Bit Players, Has-Been Actors and Other Posers: A Must-Read for Fans of Glee, High School Musical and Twilight (11 page)

“The sexiest,” added Lucey, leaning into Nigel.

“We could use simple props like chairs and boxes that get turned into different things based on the song,” said Adrienne.

“And the costumes – everyone all in black, with costume bits that change for each song, like hats, and canes, and vests.” Foster could always be counted on to think costumes.

Suddenly I was zapped with the perfect idea. “Wait, I’ve got it. Are you ready for this?” Everyone turned toward me. “We could do a higher-concept version of a revue.” Mr. Lord smiled. “We could do it like an episode of
Glee
, with a theme. We could pick songs that relate to that theme somehow, and even write a script to hold it all together.”

Lord’s eye was caught by something in the back of the theatre. I looked around to see Mr. Ellison slipping into the room.

“Sadie, you’ve lost it,” scoffed Lindsay. “We can’t make a play out of
Glee
.”

“Why not?” Lord jumped to my defense before my mouth opened. “
Wicked
is based on a book, as are countless other musicals. TV shows have inspired many movies. Cross-fertilization in the entertainment industry is rampant, and the source of many great ideas.”

 “But let’s not forget that whether or not the re-creation is worthwhile depends on the interpretation,” Mr. Ellison said, striding down the aisle to the front of the theatre where he joined Lord, although they stood a good ten feet apart as if afraid of contamination from the other.

“I have to say, I would make a great Rachel, but who here can write us a script that’s like
Glee
?” Lucey asked, oblivious to the significance of Mr. Ellison’s return.

Mr. Ellison turned to me. “I think Miss Perkins is capable of writing a script for us.”

“Um, yeah, I would love to do that,” I murmured, half to myself, my brain starting to churn on how to adapt
Glee
for Crudup High.

“I don’t know,” Foster said, the doubt in his voice making everyone pay attention. When it came to dramatic instincts, Foster was the king. Or queen. The boss, anyway. “It’s not working for me. I mean, we’re not
Glee
, we’re not McKinley High School or whatever it is.” Foster knew perfectly well
Glee
was set at McKinley. He was the biggest gleek of all. But I let it go.

“We could never get the wild, over-the-top costumes they use. We don’t have a house band that magically appears to accompany us with brass and harps. And how are we going to tell one episode of a show that’s actually an entire series? How will the audience understand the back story? I don’t get it.”

Lord seemed pleased with this concern. “So maybe a television series isn’t the right inspiration. What about a different story as the basis for our show? What’s a movie that everyone loves right now? PG-rated, please.”

Everyone adopted thinking poses. Even Mr. Ellison seemed mildly intrigued.

“
Percy Jackson
!” yelled Ben.

Adrienne made a noise like a game show buzzer. “No way we could even come close to the special effects needed for that one.”

“
Harry Potter
!” Jocelyn shouted.

“Are you serious? Ditto Adrienne’s
Percy Jackson
comment,” deadpanned Kristina. Wow, Kristina dissed Jocelyn in front of everyone. CDC really did bring out the vicious side of all of us. Jocelyn ignored Kristina.

“What about
Up
?” asked Lindsay, getting faces from the other CDC members. “What? It was a great movie. I saw it with my little sister.”

“If we rolled Foster and Jason into one body, we could do
Precious
,” offered Lucey. Those of us with any sense of right and wrong gasped and avoided glances at Jason’s substantial build and Foster’s mahogany skin.

“Eww, that is so not an uplifting story,” said Jocelyn.

“More important, Miss Landau, that was not a helpful suggestion,” Mr. Ellison cautioned. Lucey twirled a lock of hair around her finger and refused to look abashed.

“Let’s do
Confessions of a Shopaholic
. That was such a funny movie,” said Jocelyn.

“You don’t need to act that out. You live that every day.” Two jabs from Kristina today. What was going on with the Alphabet Soup Girls (J-ocelyn, K-ristina, L-ucey), as Alex used to call them?

“Come on, people. Forget about these half-assed ideas,” said Lord, winning cool points for swearing in front of us. “What’s been the biggest craze to hit fiction or movie-making in the past few years?”

A gear shifted in my brain.

“Well, after Harry Potter,” Lord added.

Of course. Of course he would pick that. But he was right. It was the biggest phenomenon to hit the teen fiction world in ages. At least among girls.

“
Twilight
,” I said to myself. “
Twilight
,” I repeated loudly, before someone else could get credit for the idea. “We could turn
Twilight
into a musical.” Excitement immediately surged through me at the challenge of bringing Bella and Edward to the stage. Mr. Lord grinned broadly.

“Hey, Mr. Lord, you could re-create your role as -- what was it again – orderly number three?” The teacher’s grin faded in response to Lindsay’s question. He recovered quickly, though, clapping his hands once loudly as if to dispel the rude comment.

“Twilight: The Musical. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Mr. Ellison looked pale, but the students started to buzz.

“Oh my God, no one has ever done this before. We would be the first!” exclaimed Lucey.

“It’s one of the greatest love stories ever. It would make great theatre,” Foster said.

“And it would be easy to re-create. Except for the vampire fight at the end, with the fire,” said Kristina. “And the superhuman powers,” she added.

“We could pull it off,” Adrienne mused. “We could get help from the dance studio director for the fight scene choreography, and use lighting to make flames on the back wall. For the superpowers-– well, they’d be easier than
Harry Potter
or
Percy Jackson
. We’d figure something out. And the rest of the story is technically a piece of cake.”

“Think about the different ways to adapt
Twilight
,” Lord guided us. “Do you like the musical idea? What about straight drama?”

We pondered this. “If we do straight drama, we’d still need music, I think,” Ben said. “It was so integral to the movie, and it could set the mood, in the fight scene especially.”

“I think we should do songs. I’m a singer first, actress second,” Lucey pronounced.

“Pain in the ass third,” Lindsay muttered under his breath.

Leave it to Lucey to think about the opportunity for her, rather than what would make the most compelling show. “We have to think about what’s best for CDC, not the individuals,” I said, sounding less certain than I intended.

She seized on my weakness like a tiger attacking a small animal. “We individuals
are
the show, Sadie. Jesus, can you drop the snobby actress thing for even a minute?”

“That’s the kettle calling the pot-- I mean the pot calling the black--”

Ben thankfully interrupted my attempt at a sarcastic comeback. “Let’s do it as a spoof,” he said. “You know, a satire of the whole
Twilight
thing.”

“Like the
Vampires Suck
movie. Awesome idea, Benjamin.” Lindsay high-fived Ben, making Ben glow.

“I think an operetta would be nice,” offered Foster, quickly adding “just kidding” when everyone stared at him in disbelief.

“Who votes musical?” asked Lucey, forcing a decision. I had to admit I liked this idea best, so I raised my hand along with almost everyone else. Mr. Lord raised his hand too. Mr. Ellison’s arms remained crossed over his chest, his wide, thin lips in a disapproving frown.

“Excellent, musi-cal it is,” enthused Lord, sounding like Mrs. Darbus in
High School Music
.

“Um, wait a minute. This all sounds good, but how are we going to turn the movie into a play? We need words and songs and stuff,” said Jocelyn.

“We’ve already determined that Sadie can write the script, right Sadie?” asked Mr. Lord.

“Sure, that would be easy, working from the book.”

“Sadie, make sure you include the part ‘there were three things about which I was absolutely sure,’” Lucey directed.

“Yeah. And the superhero discussion in the cafeteria, when Edward says ‘What if I’m the bad guy?’” Kristina said.

“And of course the whole scene in the woods, when she asks how old he really is,” Lucey added.

“Plus the ‘personal brand of heroin’ line,” said Kristina.

“Ooh—and don’t forget the lion and lamb part,” cooed Jocelyn.

“Guys, give me a chance to write it before you start editing, okay?” I asked, annoyed.

“She’s right. Now, what about music? We can’t have a musical without music,” Mr. Lord said.

“Hey, let’s use songs from the
Twilight
soundtrack. They’d be perfect,” Kristina suggested.

“Do you mean as background music, like a soundtrack, or would we actually sing them?” Foster asked.

“Non-starter, people,” Mr. Lord said. “Stage musicals rarely have background music, unless it’s integral to the plot, like one of the characters playing an instrument. And songs that work on movie soundtracks set moods; they don’t deliver storylines. I’m not saying we can’t use them, but we’ll have to adapt them to make them tell our story.” We made faces but accepted the truth in what he said. “Original songs would be best. Surely someone here must write songs in their spare time?”

“Not at Crudup, Mr. Lord. We’re cruddy when it comes to songwriting.” We let Lindsay’s dig at our name pass because we were allowed to make fun of our own school name, even though others weren’t. It was kind of like family – you could criticize your own relatives but God forbid anyone else did. “I know one guy who plays guitar and tries to write songs, but they all suck, big time,” Lindsay finished.

“Not anyone?” Mr. Lord grasped.

“This ain’t East High and we ain’t got no Kelsi,” Foster sang in a Southern accent while the rest of us shook our heads.

“How about you, Mr. Lord? Do you write songs?” Kristina asked innocently, making Mr. Ellison smirk.

“No, afraid not,” Lord said. “Well, we’ll just have to use a different approach. Maybe we can use existing songs that tie to the
Twilight
themes, like they do on
Glee
. Or adapt existing songs, by writing new words to them.”

Ooh, I liked this idea. Alex and I had been writing new words to songs for years, usually to make them funnier. Sometimes, I tested my limited songwriting juices by writing serious words to the cadence of an existing song, but I wasn’t very good at it. Writing scripts was so much easier for me than penning lyrics.

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Mr. Ellison criticized. I was starting to regret that he was back, since his attitude was so negative. Mr. Lord’s enthusiasm, on the other hand, was contagious. “Anyway, we’re out of time for this week. These young people have other places to be, as do I.”

Actually none of us wanted to leave – we wanted to keep brainstorming ideas for turning
Twilight
into a musical -- but he was the advisor and he said the meeting was over.

“Okay, fine, but kids – fool around with some songs before next week’s meeting. Bring your ideas.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Mr. Ellison said. “But I suppose if you want to,” he added in response to our crestfallen faces. “Just don’t get too excited about this idea yet, until I know if we can make it work.”

“Of course it can work--” Lord shot back. The teachers argued as we filed past them out of the theatre.

Jealousy jabbed my heart as Lucey and Nigel left hand in hand, but at least I had a script to distract me now.

10:
Twilight
on the Brain

T
O MY SHOCK AND DISMAY, for the first time in my life, I found myself thinking more about boys than theatre. It was inexplicable and indefensible.

As I started to work on the
Twilight
script – Mr. Ellison and Mr. Lord having announced that Zowicki approved the show -- I should have been energized by the assignment, not to mention the crisp weather as September slipped into October. October was my favorite month of the year. I loved how one day might bring Indian summer with eighty degree temperatures, and the next snow. October was impossible to script. I liked that unpredictability in Mother Nature, but not so much in myself.

My former ability to focus 24/7 on all things theatre was replaced by an absurd monomaniacal fixation with boys. In particular, Nigel. I daydreamed about him all the time – about kissing him, about the dates we never went on, and about being Bella to his Edward -- and shed considerable tears as befitted a broken romance. But Nigel and Lucey were hot and heavy already, so any future for me and Nigel was gone with the wind.

In one of my dreams, Nigel wore Alex’s favorite green T-shirt with the little frog over the heart. I think Alex – or at least his shirt – crept into my dream because he started dating Jocelyn after Nick’s party, which was extremely disturbing, even though he wasn’t my business anymore.