Bit Players, Has-Been Actors and Other Posers: A Must-Read for Fans of Glee, High School Musical and Twilight (14 page)

Lindsay shrugged and tossed the script into his backpack. He wouldn’t read it.

12: Bit Part Hell

I
HATED AUDITIONS because I wasn’t in charge. Freshman year, when I suggested to Mr. Ellison that we create a drama club, I was in the driver’s seat, to some extent at least. When I wrote the script for
Twilight: The Musical
, I was the boss. Even in CDC meetings, people looked to me as a leader along with Foster – if not a leader in personality, at least a leader in terms of ideas and musical theatre knowledge.

Auditions were the complete opposite. I was one of many – about thirty in this case – and I had nothing special to recommend me. Personally, I thought the time I invested in the script and CDC in general should have earned me extra points on my audition scorecard, but Mr. Ellison always emphasized that all were equals going into auditions.

I paced around Mr. Lord’s classroom until it was my turn to go to the stage in the auditorium. I wasn’t nervous. I’d auditioned enough times to have conquered the butterflies long ago. I was excited. Walking onstage, the curtains swaying ever so slightly at the sides, various props from previous shows cluttering the wings, I was at home. Looking out at the judges – Mr. Ellison, Mr. Lord, the band director, and the choreographer Mr. Lord recruited – I buzzed with anticipation. And as I started to sing the first notes of “Gotta Go My Own Way” from
High School Musical 2
, I tasted opportunity.

The work I’d done on my voice over the summer paid off. My voice didn’t crack once and I reached even the higher notes in my chest voice, singing loud and strong. They let me sing to the end of the song, by which time I was totally in the zone. It was my best audition ever.

I gave a short reading from the script – my script. They’d chosen the Bella and Edward scene in the woods, when he admits he’s a vampire. I spoke Bella’s words on an empty stage, answered by a disembodied Edward as the band director’s voice floated up onto the stage.

When it was over, the judges nodded and smiled pleasantly, but they acted that way with everyone. This was high school, after all. I would have to wait for the cast list to see how I really fared.

After my solo audition, I went back in with a group to learn a short dance. It was easy, only sixteen counts, yet Jason and Ben struggled with it. Foster, the fourth in my group, nailed it along with me, he in his over-the-top way, me in my professional, competent manner.

All that was left was the waiting.  

I had to win the part of Bella. Had to. The musical was basically the Bella-and-Edward-Show. I tried to give other characters plenty of lines, and I had ideas for different songs they could sing, but it was impossible to tell the story without it being seventy-five percent B&E. We only had a few songs lined up now, but obviously Bella would have at least one solo. I needed a solo at this stage in my Crudup acting career.

Roles would be posted Monday. It was going to take a lot of piano playing, music listening, movie watching, dog walking, phone talking, homework, and other assorted activities to fill up the eighty-seven hours until then.

Only one event stands out in that haze of hours. Friday, in English class, I was doodling, having finished a quiz on
The Scarlet Letter
before most of the class. Hester Prynne’s story bugged me. She was treated so unfairly by her husband, her lover and society. At least, ultimately, years after the scarlet A was slapped on her chest, she was rewarded with respect.

So I was musing when Mr. Ellison strolled by my desk and stopped. “You’re making it very difficult to cast the lead, you know,” he said softly.

I looked up, confused. Was he mad? But he smiled and continued. “Your audition was fantastic. Honestly, we didn’t know you could project like that.” He gave my arm a quick, fatherly squeeze and moved on.

I closed my eyes and re-played his words. I was making their decision difficult. I was in serious contention for Bella. I was in serious contention for Bella. I basked in the news for a good six hours, after which the glow of his comments faded and the doubting and waiting resumed.

CAST LIST
TWILIGHT: THE MUSICAL

Bella Swan – Lucey Landau

Edward Cullen – Nigel Leightly

Charlie Swan - Carl Wikowski

Jessica – Kristina Kent

Angela - Jocelyn Meyer

Mike Newton – Eddie North

Eric – Sam Carter

Carlisle – Tom Cole

Alice – Sadie Perkins

Jasper – Ben Madison

Rosalie – Emily Breyer

Emmett – Foster Cordeiro

James – Lindsay Houston

Victoria – Aimee Sparks

Mr. Molina - Jason Freedman

Waitress – Katie Horowitz

Drunk Boys – Vinny Mancini, Evan Green, Josh Synkowski

Ensemble/Other Students – Carla Cimini, Michael Juan, Shawna

   Peterson, Kelly White, Christine Murphy, Ariel Adams

Lucey pranced around and forced Kristina and Jocelyn, who were relatively thrilled with their parts, to prance with her. Nigel was surprisingly modest. Everyone else was miserable. Foster wanted the part of Edward as much as I wanted Bella. Actually, all the girls wanted Bella, and who could blame them? She was in practically every scene.

Alice wasn’t such a bad part. She was on stage as much as any female character other than Bella, and she was a very cool vampire. But she also had to hold hands with Jasper in the cafeteria scene and give him a quick peck later in the play. The thought of being affectionate with Ben grossed me out. I was a victim of my own writing.

Foster was inconsolable. I pointed out that I’d given Emmett a lot of lines, and he was bound to be in a bunch of musical numbers. He tried to comfort me, saying at least we were vampire siblings. Still, we confessed to each other that we thought the casting sucked. Then we shared a bittersweet laugh about the new connotations of anything sucking. Our Count Dracula impressions would get a workout the next few months.

Even Lindsay, who acted like he didn’t care what role he got before auditions, seemed bummed to not have a bigger part. But as he focused on the potential for mayhem in the role of James, his spirits lifted. Soon, he was telling anyone who moaned about their role to “suck it up”.

Rehearsals were scheduled for every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That afternoon, we sat down for the first read-through of my script. I knew what was coming. I’d been waiting for this comment all morning, since the cast list was posted. Amazingly, we made it a few pages into the script before Foster, who was flipping ahead, noticed.

“Sadie? Where’s Jacob?”

I inhaled deeply. “I had to drop his character.” Several girls gasped. The script fell from Kristina’s hand, thudding on the floor. “I know, it sounds crazy. But we only have so many actors, and I couldn’t include every single character from the movie in our show.”

“It’s not
Twilight
without Jacob,” Jocelyn pointed out.

 “Yeah, how do you have Team Edward and Team Jacob without a Jacob?” demanded Lucey.

Adrienne and I rolled our eyes at each other. Team Edward and Team Jacob. How old was Lucey, twelve? Even Nigel looked like he wanted to laugh.

I made my case. “Think about it, you guys. In the first book, all Jacob really does is tell Bella the Quieleute legend, and pass on warnings from Billy Black. And he’s not the only main character that was cut.”

“Who else did you axe?” Ben wanted to know.

“Esme, Laurent and Renée. Even Tyler doesn’t show up on the stage. Some of them are still mentioned, but they’re not actually on the stage as characters.”

“Great. What scenes did you cut when you were playing God? Did you cut my lion and lamb scene?” Lucey accused.

“Of course not.” My face started to burn. “But I did have to cut some great scenes,” I admitted, “like the whole Bella/Charlie argument before she flees to Phoenix--”

“Oh my God. You did not.” Lucey was horrified.

My mouth opened to defend myself but nothing came out.

“Let’s move on,” Mr. Ellison suggested. “And withhold further comment on the script until we’ve actually read through it.”

Once Lucey smoothed her feathers, the reading progressed without incident, with occasional suggestions for placing a song here or there. Kristina had the idea for she and Jocelyn (as Jessica and Angela) to sing “Popular” from
Wicked
to Bella, during the shopping trip to Port Angeles for prom dresses, when it’s clear Bella’s not into proms, fancy dresses or anything girly. I had to admit, it was a good idea, even though I begrudged them the duet they bestowed upon themselves. The song’s lyrics would probably work with minimal changes.

We all agreed to try to find a kick-ass song for the fight scene at the end, especially since we were lacking in the special effects department. In fact, the entire climax in the ballet studio – the fight and Edward sucking the venom from Bella’s wrist afterward – would need mood music to set the tone.

At the end of rehearsal, I floated out of my chair. I’d done it. I’d survived the reading of my first script. Okay, adapted script. I had written a hundred scripts for my home shows with Alex, but those were a distant memory now. This was the first in-depth script I’d worked on, and the first that I would see performed on a real stage, with more actors than me, Alex and Kato playing all the parts.

By the time I got home, though, I was deep in despair again from not winning Bella. I wished Mr. Ellison had never gotten my hopes up that day in English.

Getting my brain to focus on Algebra II homework was like trying to squeeze Jell-o into a juice box. My thoughts squirmed and splattered all over the place, always ending at the cast list. The last thing my brain wanted to do was graph parabolas.

I erased my name on my homework and re-wrote it twice, hoping the act of writing would put me in homework mode. When that didn’t work, I opened my notebook and wrote my name out in various styles. I stared at my name so long, the lines began moving before my eyes. After a while, they weren’t letters at all, but random symbols on a page. Kind of like when you say a word out loud so many times that it ceases to be a word and becomes a funny sound with no meaning at all.

I never really liked my name. My belief that Sadie was an old-fashioned name was confirmed at age seven when a wrinkly old nurse at our doctor’s office exclaimed, “Sadie Perkins. What a pretty name. Why, you’re practically Sadie Hawkins, you lucky girl.”

My mother explained that the nurse thought I was lucky because the old Sadie Hawkins Day was the one day a year girls could ask boys on a date. At seven, I found the entire concept incredibly revolting.

Years later, I Googled Sadie Hawkins Day and discovered that the tradition originated in a comic strip. I might have been proud sharing Hawkins’ first name if she’d been an early feminist seeking equal rights for women. But no, my namesake was a cartoon character.

Growing up, I got other occasional comments about “practically being Sadie Hawkins”, usually from an old person. Once, I snapped back, “Well, I’m not Sadie Hawkins. I’m Sadie Perkins,” to my mother’s horror. But I was sick of the comparison. Why did I have to be practically Sadie Hawkins? Why couldn’t I be completely Sadie Perkins? Whoever she was.

Now, when I should have been shifting from daydreaming to algebra, I turned on my computer and Googled famous Sadies. The anemic spattering of Sadies was downright depressing. The extent of my namesakes seemed to be Sadie Frost, a second-rate British actress, and a Scottish terrier, winner of the Westminster Dog Show earlier this year.

“Huh, imagine that,” I muttered to Kato, who wasn’t impressed either. He blew air out of his nostrils and plopped his head back down on my blue-fringed, star-shaped pillow, which he’d pulled off my bed again.

I found out that Sadie means princess, which would have thrilled me in elementary school. And I found the greatest Sadie of them all – the creator of Famous Sadie’s Shrimp Salad.

Maybe I should change my name. Or maybe I could redeem the name of Sadie and build it into something to inspire awe. Winning the role of Bella would have been a start. I sketched out a theatre marquee with the words “Starring Sadie Perkins as Bella Swan” in bold block letters. But obviously I wasn’t destined to be Bella, or even a famous comic strip character. I was just me. Sadie Perkins. A sixteen-year-old girl with a debilitating theatre obsession and yet another bit part.

13: Oldies and Goodies