Last Updated: May 31, 2000
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One of six articles in a winning series by Ken Fuson of The Sun,
Baltimore that won the non-deadline writing category of the 1998 ASNE Distinguished
Writing Awards.
Monday June 2, 1997
Chapter II: Dreams hang by a thread as the cast list
is posted. ‘Who will I be?’ they wonder -- a timely question about life
itself, not just a high school musical.
Angie Guido skips breakfast. She's too nervous. The list will be posted
today.
First thing this morning, Angie will walk into North County High School
and turn left at the main office, then right at the guidance center. She
will come to the intersection of two shiny hallways and pause at a bulletin
board reserved for drama club news.
She will look for her name on the cast list for West Side Story, the
spring musical. Only one role matters: Maria.
"If I don't get it, I'm coming home," she says.
"Call first," her mother replies as Angie heads out. "Break a leg."
Shortly before 7 a.m. on this February school day, Starr Lucas, a senior
and the drama club president, begins her trip to the bulletin board, gripping
a folder as if it contains state secrets.
The cast list is inside.
Maneuvering through a maze of hallways and classrooms, Starr swivels
as she walks -- there's a problem with her legs -- but she must hurry.
When that first bell rings, 40 cast members are going to make a frantic
dash to the bulletin board.
Brent McMullen, an apple-cheeked freshman, arrives first.
"I'm a Jet!" he shouts.
Angela Brown, a 16-year-old junior, is in the next wave, bursting with
anticipation. She has been excited since the vocal audition when she sang
a high C for the first time. This morning, she couldn't wait for school
to start, gulping a strawberry Pop Tart and rushing out the door.
She looks.
"Ohmigosh," she whispers to herself. "Ohmigosh. Ohmigosh."
Maria.
Friends hug and congratulate her. She is stunned.
More students arrive, clumping around the list, searching for their
part.
"Who the hell's Snowboy?" a freshman asks.
"I'm Action!" sophomore Rob Mackin announces. Then he pauses, perplexed,
his voice a mumble. "Whoever that is."
"I'm old," says Lorraine Eakin, a junior who is cast as a teacher. "They
always make me old. They say it's because I look mature."
The students look down the hall. Here comes Angie Guido. Everyone knows
how much she wants the role of Maria.
One look.
Instantly she collapses into the arms of a girlfriend and begins to
sob.
Students turn their heads, unsure how to react. Angela Brown slips down
another
hallway, out of sight. Friends touch her gently, mouthing "Congratulations."
Thanks, she whispers awkwardly.
"I've got to call my Mom," she tells a friend.
Starr, the drama club president, approaches Angie Guido.
You have a great part -- Rosalia, Maria's friend -- and you will sing
in several songs. You're our vice president. We need you.
"I'm not doing this," Angie says.
When Angie's boyfriend, Mark Miller, arrives, she buries her head in
his coat. Her face is puffy, her green eyes now red-rimmed and full of
tears. A senior, she has worked four years to play a role like Maria. This
isn't fair. Mark eventually escorts her down the hall, away from the bulletin
board, and out the school doors.
Starr watches, feeling equal measures of empathy, concern and irritation.
Wayne Shipley, the drama club sponsor, tells the students repeatedly that
every role is crucial, from the stage crew sweeper to the leading lady.
They are a team. Angie should know that.
Besides, she's not the only girl who lost her dream.
Four years ago, when she was a freshman, Starr Lucas announced to her
family that her destiny was decided:
"You're going to see me on Broadway. I'm going to be a star. I don't
even have to change my name."
Starr was a born performer, taking dance lessons since she was 4 and
acting in church skits. In high school, she heard Mr. Shipley explain the
magic of the theater: The idea is to paint a picture so realistic that
the audience experiences a willing suspension of disbelief. Do it well
enough, and you can make time stand still.
Starr was hooked. She appeared in 14 consecutive plays, one-acts and
musicals. She started calling herself the Drama Queen.
"She seeks the light," Mr. Shipley says.
But Starr rarely landed a starring role. She learned it's not enough
to have blond hair and ruby red lips and a movie-star smile.
"Mom," she said, "there's just not many parts for people who walk funny."
She'll talk about it. She doesn't mind.
"I have cerebral palsy," Starr explains.
She smiles, a radiant smile, almost angelic, as if this nervous system
disorder is a gift from the heavens. She smiles, almost laughing, as she
explains how her leg muscles tighten, causing the hitch in her walk. "I
have no ooomph," she says. She smiles again, sanguine, as she says the
condition could stay the same or worsen. She could, in fact, need a wheelchair
someday. This, too, merits a smile.
"I've always known there was a purpose for me," she says.
So the Drama Queen selected a new kingdom. Instead of seeing her name
in lights, Starr now sees herself in the shadows, behind the curtains.
She will direct. She plans to major in theater in college next year and
has applied to three schools. She's waiting to hear back.
When she tells Mr. Shipley her new dream, he proposes a deal -- she
can help direct, but that means she will not have an acting role.
How can a young woman who seeks the light willingly put herself in the
dark?
"She tossed and she turned," says her mother, Phyllis Lucas. "Then she
said, `If this is the direction my life is going to take, then I have to
do this.' "
Starr sees it as logical.
"You can still direct in a wheelchair," she says, beaming.
Wearing a trench coat and his trademark fedora -- he owns a half dozen
-- Eli Senter, a skinny 17-year-old junior, heads toward the cast list.
Somebody jokes that he's not on it.
He whirls.
"There's too few guys," he says loudly, as he says most things. "He
can't not cast me."
Eli figures he will be one of the gang members, a Jet or a Shark, a
role in which he can act and not sing.
"I've never sang before," he says. "If I had a choice, I wouldn't.
For the audience's sake."
He looks at the cast list. His name is at the top.
"You're Riff," a boy tells Eli.
"Riff's cool," a girl says.
It's not until later that Eli realizes that Riff is the leader of the
Jets gang; that Riff sings the first song of the entire show; that Riff
sings three songs.
When he learns this, Eli does something entirely out of character.
He becomes very still.
When the phone doesn't ring, Rosemary Guido assumes the news is good.
Finally, daughter Angie has gotten a break.
Always, it seems, Angie is the second choice. When she was 3 years old,
Angie wanted to be Mary in the Christmas pageant at nursery school. Another
girl was selected; Angie wore a donkey suit. Come show time, she squeezed
between Joseph and Mary and plopped in front of the manger, stealing the
scene.
This is different. Rosemary never has seen her daughter want something
so much. It's as if Angie will judge her high school years -- maybe her
entire life -- based on what she finds out this morning.
Sonny, the family dog, barks.
Rosemary looks outside. Angie and Mark approach the house.
Oh, no.
Angie looks shocked, as if somebody died. Her mother hugs her. They
cry.
"That's it," Angie says. "I give up."
After she composes herself, Angie is adamant. She is not returning to
school today so people can stare at her. She might as well stamp DONKEY
on her forehead.
And there is no way she is getting on that stage and watching another
girl perform her role. They can do the musical without her. Boyfriend Mark,
cast as a Jet, feels the same.
"Angie," her mother says, trying desperately to comfort her, "it just
wasn't your time. It wasn't your time to shine."
Then Mrs. Guido calls the school.
Just before first period begins, Brian Forte ambles down the hall, toward
the drama club bulletin board, not a care in the world.
A senior, Brian has landed the lead role in the past two North County
High musicals. He may, in fact, be the only boy in a school of 1,700 students
who can sing the right note on command.
Brian presents the clean-cut good looks of a Boy Scout, the deep-throated
voice of a baseball announcer and the devil-may-care soul of a beatnik.
Friends say he's one of the most talented students but seldom pushes himself.
He would rather sit in the Honey Bee Diner in Glen Burnie, drinking coffee,
smoking cigarettes, reading Kurt Vonnegut.
Getting by.
"Hey," he jokes, hands turned up. "I'm a slacker."
Music is his passion. He told his father last year that he might move
to New York City after graduation and play his guitar in the subway for
spare change. Now he doesn't know. Maybe he'll go to a community college,
maybe not. Something will pop up.
As Brian chats, friends notice he hasn't even peeked at the cast list.
He laughs, glances over and resumes talking. His expression remains pure
nonchalance. So he will be Tony in West Side Story. So he will be the leading
man for the third straight year. So . . . ho-hum.
Later, Mr. Shipley pulls Brian aside.
Brian, he says, this will be the hardest show you've ever done. This
can't be like the other years. You can't wait until the last week and then
let your talent bail you out.
"You're going to have to get your ass in gear," he tells him.
The boyish grin. The what-me-worry slouch. The reassuring pat on the
arm.
"OK, Mr. Shipley," Brian replies.
Whatever.
Mr. Shipley stays away from the bulletin board.
"He hides," Starr says.
He has plenty to do. While the students ponder their roles, Mr. Shipley
wonders how they will be ready in time for the April 18-19 shows. He has
yet to cast Bernardo and the other Sharks. He will do that tomorrow night,
at the first practice.
This isn't the way he prefers to operate, but if Mr. Shipley has learned
anything in 30 years of teaching, it's how to adjust.
"High school theater is more about high school than the theater," he
says.
This will be Mr. Shipley's last show. At 53, he's retiring at the end
of the school year. "I'm tired," he says. He has other hobbies -- drag
racing stock cars, raising horses, helping run Actors Company Theatre,
which produces community shows. But for the next two months he will focus
so much on West Side Story that his wife rarely will see him.
Mr. Shipley has taught at the school since Andover and Brooklyn Park
schools merged seven years ago (he taught in Andover before). He helped
design the 900-seat auditorium; he considers it one of the nicest theaters
in Anne Arundel County.
He remains oblivious to the daily dramas of high school life. He does
not know who just broke up, or who got invited to the junior prom, or who
had her heart set on playing Maria. His teaching philosophy is time-tested:
This, too, shall pass.
So Mr. Shipley is surprised when he walks into the principal's office
and a secretary hands him a pink message slip:
"Call Angie Guido's mother. She says you'll know why."
Angie and Mark skip school all day, watching movies at her house. The
phone rings constantly.
Angie, are you all right?
Angie, we want you back.
Angie, we love you.
That night, while Angie works at Blockbuster Video, fellow seniors Michele
Miller and Anna Schoenfelder visit.
"You've got to be in it," Michele says.
Angie is confused.
"I don't know. I don't know."
Just the week before, Michele had cried when the drama club selected
West Side Story as the spring musical over Anything Goes. How quickly she
has recovered from that disappointment.
"I'm fine," says Michele, who is cast as one of the Jet's girlfriends,
a minor role. "I just wanted a part."
It's different for Angie. She has invested everything -- her hopes,
her pride -- in this role. Couldn't they have lowered Maria's high notes
to match her alto voice? Now Angie will finish high school without singing
a solo. Don't they understand? This shall not pass quickly.
But it must. The word is out: If Angie skips the first practice tomorrow
night, she will lose the part.
Mr. Shipley tries three times to return her mother's phone call. He
never hears back.
First thing after school, Angela Brown heads to the Marley Station Mall
and buys the West Side Story CD. All night long, over and over, she listens
to it, savoring lyrics that seem written just for her:
Good night, good night,
Sleep well and when you dream,
Dream of me.
Tonight.
She had dreamed of playing Maria. Now she will.
What happens when your dream comes true?
