covers, since we don’t have a script yet?”

“Yeah, how’s it coming, Sadie?” Foster asked, more pleasantly than Kristina’s accusation.

“Uh, I’m getting there,” I said, not even convincing myself.

“Time out,” Lord intervened before the claws came out. “You all know the first story, right? Even Lindsay’s seen the movie?”

“Only because I was forced to,” Lindsay said.

“Fine, so even if you haven’t read the book, you’ve seen the film. So you all know the story of the first
Twilight
. Write your lyrics accordingly. Find a spot in the movie where a song would fit, or find a song you like and see if you can adapt it for the movie. It’s not rocket science. And to give you some motivation, I’m going to post the best lyrics, and maybe the worst, on the bulletin board outside my room every day until we get enough useable songs.”

 That’s when it hit me that I’d been going about the script all wrong. Why was I making it difficult by trying to adapt the book for our show, when the scriptwriters for the movie had already done the hard work of cutting and dicing down to performance length? Of course, I needed to cut even more, since the musical should be no more than two hours long and we needed to fit in about ten songs. Still, the movie script should be my starting point. I barely heard the bell ring as I ran through the movie in my head, scene by scene, deciding what to cut and what to keep.

From that point on, I had
Twilight
on the brain. I finished my homework in record time each night so I could work on the script. I watched the movie again, noting which scenes would work on stage and which wouldn’t. I decided which elements from the cut scenes were important enough to be inserted into the scenes I kept. Finally, I started writing – or adapting, I should say. Either way, wings grew. They flexed and grew stronger with each completed scene and when I wrote “The End”, I took flight, soaring with my accomplishment.

11: The Hits Start Coming

“Hey, that’s pretty good,” Adrienne murmured as a small crowd gathered around Mr. Lord’s bulletin board before school.

“I heard she had help,” Kristina said, turning traitor.

Ben said what I was thinking. “From who—Nigel?”

“Nope. I’m not saying. Just…think higher,” Kristina said cryptically and clammed up, pressing her lips together tightly as if afraid her secret would leak out against her will.

“Wouldn’t it be awesome to do the
Glee
version of the song in our show?” Foster said.

“Isn’t that copying?” Ben asked, holding his glasses up to the light to pinpoint a smudge.

“Ben, our entire show is copying,” Foster pointed out. “We’re stealing songs, writing a few new lyrics, and taking the story from a movie. We might as well copy from a great TV show while we’re at it.”

He turned to face our small group like a conductor. “Close your eyes, everyone, and think of the
Glee
episode.” He started to sing the song’s intro as the
Glee
cast did, replacing the instrumental introduction from the original Journey recording with an a cappella vocalization.

“Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,” he began. Kristina joined him in her clear, strong voice. Ben and I jumped in with the doo-doo-doo counterpoint underneath the higher part. Even Adrienne sang with us.

“Just a city girl,” began Foster, singing the first verse and prompting questioning looks from students passing by. I sang the second verse. When everyone joined in for the third verse, the collective sound reverberated off the lockers. Even when the background vocal fell apart, we sounded fabulous.

We swayed in time to our own music as the song built in intensity. Foster couldn’t contain himself. He started dancing around the hallway as we sang “Strangers waiting / Looking for their one true love”, forcing students to the sides of the hallway. Adrienne grabbed my hand and pulled me into the center of the hallway to dance. By the “Don’t stop believing” part, we were singing at the top of our lungs and careening around the school on an insane high, ignoring the students who rolled their eyes or yelled at us to chill.

We finished with a tapering “Don’t stop” and fell into each others’ arms. Happiness threatened to bust me open. I loved my friends. I loved musical theatre. I even loved Crudup High.

*

O
UR IMPROMPTU MORNING PERFORMANCE must have inspired Foster because, by day’s end, his lyrics had joined Lucey’s on Mr. Lord’s bulletin board. Now I knew why Foster kept shushing us during study hall and sneaking listens to his iPod when the teacher wasn’t looking. It figured he’d choose “California Gurls” to work from. Katy Perry was his favorite modern singer after Lady Gaga, and “California Gurls” had been the hot song of summer.

M
Y HANDS SHOOK as I positioned the sheet music on the piano in Mr. Lord’s room the next day. Playing my own piano at home was one thing. Performing on stage playing a character was another. But playing piano and singing in front of my classmates, simply as Sadie, was an entirely new dimension that I wasn’t ready for.

“Just think of it as your Yale Drama School audition,” Adrienne had advised me on the phone last night. But that wouldn’t work, since theatre auditions entailed playing a role.

“Close your eyes and forget about the audience,” my mother had suggested. But I only wrote the words last night and I needed to see them.

My mother – or her music – inspired my contribution to the
Twilight
score. I was editing the script – the part when Edward tells Bella he’s been seventeen for a while – and I got to wondering what it would be like, stuck at that age forever. My contemplation acquired a soundtrack, which I eventually realized was a song my mother sang now and then when she found time to play the piano. I dug through her sheet music and found it. The song was perfect. New words flowed onto my paper.

That was last night. This was now, and it was now or never. I looked up at the music class and Mr. Lord.

“This song was written by Janis Ian and released in 1975. It’s about the teenage years and how cruel kids can be, and how lonely we often are.” My voice caught. I looked down at my hands. “The original narrator, if you can call her that, was a teenage girl. Our twist will be to have Edward sing the song. It should be eerie and touching, if we do it right.”

I played the first notes.

“What’s it called?” Lindsay shouted.

“‘At Seventeen’,” I replied, still playing, drawing confidence from the reassuring weight of the keys and round, slightly tinny voice of the piano. As the verse began, I pictured myself on a concert stage, and threw myself into interpreting the words.

No one said anything when I finished, horrifying me. Adrienne started clapping slowly. Others joined in. I wanted to cry, unsure if the clapping was genuine or from politeness or, worse, sympathy.

(MR. LORD HOLDS UP A HAND TO QUELL THE APPLAUSE. HE SPEAKS QUIETLY BUT PASSIONATELY.)

MR. LORD

THAT, IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

(HE WALKS TO SADIE AND PLACES A HEAVY HAND ON HER SHOULDER.)

PERFECTION. A BEAUTIFUL MELODY, NEW WORDS THAT WILL GET THE AUDIENCE’S SPINE TINGLING, AND A CREATIVE INTERPRETATION OF THE ORIGINAL.

(HE SQUEEZES SADIE’S SHOULDER IN CONGRATULATIONS. SHE STIFFENS, THEN STANDS UP QUICKLY.)

“I have scripts,” I said.

“Excellent. Let’s pass them out. Now everyone can be prepared for auditions tomorrow.”

“Man, we have to read this whole thing before tomorrow?” Lindsay asked, eyeing the sixty-page document he’d been handed.

“You don’t have to read it. But if you want to earn a good part, I suggest you read it and prepare yourself,” Mr. Lord said.