The Gospel According to Bridgette Fairlie
In the beginning there was the word
And the Light
And the Music
And when they were put together
When people said the Word
And looked into the Light
And Danced into the Music
There was Chaos.
And so God created the Director and the Stage Manager and the Musical Director
and the Choreographer. And on the seventh day THERE WAS A CAST PARTY
I was in a religious mood when I wrote that. I'm not usually that way, Especially at a cast party. Especially while looking at the menu at Ivy's Chinese Café. Well, okay, ever. (My mom's Catholic and my dad's Jewish, so I grew up in the Church of confusion.)
Blame it on Godspell.
It was our fall production. You probably know already, but Godspell is this seventies musical where Jesus and his disciples sing and dance in clown costumes. I was the assistant director. Also I took over for the lead girl just hours before the show, with no rehearsal. And I didn't suck.
Not sucking would seem a modest goal under normal circumstances, but not here at East Port High. When it comes to musicals, we're kind of in a warp world. Enter the front door and you see all the usual stuff- green tile walls, kids with Phones, Mp3 players, IPods, trophy cases, old photos. But the kids are listening to Avenue Q and Rent, and the photos are of the casts of the school plays dating back to 1907. We have pep rallies to raise money for the Total Drama Club. Five of our albums had won the Tony Awards for best performances on Broadway. The Washington Times wrote about us. They said High School theater in East Port was like high school basketball in Los Angles. No doubt. At East Port, the sports teams complain that the drama kids get too much attention.
Btw, we do have a basketball team. They're pretty good, from what I hear. They generally don't do theater. Except for one of them. Geoff Davis.
I plucked him from obscurity and made him try out. And he was a big reason that I did not suck at Godspell.
Some actors have to work hard to shine; others steal the limelight just stepping on the stage. But once in a while you see someone so good, so natural, that they make everyone else look like stars, too. That's Geoff. I heard him singing at one of his parties and forced him to audition. He had no experience. But when he stepped on the stage, you couldn't take your eyes off of him. So we cast him as Jesus. He was perfect. It didn't hurt that he was a hottie and had killer high notes. Everyone loved him.
Geoff was very much like his character. He Loved Them All Back. Equally. Which meant that at any given time, depending on whom he was with, the rest of them all were really pissed at him. The getting of Geoff was the drama, within the drama. Yeah, I had something to do with it too. But Not too deeply. I'm way too carful for that.
By the time of the cast party at Ivy's, I had already cheked out of that particular heart-break hotel. Or so I thought, im stuck with this sensible decision right into winter break. Which wasn't really a break, what with SAT prep, and SA tutoring, studying ahead to avoid falling behind during spring musical rehearsals. And college visits to Harvard and Yale.
As My dad says "This is junior year, Bridgey." Don't ask me why he says 'Bridgey'. He says it as if it's supposed to be funny. I guess his students laugh. But I imagined college students laugh at whatever the professor finds funny. My friends, think I'm obsessive. I don't buy that, I was bought up to be the best at everything. Consider the source.
My dad is not only a business professor, but a natural history expert. The kind of guy who's proud to have a stuffed collared packery, that's like a small hog, named George on our mantle. Mom runs a hedge fund and plays classical piano. In my family, if you don't go to Yale or Harvard, there must be something wrong with you.
So during that winter break, while everyone else was traveling into the city to see The Tree, and singing carols and Netflixing It's a Wonderful Life and Scrooge, I was augmenting a copiously vocabulary, wresling with the quadratic equations, wondering in my spare time which play would be chosen for the big spring musical. And worrying whether I would be allowed to play a lead role. Considering I've played one in Godspell. In my Favor:
A: We have never done a small fall musical like Godspell before so there was no president for a no-lead role twice rule
B: I didn't exactly ask for that lead, it was thrust upon me
Plus, someone hacked the school computer and found out that Caleb Degas' GPA was .007 points higher than mine and he was first in the class.
These were the things that keep me up at night, I don't even remember what I got for Christmas. Ho, Ho, Ho; I was not a happy camper. And then, on a cold December evening, Jesus asked me to meet him at the beach. Naturally I said yes.