onstage and give your music to Tyler at the piano. All right? Alcott Fish.”
A small boy presented himself, cleared his throat, sang “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” in a pretty soprano, recited a speech from the same play, and sat down again. The four directors whispered together, then called the next boy.
During the auditions that followed I had time to imagine various dire scenarios in which I fell off the stage, forgot my lines, changed key halfway through my song, fainted, laughed hysterically, or compulsively shouted fire ; at last I decided to dull my thoughts by running through my speech over and over in my head.
When Erin’s turn came, I stopped and paid close attention. By then Shakespeare’s words in my head were beginning to sound dangerously like nonsense. She sang “My Favorite Things” with all the corn-syrup sweetness it deserves; her speech, from The Glass Menagerie , was similarly well articulated, sincere, and over-sweet.
Next came a striking boy with a dark complexion and a beautiful baritone. Then, after a few so-so singers and two pretty good younger boys, it was Yolanda’s turn. Her rich alto, surprisingly sultry in someone so young, made a strong showing in “Too Darn Hot,” from Kiss Me, Kate , and her speech from Raisin in the Sun moved me almost to tears.
Ashleigh, too, acquitted herself well, with a loud and tuneful rendition of “Take It Back” and a loud and passionate rendition of the Darcy proposal.
Then it was my turn. I made it onto the stage without falling over and handed my music to the boy at the piano. Things started out well enough, but I began to have second thoughts as I sang “It’s All Right with Me.” “It’s the wrong time and the wrong place,” the song begins (How true, how painfully true! I thought). But when I reached the part about trying to get over someone by throwing myself into someone else’s arms, I felt Chris Stevens watching me slyly. By that time I wished I had chosen something else—anything else.
Still, despite my embarrassment, I managed to pronounce the words clearly and stay in tune. Relieved, I started in on my Queen Mab speech—but that too felt far more problematic on stage than it had in the safety of my attic bedroom. “She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes,” said my mouth, while my mind, racing, chided me: What made you think it was a good idea to give a speech about fairies at a boys’ school? How’s that going to go over? I glanced cautiously around the audience—another bad idea. There was Ashleigh grinning at me, which had the perverse effect of making me more self-conscious; there was Chris Stevens, winking with his long cat’s eyes; there was a little boy chewing the end of his pen and another sprawled out over two seats with his eyes closed, both radiating boredom; and there in the back—oh, horror! Had he been there the whole time?—stood Grandison Parr, tall and golden, looking right at me.
I panicked. My voice dropped to nothing. I rushed and mumbled my way to the end, stopping abruptly and cutting off the last three lines (which are kind of obscene anyhow). I dragged myself off the stage and sank into the dusty velvet seat beside Ashleigh’s, where I wished I were dead.
The rest went by in an excruciating, slow-motion blur. Parr took the stage, and I sat, drinking in his pleasant, confident voice, with frozen limbs and cheeks that burned on and on through a thousand other speeches and meaningless songs. When the auditions were over, he came to find us. Ashleigh greeted him warmly, but I could hardly hear what she said over the pounding in my ears, nor could I choke out more than a monosyllable. All through the ride home, while Ashleigh and Yolanda eagerly reviewed the afternoon’s events, I sat with my cheek pressed against the cool glass of the window, hardly blinking, hardly breathing. And the torture repeated itself all night long, first in my memory and then in my dreams, until I half
A small boy presented himself, cleared his throat, sang “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” in a pretty soprano, recited a speech from the same play, and sat down again. The four directors whispered together, then called the next boy.
During the auditions that followed I had time to imagine various dire scenarios in which I fell off the stage, forgot my lines, changed key halfway through my song, fainted, laughed hysterically, or compulsively shouted fire ; at last I decided to dull my thoughts by running through my speech over and over in my head.
When Erin’s turn came, I stopped and paid close attention. By then Shakespeare’s words in my head were beginning to sound dangerously like nonsense. She sang “My Favorite Things” with all the corn-syrup sweetness it deserves; her speech, from The Glass Menagerie , was similarly well articulated, sincere, and over-sweet.
Next came a striking boy with a dark complexion and a beautiful baritone. Then, after a few so-so singers and two pretty good younger boys, it was Yolanda’s turn. Her rich alto, surprisingly sultry in someone so young, made a strong showing in “Too Darn Hot,” from Kiss Me, Kate , and her speech from Raisin in the Sun moved me almost to tears.
Ashleigh, too, acquitted herself well, with a loud and tuneful rendition of “Take It Back” and a loud and passionate rendition of the Darcy proposal.
Then it was my turn. I made it onto the stage without falling over and handed my music to the boy at the piano. Things started out well enough, but I began to have second thoughts as I sang “It’s All Right with Me.” “It’s the wrong time and the wrong place,” the song begins (How true, how painfully true! I thought). But when I reached the part about trying to get over someone by throwing myself into someone else’s arms, I felt Chris Stevens watching me slyly. By that time I wished I had chosen something else—anything else.
Still, despite my embarrassment, I managed to pronounce the words clearly and stay in tune. Relieved, I started in on my Queen Mab speech—but that too felt far more problematic on stage than it had in the safety of my attic bedroom. “She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes,” said my mouth, while my mind, racing, chided me: What made you think it was a good idea to give a speech about fairies at a boys’ school? How’s that going to go over? I glanced cautiously around the audience—another bad idea. There was Ashleigh grinning at me, which had the perverse effect of making me more self-conscious; there was Chris Stevens, winking with his long cat’s eyes; there was a little boy chewing the end of his pen and another sprawled out over two seats with his eyes closed, both radiating boredom; and there in the back—oh, horror! Had he been there the whole time?—stood Grandison Parr, tall and golden, looking right at me.
I panicked. My voice dropped to nothing. I rushed and mumbled my way to the end, stopping abruptly and cutting off the last three lines (which are kind of obscene anyhow). I dragged myself off the stage and sank into the dusty velvet seat beside Ashleigh’s, where I wished I were dead.
The rest went by in an excruciating, slow-motion blur. Parr took the stage, and I sat, drinking in his pleasant, confident voice, with frozen limbs and cheeks that burned on and on through a thousand other speeches and meaningless songs. When the auditions were over, he came to find us. Ashleigh greeted him warmly, but I could hardly hear what she said over the pounding in my ears, nor could I choke out more than a monosyllable. All through the ride home, while Ashleigh and Yolanda eagerly reviewed the afternoon’s events, I sat with my cheek pressed against the cool glass of the window, hardly blinking, hardly breathing. And the torture repeated itself all night long, first in my memory and then in my dreams, until I half
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