Scrappy Little Nobody(13)

The first thing I booked after High Society was the musical version of Jane Eyre. It was in the workshop phase, when the producers assemble a cast to run through a show for a couple of weeks. The idea is to get the show on its feet so that it can be improved before a potential Broadway run. Based on each workshop, the writer, composer, and director will go away and make changes, then do it all again. Sometimes all the actors are re-hired. Sometimes they aren’t.

There was a challenging but thrilling piece of music for Young Jane that had made the role difficult to cast. Consequently, I was treated like a bit of a unicorn. The producers sent up prayers (in direct opposition to my bathroom-stall plea) that I would stay the same size. But the show was at least a year away from getting to Broadway. Occasionally, I’d catch the producers tilting their heads at me, gauging my height with an invisible yardstick. I made a point to transition my rehearsal attire from chunky boots to thin-soled ballet flats and ruefully dug out my Limited Too best to look as young as possible.

I was with that show for about a year, doing additional workshops or giving special cabaret-style performances to rooms of potential investors. But after a while, a bittersweet atmosphere took hold. There was a consolatory vibe at what would be my last performance, but I didn’t know why. I would have recognized the behavior if I’d ever had a boyfriend: I was about to get dumped.

I was sad to lose the job. My disappointment was slightly allayed when I heard they’d had to cut Young Jane’s song because they couldn’t find a replacement to sing it. That might not have been true; the song slowed down the pacing of the first act anyway.

This was not the only time I would lose a job this way, but I confess I was grateful for every inch I gained. Finding even one article of adult clothing that fit me seemed like a reasonable trade-off to being fired. Maybe I should have prioritized my professional pursuits, but my home life always felt equally significant. Decorating my locker seemed just as important as getting new headshots.

I had to compartmentalize, because everyone else did. People at school didn’t care that I had an audition for Touched by an Angel, and, weirdly, casting directors didn’t care that I had a four-page French assignment or that Courtney from choir was being mean to me for NO REASON.

While I was in one place, I tried not to think about the other. It was sort of like living a double life. Like a spy! Yeah. I was like James Bond. Like a loud, unsexy James Bond.

MGM, the next time you want to reboot the franchise, you know where to find me.



* * *




I. That year.





camp


The summer before my senior year of high school, I went to New York and made a nonunion film called Camp. It was a unique film in many ways. People have either never heard of it or they want to tell me that it changed their life, no matter how inappropriate the circumstances. I am very glad this movie helped you come out to your parents, and as I was saying, my insurance only covers the generic form of RectaGel.

Camp was written and directed by Todd Graff, based on his real experiences at Stagedoor Manor, the (in)famous children’s theater camp in upstate New York. Stagedoor is a haven for every young misfit out there who’d just die if they were forced to be in one more school-sanctioned production of Peter Pan. The camp is known for putting on arguably inappropriate shows with its young campers. Imagine The Glass Menagerie or Once on This Island—a musical about tensions between the light-and dark-skinned Haitians—with an all-white preteen cast. It’s not universally relatable material for a movie.

Because the movie was replete with song and dance, a monthlong rehearsal period was scheduled in Manhattan. Most of the cast members were local, but some of us had nowhere to stay for the duration of rehearsals, so indie production company Killer Films found competitively priced living spaces to accommodate their out-of-town actors. For example, I lived in the walk-in pantry of a small uptown apartment shared by three film students. Don’t worry, the film students were really nice and the pantry was mostly empty.

I had no complaints. It was summer, I was sixteen, I got to take the subway to work in the morning and learn music and choreography all day. I was going to internet cafés to check my email, the film students were explaining things like “establishing shots”I and “coverage”II to me, and I was on my own. Sure, I wasn’t really a New York resident, and I wasn’t getting paid, but I felt like such a grown-up. Wait ’til the kids at choir camp hear what I did this summer.

Toward the end of the rehearsal period, our choreographer, Broadway legend Jerry Mitchell, stopped us for a pep talk. We were exhausted and he was about to tell us to get our shit together. He said that whether we liked it or not, this movie was going to be around forever and that what we put on film in the coming months would, unlike theater, exist long after we were dead. It was super dark and probably should have scared me off making movies forever.

What can I say? I was living in a pantry, I was getting yelled at in dance rehearsal—if I wasn’t living the dream, I don’t know who was.

Weirdly, my excitement did not stem from the fact that I was about to be in my first film. I guess, if I’m honest, it didn’t feel like we were making a real movie. Real movies had famous actors in them, like Tom Hanks or the German lady from Austin Powers (my metric was all over the place). And films about teenagers had gorgeous, polished, twenty-five-year-old actors, and the plots revolved around summer crushes—not going to prom in drag and getting your ass kicked.