Curtain Up by Lisa Fiedler Read Free Book Online Page B

turns,” I said.
    â€œGood,” said Susan, sitting down and placing her fingers on the keys. “I’ll practice.”
    â€œWhat about the acting auditions?” I asked Austin. “Any ideas?”
    â€œI’ve got a few things in mind,” he said. “I e-mailed them to you last night.”
    â€œCool. My laptop’s in the kitchen. C’mon.”
    We left her seated at the piano and headed for the kitchen. A few seconds later we heard “Seize the Day” wafting from the living room.
    Austin and I each settled onto a counter stool at the breakfast bar, and I opened my computer. I logged in to my e-mail and found that Austin had really done his homework. He’d sent me a bunch of possibilities for the acting auditions, which we quickly narrowed down to two monologues(one for girls, one for boys) and two scenes to be performed by partners. He’d picked out a perfect array of material. Dramatic, comedic, and just the right level of difficulty.
    In the living room Susan had started singing along with her own accompaniment.
    A chill raced up my spine as I suddenly realized that the Random Farms Kids’ Theater really was my way of seizing the day! Me and all the other kids who loved to sing and act and dance, who wanted to share our talents and learn more about the incredible world of musical theater. I was grabbing my moment and making something happen. I was so lost in Susan’s voice and my own thoughts that I almost didn’t hear what Austin was saying.
    â€œâ€”dance?”
    I snapped out of my reverie and looked at him, blinking. “You dance?”
    He laughed. “Not at all. But I did include an ensemble dance number in the show, so I guess you’re going to have to come up with some choreography for the dance audition.”
    By now Susan had quit practicing and was standing in the kitchen doorway. “Did someone say choreography?”
    I ignored her and kept my eyes on Austin. “Oh, you mean something big and flashy, like from 42nd Street , or A Chorus Line ?”
    â€œWell, maybe not quite that complicated, but yeah.” Austin shrugged. “Something along those lines.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, sliding down from my counter seat. “Let’s get to it.”
    â€œMaybe you didn’t hear me,” said Austin pointedly. “I don’t dance.”
    Susan sighed, mimed her thumb and pinkie into a pretend phone, and held it her ear. “Hello? Radio City Musical Hall? Yeah, I was wondering, could I possibly rent the Rockettes for a couple of weeks? Thaaaaat’s right . . . the whole kick line!”
    Austin laughed as Susan “hung up” the phone.
    â€œRadio City says no,” she reported wryly.
    Personally, I didn’t think it was funny. I had a moment of worry that maybe neither of my co-producers was taking things quite as seriously as I was. “Look,” I said, “I’m hoping Mackenzie is going to sign up for this theater, and once she does, we can ask her to be the official choreographer for the show. But if we’re going to have the kids perform a dance combination at auditions, we’re just gonna have to come up with something ourselves. Maybe we can get ideas for a dance routine from YouTube. If we find something that inspires us, then we can revise it to make it our own original choreography.”
    Susan plopped herself onto the barstool, put her fingerson the keys of my computer, and typed in “ YouTube.com .” We only had to search for a few minutes to discover that our best resource would be videos of the dance numbers performed at the Tony awards over the years. There we could study entire dances featuring actual Broadway stars—with the glitzy bonus of seeing them in full costume.
    By unanimous vote we chose the dance performed by the cast of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the awards ceremony. The song was “Brotherhood of