Showstopper

by Lisa Fiedler

  Great acoustics … where had I heard that before?

  “So that’s it?” said Austin. “You’re giving up?”

  “What choice do I have?” I shot back. “It’s not like Athena is going to send Hermes down to point me in the direction of the nearest theatrical venue.”

  As I said it, I saw something through the car window that just might well have been the most inspiring sight I’d ever seen in my life.

  Not Hermes.

  Matt Witten. On his father’s ride-on lawn mower!

  Heading toward the clubhouse.

  “Nick, stop the car!”

  Nick swayed the car toward the curb and hit the brakes.

  “What’s going on?” asked Austin. “Anya, what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that everything we know about theater today originated in the outdoor amphitheaters of ancient Greece.” I gave him a big smile. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

  It took a minute for him to understand what I was suggesting.

  Then he practically dove out of the car, and we were racing after Matt.

  Getting permission to hold our show outdoors on the clubhouse property was much easier than it had been to get the go-ahead to do it inside. I still had to consult with the Neighborhood Association president, Dr. Ciancio, but this time things went much, much differently.

  Austin, Susan, and I knocked on the Ciancios’ door, all dirty and sweaty after unloading the car and the pickup truck and lugging all our theater belongings into the clubhouse for safekeeping.

  Sophia opened the door and made a face. “You guys are a mess.”

  “We know,” I said. “Sophia, there’s been a change of plans.”

  As she stood in the open doorway and listened, I gave her the SparkNotes version of the situation, from the temporary hold I’d placed on the CCC theater, to a girl with an eyebrow ring, to my realization that the clubhouse back lawn bore an uncanny resemblance to an ancient Greek amphitheater.

  “Technically, the lawn is a neighborhood common area,” I concluded, “so we need to ask your dad if he’ll sign off on letting us do the show outside.”

  I felt my sister and my theater partner beside me, holding their breaths. I was sure they were remembering, like I was, the horrible deal we’d had to strike with Sophia the first time we found ourselves in this unenviable position.

  But to our collective shock, Sophia simply turned and called through the foyer, “Daddy! We’re doing our play on the clubhouse back lawn.”

  Dr. Ciancio’s voice floated back to us from deep inside the house where (I couldn’t help but imagine) he was probably busy polishing Sophia’s solid gold toothbrush or perhaps grooming her brand-new pony.

  “Whatever you say, princess,” was his immediate response.

  “Wow,” said Susan. “That was easy. While you’re at it, do ya think you can get him to purchase a full-page ad in the program?”

  “Consider it done,” said Sophia.

  With that, she slammed the door in our faces.

  “Susan, text everyone,” I said. “Let them know we’re having an emergency meeting tomorrow at the clubhouse.” I gave her a smile. “Tell them we’re coming home.”

  THE RANDOM FARMS KIDS’ THEATER PRESENTS

  THE ODD-YSSEY AN EPICALLY FUNNY MUSICAL

  To Be Performed

  Under the Stars

  Time and Date TBA via Social Media In Our New Outdoor Amphitheater On the Back Lawn of the Clubhouse Theater BYO Blankets and Lawn Chairs

  Sunday was a whirlwind of reorganization.

  Susan’s text brought everyone to our new venue bright and early, with the exception of Brady, who was at his grandfather’s birthday party somewhere in New Jersey, and Maddie, who had to go to her cousin’s bridal shower in Ossining.

  Tried to get out of it, Maddie texted. But I’m the junior bridesmaid, so my attendance is sort of mandatory.

  Mackenzie was also a no-show. This had me furious!

  I considered calling her on the Fleisches’ house line, but with everything I had spinning in my brain at the moment, the last thing I wanted was to have another awkward phone conversation with Mrs. Fleisch.

  The first thing we did was check the extended weather forecast. I had Deon consult his weather app.

  “The week should be clear and sunny for rehearsals,” D reported. “Except for a passing thunderstorm on Tuesday morning. Should blow through by lunchtime, though. And for the record, this wouldn’t be an issue at an indoor theater.”

  I gave him a look.

  “What about the weekend?” asked Austin.

  It came as no surprise to me (and I was sure it wouldn’t have shocked Odysseus, either) that the weekend called for heavy rain, beginning Saturday afternoon and going into late Sunday night.

  “How’s Friday look?” asked Teddy.

  “Gorgeous,” said Deon.

  “Friday it is, then,” I pronounced. “Opening night. We lose a whole day of rehearsal, but we’ll just have to deal. And we’re gonna have to push our start time to a little later in the evening. I’m thinking the curtain shouldn’t go up until nine o’clock. I know it’s late to be starting but we need to wait for full dark.”

  Joey turned a teasing eye to Travis, Elle, and Gracie. “Can you fifth graders stay up that late?” he joked.

  “Yes, we can,” said Elle. “And for the record, we’re not fifth graders anymore. We’re about to be sixth graders.”

  “And besides,” Travis added, “I’m Athena. So I operate on goddess time.”

  “That’s great for you, Trav,” I said, “but since the rest of us are mere mortals who operate on regular old Eastern Daylight Time, we’d better get to work.”

  And so we did.

  Matt had done a fabulous job of cleaning up the meadow and the sloping hillside. He promised to come back on Friday morning and do it again so the area would be perfectly trimmed and manicured for the show.

  Which would be taking place on a brand-new, custom-made outdoor stage!

  Because the night before, I had arranged a meeting with Gina and her dad, Mr. Mancuso. I’d told him about the bind we were in, and that although we could not pay him to help us build a stage, we’d be more than willing to barter for his services.

  “What did you have in mind?” he’d asked, sipping his espresso.

  I’d glanced at Gina, who’d sat across from me at the Mancusos’ kitchen table, engrossed in the blueprints she’d been drawing. “Gina tells me her grandparents live in a retirement community over in Mount Kisco.”

  “They do,” Mr. Mancuso had confirmed.

  “She told me they have an awesome common room, with a stage and everything. And sometimes singing groups or dance troupes come to entertain the people who live there.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I was thinking that in exchange for you and your construction crew building us an outdoor stage, maybe Random Farms could visit your parents’ place and put on a show for the residents … free of charge.”

  Gina had looked up from her work and smiled at her father. “Nona and Pop would love that,” she’d said. “Don’t you think?”

  Mr. Mancuso had smiled. “I’m sure they would,” he’d said. Then he’d extended his hand to me and we’d shaken on the deal.

  So today Mr. Mancuso had sent a crew of builders with hammers and saws and a whole arsenal of power tools over to our clubhouse. Using the blueprints Gina had drawn up, and the reclaimed lumber from the basement, they set to work building us a sturdy, lowlying stage platform. Behind that, they constructed a tall, broad frame from which we could hang our backdrops. Thanks to some ropes and pulleys, we would be able to interchange the backgrounds by rolling up the Aegean scene like an enormous window shade and revealing the painting of Odysseus’s house behind it.

  The gentle slope of the hill would act as our seating section. Thanks to a fair amount of jutting stones and boulders (which, according to Austin, were able to trap and reflect sound), our
audience would be able to hear us clearly without microphones, just as the lines spoken by the legendary actor Thespis and his buddies had been heard and enjoyed by Grecian theater patrons thousands of years before.

  “There’s not a bad seat in the house,” Austin remarked happily as we stood at the top of the stony slope and looked down to where our cast would perform The Odd-yssey in less than a week. “The voices are going to carry beautifully.”

  “And Deon’s spotlight is going to work perfectly!”

  General lighting had at first presented a bit of a snag, but Mancuso Construction owned several large portable lights that the company used for outdoor night jobs. The lights would be there in time for dress rehearsal. I was thrilled to learn these were all battery-powered, just like D’s spotlight. The fog machine, for our scenes on Mount Olympus, however, was not.

  “And the electronic keyboard does run on batteries,” Austin explained, “but even if we put in brand-new ones on the night of the show, I’d still feel a lot better if we had a backup power source.”

  So we were going to require electricity.

  Also not a problem. Mr. Healy deemed that two nights without fans would hardly result in an outbreak of toxic mold, so there was no reason why we couldn’t borrow the portable generator … and the giant fans as well. Using the fans was Gina’s idea; she pointed out that we could use them to blow supercharged gusts of breeze, providing incredibly realistic winds to enhance Odysseus’s daring scenes at sea!

  “And the strobe feature on my spot could be lightning,” said D.

  Two of Becky’s brothers, Charlie and Ben, came toting two oversize camping tents, which they set up behind the stage.

  “Dressing rooms,” said Becky. “One for boys, one for girls.”

  I pronounced her the world’s smartest combat choreographer.

  And as far as stage combat was concerned, I wasn’t even upset that we’d be performing our battle scenes without any actual weapons. My cast was by now so accomplished at miming their swordplay, it had become an art form in itself—an exercise in imagination for both the actors and the audience—with the invisible blades swinging and clashing in perfect sync with the sound effects.

  The sound effects! Even these were getting special attention. They would be amplified into the balmy night in all their whooshing and clinking glory courtesy of Nick Demetrius and the pizza car’s loudspeaker. This was another idea I had and was able to execute, thanks to the barter system. I remembered how Nick had used the speaker to get Gracie to hurry up after rehearsal, and I realized it was just another version of a microphone. We “purchased” the use of Nick’s vehicle’s loudspeaker under the following arrangement, which I dreamed up and then had approved by Gracie’s uncle George, who owned the pizza place. Austin, Susan, and I would volunteer to hand-wash the pizza car once a week for the rest of the summer.

  When the sun began to fade into a velvety lilac twilight, Austin and I finally sent everyone (including Mr. Mancuso’s building crew!) home.

  “I think we’re going to be all right,” said Austin, getting on his bike. “I think Odysseus would be proud of us.”

  “It’ll make a great story someday,” I conceded. “The epically funny tale of how Random Farms put on its second show.”

  “Quit complaining,” said Susan, heading for home. “We’ve got an amphitheater. How many twelve-year-olds can say they’ve got their own amphitheater?”

  She was right. None of it was how we had planned it, but I realized that was what made theater such a rush. The inevitable disasters and the subsequent fixes were why being a producer was so exciting and challenging.

  What I didn’t know at the time, though, was that our biggest challenge was still ahead.

  CHAPTER

  20

  On Monday, as Susan and I walked to the clubhouse, I phoned Mrs. Sawicki and asked her for a favor.

  “Of course I’ll run the new announcement in the online newsletter,” she said in her pleasant way. “And please hold two tickets for me at your will call window. I wouldn’t miss this show for the world!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Your tickets will be waiting for you. Compliments of the house.”

  Susan frowned. “We don’t comp.”

  “We do now,” I told her.

  In addition to the CCC newsletter, Susan tweeted the information so our cast could retweet and let all their friends and families know about the switch from Saturday at seven at the community center to Friday at nine on the clubhouse back lawn. We also printed flyers announcing the change of date, time, and venue.

  Knowing how much pressure we were under, Mom offered to drive into town and post the flyers in all the store windows where we’d originally placed our posters. This was a huge help, since I couldn’t spare a single cast or crew member.

  Susan and I arrived at the clubhouse to find everyone present and accounted for.

  Everyone except Mackenzie.

  “She’s probably just running late,” said Susan.

  “Again,” I said, feeling a knot of anger in the pit of my stomach. “I’ll stand in for her.”

  We ran the show, with me as Mackenzie’s temporary understudy. This took longer than usual, since every time I needed to make a note, I had to stop the action.

  I shouted out lighting cues, which Deon jotted down. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t get to actually rehearse with our donated lights until Thursday. Same went for the fans. Which reminded me …

  “Maxie, make sure you put everyone’s wigs on extra tight. That wind factor is going to make a big difference. And the last thing we want is a bald Athena.”

  “Speaking of wind,” said Sophia, “I’ve been thinking that I’d like to add some kind of long flowing cape to my costume. It’ll look great blowing and billowing in the breeze during my ‘Men Are Pigs’ solo.” She strutted to the costume area and chose a filmy drape of fabric from Maxie’s costume collection. “Hmmm. This will do nicely.”

  “But that’s Penelope’s cape,” said Maxie.

  “Not anymore,” trilled Sophia, swirling the transparent cape around her.

  “That’s not fair,” Nora protested. “Maxie designed that for me.”

  “Too bad,” Sophia said in an icy tone. “First Circe took your man, now she’s taking your accessories.”

  “Oh, no she’s not,” said Nora through her teeth, reaching for the hem of the cape and attempting to jerk it out of Sophia’s grasp. “And for the record, Odysseus went back to Penelope.”

  “Let go!” Sophia demanded, tugging the fabric.

  “You let go!” Nora shouted, pulling harder.

  “I’m wearing it!” Tug.

  “Not if I can help it.” Pull.

  Riiiippp.

  The next thing I knew, each girl was clutching half a cape. A collective gasp rose up from the cast as we all stared in shock at the tattered fabric.

  “Wow,” muttered Teddy. “I’m sure glad they weren’t fighting over Odysseus.”

  To their credit, both actresses looked terribly guilty as they handed the pieces of ripped cape to Maxie.

  “I think I can fix it,” said Maxie with a sigh.

  “Good,” I said curtly, frowning at Sophia and Nora. “And when you do, I’m letting Athena wear it.”

  Neither Circe nor Penelope gave me an argument.

  With the exception of the cape catastrophe and Mackenzie’s glaring absence, the rest of rehearsal went really well, which made me feel better. We got in the habit of taking SPF breaks every two hours so everyone could reapply their sunscreen.

  “I bet this isn’t something real Broadway directors have to contend with,” I joked to Austin.

  On Tuesday, as predicted, we were delayed by the thunderstorm. (I triple-checked with Gina to make sure she’d put the painted backdrops inside the clubhouse the night before.) The waiting made me a little anxious, as I wanted every possible minute of rehearsal time we could get. But I told myself we could all use a little rest. And it was the perfect time for
me to find out what in the world was going on with Mackenzie.

  So I put on my rain jacket and Wellington boots, grabbed Dad’s giant golf umbrella, and ran the two blocks to the Fleisches’ house.

  When Mackenzie answered the door and saw it was me, her face crumbled.

  “Kenz, what’s the deal?” I asked tersely.

  “I was going to text you later,” Mackenzie said, her eyes darting away from mine. “I … um … well, I’m not going to be able to do the play.”

  As I stared at her, my eyes round with shock, a loud clap of thunder shook the Fleisches’ front porch. “You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I’m really sorry, Anya.”

  “But why?” I asked, my tone softening at the sight of her trembling lower lip. “Did you pull a muscle? Are you sick or something? I don’t understand. Why can’t you be in the play?”

  “I just can’t.” Mackenzie shook her head, her eyes shining with tears. “I wish I could but I can’t. Please tell everyone I said break a leg.” She paused, then added, “And good-bye.”

  “Kenz—”

  But the door had already closed in my face.

  CHAPTER

  21

  By lunch the storm clouds had cleared—out of the sky, at least. I felt as if my heart were filled with them. In any case, I arrived at the amphitheater under a brilliant blue sky. Deon, Gina, and Brittany were hanging the backdrops while Austin set up the electronic keyboard.

  “I’ve got some bad news,” I told the cast. “Kenzie’s out.”

  “Out?” Elle repeated. “What do you mean by ‘out’?”

  “She can’t be in the play.”

  “Why?” asked Spencer. “She was doing so great as Greek Chorus Number One.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know exactly why. She just said she couldn’t be in the play. Maybe it has something to do with the change of date from Saturday to Friday. Maybe she’s got a big audition or something.”