legendary stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. All in a single song! How did musicals do that?
First refrain: Philip and Emily are nervously buying tickets at the box office, pushing that big wad of bills through the little hole in the box office window.
Second refrain: Now they are blithe ticket holders, sauntering past their former rush line peers and greeting the ushers by name.
Third refrain: Caution is thrown to the winds! They see the show from every vantage point. From high up they look into the orchestra pit and wave at the brass players, who wave back. From all the way left or right they catch glimpses of the actors in the wings just before they make their entrances, nervously stretching and swigging from their water bottles and trying to make the onstage actors laugh by arranging themselves into ludicrous tableaux.
The finale: A madcap montage of Emily and Philip seeing Aurora, again and again and again. They skip school and spend every day in the city hanging around the theatre, soaking it all up, missing nothing. Mrs. Nebbling never notices Philip’s absence, and the Pearls—
“Em—” Philip said, dropping abruptly back into reality. They were about to enter the tunnel to Penn Station; out the window he could see Long Island City’s tall, gleaming Citibank building looming ahead of them, as if Queens were giving Manhattan the finger. “What are you going to tell your parents?”
Emily smiled a mischievous smile. “I just figured it out,” she said. “I’m going to tell them I got into the show.”
“What—you mean Aurora ?” Emily could carry a tune, sort of, but surely her parents were not that gullible.
“Fiddler on the Roof,” Emily explained. “At school! I’ll be the third peasant from the left. Rehearsals every night and all day Saturday. It’s the perfect excuse.”
It was, he had to admit, but there was one flaw in her plan. “Won’t they want to come see it, though?” he asked. “You’ll be totally busted when they notice you’re not in it.”
Emily pointed at her throat. “Laryngitis,” she wheezed dramatically. “It’ll hit me right before opening night. What a shame.”
The two of them laughed very, very hard at that.
Despite the urgency of their mission, Philip and Emily walked calmly, in a nearly normal fashion, from the Forty-second Street subway stop, past the usual array of handbag vendors and hot dog carts and apocalyptic preachers, all plying their trades beneath the cacophony of billboards and looming JumboTrons of Times Square.
Something was bothering Philip. Not Ian; he and Emily had resolved that ethical dilemma already. They knew Ian was in nonstop rehearsals for a show at LaGuardia and wouldn’t be available to see Aurora for the next two weeks anyway. Breaking their “don’t tell” promise to SAVEME would make no practical difference in Ian’s case. Besides, Ian was a rush line friend, not a friend friend. The strict no-cutting-and-no-holding-places-for-friends ethos of the line seemed to apply here.
As for Stephanie . . . well, what could they do? It was horrifying that you could be in a show and not realize it was about to close, but in Stephanie’s case it was a professional matter and they hardly knew her well enough to interfere. That was Emily’s argument, anyway, and Philip went along, though he did feel sorry for Stephanie. No wonder actors are obsessed with gossip, he thought. Their jobs could be on the line.
No, what was bothering Philip had to do with him and Emily, and he had to say it before they got to the box office. He sucked up his courage and blurted it out.
“You don’t have to buy tickets for me, you know.”
“What?” Emily said, genuinely surprised.
His voice stuck in his throat. “With this money you could go to all sixteen performances yourself and still have enough—” He was going to say “to take me four times,” but he didn’t. Seeing Aurora four times in two weeks would be twice as much Aurora as he was
First refrain: Philip and Emily are nervously buying tickets at the box office, pushing that big wad of bills through the little hole in the box office window.
Second refrain: Now they are blithe ticket holders, sauntering past their former rush line peers and greeting the ushers by name.
Third refrain: Caution is thrown to the winds! They see the show from every vantage point. From high up they look into the orchestra pit and wave at the brass players, who wave back. From all the way left or right they catch glimpses of the actors in the wings just before they make their entrances, nervously stretching and swigging from their water bottles and trying to make the onstage actors laugh by arranging themselves into ludicrous tableaux.
The finale: A madcap montage of Emily and Philip seeing Aurora, again and again and again. They skip school and spend every day in the city hanging around the theatre, soaking it all up, missing nothing. Mrs. Nebbling never notices Philip’s absence, and the Pearls—
“Em—” Philip said, dropping abruptly back into reality. They were about to enter the tunnel to Penn Station; out the window he could see Long Island City’s tall, gleaming Citibank building looming ahead of them, as if Queens were giving Manhattan the finger. “What are you going to tell your parents?”
Emily smiled a mischievous smile. “I just figured it out,” she said. “I’m going to tell them I got into the show.”
“What—you mean Aurora ?” Emily could carry a tune, sort of, but surely her parents were not that gullible.
“Fiddler on the Roof,” Emily explained. “At school! I’ll be the third peasant from the left. Rehearsals every night and all day Saturday. It’s the perfect excuse.”
It was, he had to admit, but there was one flaw in her plan. “Won’t they want to come see it, though?” he asked. “You’ll be totally busted when they notice you’re not in it.”
Emily pointed at her throat. “Laryngitis,” she wheezed dramatically. “It’ll hit me right before opening night. What a shame.”
The two of them laughed very, very hard at that.
Despite the urgency of their mission, Philip and Emily walked calmly, in a nearly normal fashion, from the Forty-second Street subway stop, past the usual array of handbag vendors and hot dog carts and apocalyptic preachers, all plying their trades beneath the cacophony of billboards and looming JumboTrons of Times Square.
Something was bothering Philip. Not Ian; he and Emily had resolved that ethical dilemma already. They knew Ian was in nonstop rehearsals for a show at LaGuardia and wouldn’t be available to see Aurora for the next two weeks anyway. Breaking their “don’t tell” promise to SAVEME would make no practical difference in Ian’s case. Besides, Ian was a rush line friend, not a friend friend. The strict no-cutting-and-no-holding-places-for-friends ethos of the line seemed to apply here.
As for Stephanie . . . well, what could they do? It was horrifying that you could be in a show and not realize it was about to close, but in Stephanie’s case it was a professional matter and they hardly knew her well enough to interfere. That was Emily’s argument, anyway, and Philip went along, though he did feel sorry for Stephanie. No wonder actors are obsessed with gossip, he thought. Their jobs could be on the line.
No, what was bothering Philip had to do with him and Emily, and he had to say it before they got to the box office. He sucked up his courage and blurted it out.
“You don’t have to buy tickets for me, you know.”
“What?” Emily said, genuinely surprised.
His voice stuck in his throat. “With this money you could go to all sixteen performances yourself and still have enough—” He was going to say “to take me four times,” but he didn’t. Seeing Aurora four times in two weeks would be twice as much Aurora as he was
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