Last Updated: May 31, 2000
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A Stage In Their Lives
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.
Tuesday June 3, 1997
By: Ken Fuson
Chapter III: Two acts. Fifteen scenes. Thirteen songs.
‘Let's try to get through this without hating each other.’
They march in place, punching the air like prizefighters, their feet
slamming the stage to the pulsating disco beat.
Dressed in gym clothes, the cast of West Side Story begins tonight's
first practice at North County High School in Anne Arundel County with
an aerobic workout. They must get in shape for the dance numbers.
But foreboding has replaced the normal adrenalin rush.
Angie Guido is missing.
When another girl was cast as Maria, the lead role, Angie bolted school
for the day and tearfully vowed to skip the spring musical. Friends pleaded
with her to reconsider. If she's not here tonight, the director will replace
her. Nobody wants that.
Five minutes pass ... the music pounds.
Ten minutes ... the students march.
Fifteen minutes ... and every head turns.
Toward the rear of the stage, slipping through a back door, Angie and
her boyfriend walk in and find their places.
Everyone exhales.
TWO ACTS.
Fifteen scenes.
Thirteen songs.
Two months to go.
"You realize when opening night is?" Wayne Shipley, the director, asks
the 40 students on stage. "Look at your calendar."
April 18 -- and they are a week behind.
The days bleed into each other, a melange of practices, voice lessons
and dance rehearsals.
"The music comes first, at the expense of everything else," Mr. Shipley
says. "They don't realize how hard this is going to be."
The students are sprinting toward a faraway conclusion that tonight
looks as gray and undefined as a Polaroid photograph at first snap.
WEEK ONE. THE MUSIC ROOM.
Wearing a blue Mickey Mouse T-shirt, Angela Brown, the 16-year-old junior
who will play Maria, enters for her voice lesson with Neil Ewachiw, the
show's music director.
Push the sound from your abdomen, he tells her. Try singing the word
"tonight" as if it's pronounced "tuh-nut." It will open your throat.
A soaring soprano fills the room, stronger than the high C Angela reached
during her vocal audition.
That was the voice of a little girl, pretty and fragile.
Mr. Ewachiw (pronounced e-WALK-q) now hears something different.
"It was huge," he recalls. "Just huge."
BRIAN FORTE, THE DEVIL-MAY-CARE senior cast as Tony, the leading man,
finishes reading the West Side Story script. He turns to Anna Schoenfelder,
who will play Anita.
"I get to die," he says excitedly.
"Brian, I don't want you to die," she replies.
"I want to. I've never died before."
She laughs, her smile framed by deep dimples. Brian describes Anna as
nice, smart, easy to tease. "She makes you feel good about yourself."
They are pals.
"I have always liked Brian," Anna says. "He's different from all the
other guys. He's really sweet. He's so open with his feelings."
They make a terrific couple -- the leading man and the prettiest girl.
They dated for a short time last year, then stopped. Both agreed they didn't
want to risk harming their friendship.
Brian leaves for his vocal lesson. He's a baritone singing a tenor's
role.
Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good ...
The notes are too high. Brian looks frustrated and surprised.
"This isn't going to be easy."
THE CAST IS COMPLETE.
Mr. Shipley finally finds enough boys to cast the Sharks, the Puerto
Rican gang in West Side Story.
Pat Reynolds, a senior, will be Bernardo, the gang leader. Another senior,
Eric Schoenbachler, will play Anxious -- an appropriate name. This is Eric's
first musical; he only tried out after some girls talked him into skipping
lacrosse season.
"I used to have something against drama people," he says. "They're kind
of obnoxious, frankly. Usually in school, you try not to be around them.
"The more I'm around them, the better friends I get to be, but I'll
never be a drama person."
For the mambo dance, Eric is paired with Natalie Colley, a tall sophomore
with hypnotically large eyes.
He and Natalie greet each other suspiciously. They complain about each
other's dance technique. She calls for detente.
"Let's try to get through this without hating each other."
A few weeks later, sitting in the auditorium, Natalie rests her feet
on Eric's shoulders. He ties her shoes together.
A week after that, they begin dating.
A week after that, Natalie confides to a girlfriend: "Eric is so cute.
He wants to have four kids -- and so do I!"
ANOTHER DAY. THE MUSIC ROOM.
"Did it really sound OK?" Angela Brown asks.
Do I sound like Maria?
"Trust me, if it sounds bad, I'll tell you," Mr. Ewachiw says. "It'll
be very different for you. You can't be afraid of it. Imagine when a snake
sheds its skin. It feels weird.
"The singing you've done all your life, it was good when you were young.
Now you've got to grow up."
WEEK TWO.
The Jets stand to one side, the Sharks to the other. In the middle,
Mr. Ewachiw leads them through the quintet. It's a difficult song with
five different parts, the musical equivalent of a rumble.
"Are we going to the mall?" Mr. Ewachiw shouts. "Are we going to a retirement
home? Are we going to a quilting bee? Ladies and gentleman, I would like
to hear the Jets and the Sharks going to a rumble! I want the AT-TI-TUDE!"
The music begins. And ...
Nothing.
"It sounds like the Sharks are going to sit down with a box of Mallomars
and watch `Gilligan's Island,' " Mr. Ewachiw says.
He sings the parts as loud as he can, like an opera singer on steroids.
"Can you sing it louder than me? I DON'T THINK SO!"
Again, the music begins.
Again, nothing.
It's the musical equivalent of a train wreck. The boys are nervous,
timid, self-conscious. This is a test for Mr. Ewachiw's overwhelming confidence.
"I feel like one of my biggest strengths is to take ability that is
dreadful and raise it up to mediocrity," he says.
He challenges them:
"Sing it as loud as you can. This time with the right notes."
He goads:
"That was a lovely A. But what we need is a C."
He insults:
"Pitch is a location, it's not an area."
Nothing.
Stomachs have rumbled more menacingly than these guys.
THINK OF AN ASSEMBLY LINE. IN THE beginning weeks, stage-crew members
construct sets after school. On stage, actors rehearse scenes. In a dressing
room, two girls practice their lines. In a hallway, dancers stretch.
Mr. Shipley is the foreman. He says his job is to put pictures on the
stage. The students do everything else.
But he's worried. The boys are goofing off too much. Actors don't know
their lines. The dance sequence is a struggle. Musically -- well, they'll
need a miracle.
This is the reason the 53-year-old Mr. Shipley has avoided West Side
Story during a 30-year teaching career that will end with his retirement
this spring.
"I may not live through this," he says.
And he has yet to hear Eli Senter.
ANOTHER NIGHT. ON STAGE.
The performers will sing every number, one after another, so Mr. Shipley
and Mr. Ewachiw can hear how much work needs to be done.
Junior Eli Senter -- Riff -- has the first song:
When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way ...
Sitting in the auditorium, cast members cringe. This is dog-howling
bad. Eli throws his fedora off the stage. His long hair, parted in the
middle, frames his thin face like parenthetical brackets. He tries again.
Horrible. He tosses his script off the stage. Again, he tries. Terrible.
He fidgets with his shirt.
Nothing helps. He's so far off-key you would need a search party to
find him. He's gulping air like a drowning man.
"I suck," Eli says, his face flush. "I sucked last week and I'll suck
two weeks from now."
When he's done, Brian Forte and Angela Brown -- Tony and Maria -- approach
the stage for their duet in "Tonight."
Tonight, tonight
The world is wild and bright ...
Angela's voice is captivating. Students doing their homework look up
in amazement. Where did this sound come from? The soaring soprano that
filled the
music room now fills the entire auditorium, up there in the glass-breaking
stratosphere.
Everyone applauds when she finishes.
"That was awesome!" Brian says.
For Angie Guido, the senior who lost the part, and with it her dream
of playing Maria, this is too much. She still pictures herself in this
role, on this stage, basking in this applause.
She runs out of the auditorium in tears.
TWO ACTS.
Fifteen scenes.
Thirteen songs.
Five weeks to go.
Late one night, after another frustrating practice, Mr. Shipley escorts
senior Starr Lucas, the student director, to her car. The parking lot is
mostly empty; the brown-brick high school mostly dark. Down the hill, traffic
is light on Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard.
"What do you think?" he asks.
"I think it's a mess," she says.
"Yeah, I know," he agrees. "But it's always a mess."
Starr smiles, shimmering in the streetlight. Pile on the jobs -- president
of the drama club, president of the Thespians, president of her senior
class -- but you can't crack the Drama Queen.
Nothing gets to her. Not anymore. Not since she was in sixth grade and
doctors operated on her legs to relieve pressure on her knees. Starr has
cerebral palsy.
She was placed in a cast from her hips to her toes, with a metal bar
stretched between her knees to keep her legs spread wide. So wide she couldn't
fit through the front door at home; her family had to haul her in sideways,
like a sofa. She remained in bed, imprisoned in that cast, for six weeks.
"I don't think she thought life could get much worse," her mother, Phyllis,
says.
So what if Mr. Shipley is nervous, and the show is in trouble, and her
senior adviser is on her back, and she'll have to stay up until 1 a.m.
to finish her homework?
She can handle it.
When she gets home from practice, a letter awaits her.
Dear Starr,
On behalf of Shenandoah University, it is my pleasure to inform you
of your acceptance as a candidate for a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre ...
She has been waiting for this. The Winchester, Va., school has a conservatory
where she can study theater. But the cost is an astronomical $18,000 a
year. Her father works for Giant Food Inc.; her mother cares for her sister
and baby brother.
She'll need help to afford the tuition.
"I can't do anything about it, so why worry?" she says.
But she does.
ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK, LISA
Rolman, a North County High teacher and the assistant director, escorts
a few cast members to second-hand stores to shop for costumes.
Angie Guido joins one of the trips, but her heart isn't in it. Since
losing the role of Maria, Angie has ridden an emotional see-saw -- up one
day, down the next. This isn't like her. Her friends are concerned.
"I don't like rehearsals," she says. "I don't feel like doing anything
anymore. I feel like graduating and not watching other people do wonderful
things. I don't even feel like going to school anymore."
She knows Angela Brown has a terrific voice, but it's hard to watch
her.
"I guess she's better," Angie says.
Then she sighs, heavy with resignation.
"Yeah, she's better."
ANOTHER NIGHT. On STAGE.
Brian Forte and Angela Brown practice the scene in which Tony and Maria
first meet.
They hold hands.
"Uh-oh," a girl says. "Brian just violated the mandatory four-foot no-contact
zone."
Angela Brown's boyfriend will arrive soon to give her a ride home. He
graduated from North County High last year, and he might not appreciate
seeing another boy holding hands with his sweetheart. He is the kind of
boyfriend who saves napkins from restaurants he and Angela visit.
One night after practice, Brian pulls the boyfriend aside.
" I'm going to have to be in the play and be romantic and close
to her. Is that OK?"
Sure, the boyfriend says, then smiles nervously.
"It's just a play," he says.
He should relax. Brian has his eye on someone else.
BOYS.
They joke, they gawk, they jump on each other's backs. They flit around
like fruit flies.
"It's so difficult to work with guys, because they won't stop talking,"
says junior Katie Collins, who plays Anybodys, the tomboy who wants to
be a Jet. "When they don't understand something, they just keep talking."
Mr. Shipley is fed up.
Usually one or two student leaders emerge to police the ranks. That
hasn't happened this year. He'll have to take charge.
"Every time you laugh at somebody or poke fun at somebody, look at the
calendar and think about whose butts are on the line here," he says.
"Yours."
TWO ACTS.
Fifteen scenes.
Thirteen songs.
Four weeks to go.
This is the last practice before spring break in March. Tonight Mr.
Shipley wants to see all of Act I on stage.
An hour and a half later, Mr. Ewachiw still is working with Eli Senter
and the Jets on the opening song.
When you're a Jet ...
There is panic in Mr. Ewachiw's voice.
"This is a tune that for the last 40 years people have had in their
heads," he says. "It's also the first song of the musical. I cannot share
my gripping fear -- "
"You don't have to share!" Eli interrupts, shouting. "I've got my own
gripping fear!"
The brash facade is gone now. The normally confident Eli looks lost.
Before he sings, he braces himself as if he's about to take a cannon ball
to the gut. Then he opens his mouth and misses the cue.
"It sounds successively worse," he says. "It's proportional. The closer
it gets, the less I can sing. I don't know why they gave me this role."
He got it because the teachers trust him. Nobody tries harder than Eli.
Nobody practices more. Nobody else would suffer this much humiliation.
"He won't give up," Mr. Shipley says.
Besides, it's not as if Eli is the only singer struggling. Brian Forte's
voice cracks in the upper reaches of his "Tonight" duet with Angela Brown.
"I'm not sure I can do this," he says.
Angela, too, is frustrated. What a roll she has been on -- hitting the
high C, getting cast as Maria, gaining confidence in her voice -- but tonight
she hurries off the stage, finds a seat by herself and frowns.
"Mr. Ewachiw kept cuing us too early," she says. "We skipped over tons
of dialogue."
She is fearful. What good is it to play Maria -- to realize your dream
-- if the final product is terrible? She has more at stake than she realized.
But on this, the last practice before spring break, there is one reason
to hope, one song that looks and sounds exactly as it should.
All night, in the hallway, Ms. Rolman and a half-dozen girls worked
on "America," the bouncy song in which one of the characters, a Puerto
Rican girl named Rosalia, longs for her homeland and is teased by Anita
and the others.
Rosalia: I like the city of San Juan.
Anita: I know a boat you can get on.
When it's over, Mr. Shipley is smiling.
"Consider that the show stopper, guys," he says.
Mr. Ewachiw also applauds. He compliments Anna Schoenfelder, the senior
who plays Anita, then turns his attention to the other girl, the one who
sang Rosalia's part.
"Very, very nice," he says, touching her arm.
For the first time in weeks, Angie Guido smiles.
THEY DESERVE A WEEKEND NIGHT off, a respite from the dreadful musical.
They need to see a goofy movie like "Liar, Liar" and act like teen-agers
again.
Twenty students head to the theater. Brian Forte and Anna Schoenfelder
sit next to each other.
The leading man and the prettiest girl.
Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good ...
They don't hold hands, or even share a box of popcorn, but here in the
theater Brian and Anna both feel it, an affection that goes beyond friendship.
Just sitting here, without saying a word, both sense that their relationship
is changing.
Brian: "I've always had extremely strong feelings for Anna. Always."
Anna: "Last year the friendship thing got in the way. This year it's
different."
Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good ...
If only real life worked like this: Sing a song and fall in love.
But real life is different.
Sometimes you're not the only boy who falls for the prettiest girl.
Sometimes your best friend does, too.
THE PLAYERS
Angie Guido
(Rosalia)
She's angry, hurt and bitter. She won't be Maria. Will she boycott the
show?
Brian Forte
(Tony)
The leading man is distracted: He's falling in love.
Eli Senter
(Riff)
He misses cues. He sings off-key. Can he turn it around?
Angela Brown
(Maria)
Her voice is changing. Will she change, too?
Starr Lucas
(Student director)
The show is a mess. But she has other concerns: her health and her future.
