Dramarama

• Transcript
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Epilogue
  
• Appendixes
  
• Acknowledgments
  

For Big Len, who gave me all those albums and took me to all those shows

T
RANSCRIPT of a microcassette recording:

Demi:
Is it on?

Sadye:
That red light is supposed to glow.

Demi:
It
is
glowing.

Sadye:
No, it’s not.

Demi:
Yes, it is. You can’t see because of the angle.

Sadye:
Stop it and check.

(thump thumpy thump, click click)

Demi:
Ha-HA! Let the record show that I was right.

Sadye:
(silence)

Demi:
Come, now. Give me some credit. The light was way on.

Sadye:
(all fancy)
Let’s begin,
shall
we?

Demi:
Of course, darling. But I was right.

Sadye:
Here goes. It is June
twenty-fourth, and we, Douglas B. Howard Junior--

Demi:
Demi!

Sadye:
--known to those who love him as Demi--

Demi:
(interrupting)
--and Sarah Paulson, known to those who worship and lust after her as Sadye--

Sadye:
Correction: known only to herself and Demi as Sadye--

Demi:
(interrupting again)
--that’s SAY-dee, s-a-d-y-e, and don’t you spell it wrong ‘cause she’s gonna be famous one day--

Sadye:
--are here in the back of the Paulson minivan--

Demi:
--talking into a teeny-weeny journalist-type cassette recorder.

Sadye:
Micro.

Demi:
Talking into a microcassette recorder to document the all-important fact that we are
leaving
Brenton, Ohio.

Sadye:
Wooo-hooo!

Demi:
We do
not
have to live in that Brenton suckiness for eight whole weeks.

Sadye:
Good-bye, oh, dowdy math teachers! Good-bye, oh, mean cheerleaders! Good-bye, no-neck jock contingent, boring do-gooders, and juvenile delinquents!

Demi:
Good-bye, stupid shopping mall! Good-bye, awful hairstyles!

Sadye:
Good-bye, shallow, vacant members of the junior class and flat green lawns of suburbia! Good-bye, good-bye, and good riddance!

Demi:
(singing)
If ya don’t mind having to live in Brenton . . . it’s a fine life!

Sadye:
(singing backup)
It’s a fine life!

Demi:
If ya don’t mind prejudice, pain, and boredom . . . it’s a fine life!

Sadye:
It’s a fine life!

(Obvious and intentional parental coughing from the front seat of the minivan, where Sadye’s dad is driving.)

Mr. Paulson:
A little less noise from the peanut gallery, thank you.

Sadye:
Sorry, Dad.

Demi:
Sorry, Mr. Paulson. It was Oliver!.

Sadye:
Oliver!
, the Brenton version.

Mr. Paulson:
Oliver or no Oliver, you two are blowing my ears out.

Demi:
Hey, do we have the new Broadway cast album in here?

Sayde:
I think so. I packed it. Dad, can you find it?

Mr. Paulson:
What?

Sadye:
The
Oliver!
CD. Duh.
(Mr. Paulson puts the CD in the minivan stereo)

Demi:
I used to be a boy soprano.

Sadye:
We know, we know.

Demi:
Now I have to do it in falsetto.

(He attempts to sing a few bars of “Food, Glorious Food” along with the boy sopranos of the
Oliver!
cast)

Sadye:
Give it up, darling. You sound like Frankie Valli.

Demi:
I’ll take that as a compliment.

Sadye:
Hah!

Demi:
What? I love
Jersey Boys
. I’m all about
Jersey Boys
.

Sadye:
Frankie Valli on crack.

Demi:
Oh, shush your mouth. I’ll be the first black man to play Frankie on Broadway. You watch me.

(They ride in silence for a minute. Demi eats potato chips out of a bag.)

Demi:
Three more hours, and we’ll be in heaven.

Sadye:
Wildewood.

Demi:
Like I said. Heaven.

Sadye:
You’re messing our tape up! Posterity will be confused.

Demi:
Okay, say it right, then.

Sadye:
Demi and I will be attending the Wildewood Academy of Performing Arts, Summer Theater Institute, 2005.

Demi:
We are gonna take over that place. Absolutely rule it.

Sadye:
You think?

Demi:
Oh, yeah. We’ll be stars.

Sadye:
Don’t be underconfident, now.

Demi:
Ha-ha.

Sadye:
Your lips are chapped.

Demi:
We will. Be. Stars. I am predicting it, and I will make it so.

Sadye:
I said, your lips are chapped.

Demi:
Are you trying to deflate my ego? Because it will
not
be deflated.

Sadye:
(laughs)

Demi:
That thing is puncture-proof, baby.

Sadye:
No, really. You need some lip balm.

Demi:
Do you have? Give it here. Ooh, green apple flavor.

Sadye:
Turn off the microcassette. We’ve degenerated.

Demi:
True. All of posterity does not need to hear about my chapped lips.

(click)

D
EMI.

My coconspirator. My first true friend. A spirit made of equal parts ambition and razzle-dazzle. A big baritone that slides easily into falsetto. And a future as bright as the lights on 42nd Street.

Demi believed that the Wildewood Summer Institute would be heaven. Believed he would be king there, and I would be queen, and we would live all summer in utter fabulousness.

And he was right—about himself, at least.

I
N BRENTON
, Ohio, where I’m from, committing suicide would be redundant. It’s a nothing town, as lacking in character as Cream of Wheat. Before I met Demi, the only time I ever felt alive was when I took tap and jazz at Miss Delilah’s School of Dance in Cleveland twenty miles away—three weekday afternoons plus Saturday mornings. At Miss Delilah’s there was music, pizzazz, glitter. Show tune medleys and old Miss D. with her feather boa and varicose veins yelling “Five, six, seven, eight!”—beaming when we nailed a tap routine.

When the music ended and the ninety minutes were up, all the kids from dance class would throw on sweatshirts and run outside to waiting cars. They lived in the city. But I’d stay after class and wipe handprints off the sticky mirrors, listening to Miss Delilah and Mr. Trocadero (the jazz teacher) talk about shows they’d done when they were young, or plays they’d seen on Broadway. Eventually, they’d shut off the lights and lock the studio doors—and I’d be forced to go wait on the street corner for the last bus back to Brenton.

My home life wasn’t awful. It was just dead. Seriously razzle-dazzle deprived.

I am an only child and my father is old. Sixty-six. Retired. My mother is his second wife, and she’s not old at all, comparatively. But she’s deaf. She speaks pretty clearly, and reads lips, but she also uses ASL—American Sign Language. She works for a kitchen supplies catalog.

So our house is quiet. No one yells from room to room. People rarely talk when they can sign. There’s hardly ever any music or television on.

My mom works, thinks about work, and talks about work with occasional forays into cooking; my dad, who used to be a banker, prunes peony bushes and mows the lawn, belongs to a golf and tennis club, and reads books on the Civil War.

Me, I don’t fit in. Not in my family. And not at school.

Before Demi, I hung around at lunchtime with some bland girls who were friendly enough: Dora, Ada, and Laura. Short, feminine girls who tolerated my occasional deviations from standard Brenton High casual wear and let me borrow their notes if I was out sick.

But we weren’t really friends.

I was pizzazz when they were pretty; I was a big-nose broad when they were all pint-size mommy trackers; I was a Great Dane and they were all Westies; I was mint chocolate chip when they were all vanilla—and yet I didn’t want to be like them.

A sample lunch conversation in Dora-Ada-Laura-land:

“Hey, did you guys bring umbrellas?”

“No, I didn’t. I hope it doesn’t rain.”

“Me too. I hate rain.”

“Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day!”

“Check out my umbrella, it’s so cute!”

“Cute.”

“So cute.”

“Don’t you hate rain?”

“I so hate it.”

“I like it when it’s sunny. What do you guys think?”

“Oh, sunny is definitely the best. Cute umbrella, though, Dora.”

I felt worse
with
them than I did without them, and the only way I kept from losing my mind due to razzle-dazzle deprivation and profound loneliness was to spend all my free time watching musicals on DVD. My favorites were
Chicago
,
Singin’ in the Rain, Sweet Charity
,
Damn Yankees
,
Kiss Me Kate
,
West Side Story
,
An American in Paris
, and of course,
Cabaret
—the best movie ever made. An unbelievable 128 minutes of fabulousness.

“You’ll turn your brain to gelatin watching all that television,” my father said to me one day.

“It’s not television,” I said. “It’s
Cabaret
. One of the greatest musicals of all time.”

“Looks like a television to me.” He knocked the top of the set. “Yep. Definitely a television. Oh, and there’s my daughter on the couch, when it’s a beautiful sunny day outside.”

“It was directed by Bob Fosse,” I said. “Liza Minnelli won best actress.”

“Sarah.”

“What?”

“I’m going to walk down to the store to get some stuff for dinner. Come with me, will you? At least get a little fresh air.”

“Fine.” I pushed the pause button.

When we got home, though, I sat right back on the couch and watched the end of
Cabaret
. Because it was a song, filling up the silence of my life.

Before Demi, and before Wildewood, I felt too tall to fit in my own house. Too tall to fit in my own school. To big for Brenton.

It wasn’t about my height—though I’m five foot ten. It was like I was this supersonic, hydrophonic, gigantic person—only no one could see it. Like I had an undiscovered superpower. Like I was in a chrysalis, and when I popped out everyone would be shocked at my beauty and the breadth of my wings. Like there was a sound track to my life, and it was always blasting. But everyone in the world was deaf, except me.

I know that doesn’t make sense. What I’m trying to say is that sometimes I felt like the extra five inches I had on most girls was a symptom of the bigness inside me.

Something that needed expression. That would explode if I didn’t let it out.

A Lurking Bigness.

Demi Howard was the first person who could ever see it.

To everyone else, I was just Sarah. But to him, I was Sadye.

* * *

I
N EARLY FEBRUARY
, there was an announcement posted on the bulletin board at Miss Delilah’s.

Close your eyes and imagine . . . a summer filled with the magic of theater! One of the nation’s only full-time performing arts boarding schools is pleased to present the 28th year of its summer program.


Everyone is cast in a show. You will study dance, voice, pantomime, and acting with theater professionals.


WILDEWOOD ACADEMY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Summer Theater Institute
Students ages 15–18

Auditions in major cities.
February 19, Cleveland Rehearsal Halls, 1 P.M.
Applicants: Prepare a song (16 bars) and a monologue (2 minutes). You will learn a dance combination.

Wildewood. I repeated the name to myself, under my breath, as I wrote down the information.

Wildewood. Wildewood.

I had only a week to get ready.

* * *

“P
OPULAR ”
(from
Wicked
) had been on repeat every day for a month, so choosing a song was easy enough. I knew every phrase, every breath, every note. And for the monologue, I asked Miss Delilah’s advice after class the next Wednesday. She gave me the balcony scene from
Romeo and Juliet
, saying it was perfect for a girl my age, and the directors would be impressed with a classical choice. “Emote!” Miss Delilah cried, clutching my arm. “Make it passionate! Do it like this!” She inhaled and began to play Juliet herself:

O ROmeo, Romeo! wherefore ART thou ROmeo?

(looking around in frenzy)

DeNY thy father
(shaking fist)
and refuse thy name!

(panting, as if collecting wits after great exertion)

Or, if thou wilt NOT,

(gazing down sorrowfully and modestly)
be but SWORN MY LOVE,
(loud and ecstatic)

And I’ll no LONGer be a Capulet.
(heroic!
clenching fist)

I
TOOK THE
book Miss Delilah gave me, memorized the lines, and practiced in my room. “DeNY thy father”

(shake fist)
“and refuse thy name!”
(pant)
—but whenever I spoke the words that way, my voice sounded phony in my head, and my gestures felt false.

All that ecstasy and fist-shaking—it had razzledazzle all right, so why did it feel wrong?

I asked my mother to watch me do the monologue. She sat politely on a stool in the kitchen while I spoke, but I could see her eyes darting to her open laptop and her “to do” list. She clapped when I was done. “I love you, Sarah,” she said. “I hope you get the part.”

“Arggggh!”

“What?” My mother looked genuinely puzzled.

“You’re not saying anything!”

“What else shall I say?”

I signed at her: “You’re not even watching! You’re supposed to say something!”

“I said, I hope you get the part.”

“It’s not a part!” I stamped my foot.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s the summer institute. I told you about it already.”

“Oh.” She looked apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

I felt bad. “So tell me what you think, then.”

My mom paused, as if pondering some deep comment she was going to make about Juliet’s emotions. “I think,” she finally said, “that it’s wonderful to see you getting involved in a new hobby.”

I did the monologue for my dad the next day. He said it was great and he was so proud, and did I know where Verona was? Because he could show it to me on the globe upstairs if I wanted.

I let him show me, and that was the end of our conversation.

T
HE SATURDAY
before the Wildewood audition, I went to the hair salon on Garden Place. A middle-aged man with silly blond curls said he was free to take me as a walk-in customer.

“Cut it off!” I told him, shaking my long hair out of its ponytail.

“Are you sure?”

“To the chin.”

“That’s a big change.”

“And bangs, with the back angled up.”

“You have pretty hair,” the stylist said. “It’s so feminine. How’s about we do a layered cut, something soft, and only take it up to the middle of your back, give it some movement?”

All the girls at Brenton have long hair. Soft hair with some layers for movement. “I’m over being feminine,” I answered. “No offense.”

My long, dark brown hair fell to the hardwood floor of the salon. When he was finished, the girl in the mirror looked older. Glam.

I walked out of the shop, and the wind blew sleety snow like it does in February. I took the bus to Cleveland and went to the vintage clothing shop I used to sometimes browse around in before dance class. I had my holiday money in my pocket—$350.

I bought two suede miniskirts, knee-high boots, a bone-colored leather jacket, two vintage dresses, and four T-shirts with logos like KENTUCKY HOME FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE. Plus two glitter barrettes, a pair of purple cords, red flats with pointy toes, and a sweater covered in sequins.

I shoved my jeans and my soft, blue sweater (typical Brenton-wear) into a plastic bag and went home in something outrageous.

I felt like I didn’t know myself anymore.

Deny thy father and refuse thy name.

W
HEN I ARRIVED
at the auditions, there were teenagers sprawled everywhere. On the floor, on benches, leaning against the walls. They were stretching and doing vocal warm-ups. A few bored-looking parents read newspapers and magazines at one end of the hall. Piano music thudded from behind a door.

I found a spot on the floor and pulled out the text of my monologue, which I had written out on a piece of notebook paper. “O ROmeo, Romeo! wherefore ART thou, ROmeo?”

A boy sat down beside me.

Douglas Howard.

I knew who he was. He was new this year, and I’d noticed him eating lunch alone at Brenton High. He had dark skin and a closely shaved afro, but he never hung out with the small clique of African American students at our school. In fact, he didn’t seem to hang out with anyone. He hardly ever talked in class.

Every time I’d seen him before, he’d been wearing dark, nondescript clothes. Jeans and a sweatshirt. But not today. Today, Douglas Howard was decked out in a skintight silver shirt over red workout pants, and he had a bowler hat on his head.

He elbowed me in the ribs, laughing and accusing. “You! You go to Brenton.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen you around.”

He was lean but built—I could see the muscles of his legs through the thin fabric of his pants. A high-boned face, wide eyes, and a full mouth. The skin on his cheeks was bumpy where he was starting to need to shave, and he flashed a wide grin. “Douglas Howard, Jr.

But you should call me Demi.”

“Demi?”

“Like demitasse. Or demi-plié. Or demimonde. But not like Demi Moore.”

“Got it.”

“It comes from being a junior. My whole family calls me that. Like I’m half the man my father is. Get it? Very funny, ha-ha. But it’s better than Douglas, so I keep it.”

I rolled my eyes and held out my hand. “Sarah Paulson.”

“Hmm. I don’t think so,” Demi said.

“What?”

“Not with that hair.”

“I just cut it.”

“I know. Did anyone ever tell you you look like Liza Minnelli?”

And that, in Demi’s universe, is the highest compliment in the world. Because Demi loves Liza. He kind of wants to
be
Liza. Not Liza now. Liza from back when she was winning Academy Awards and starring on Broadway—an odd, vulnerable creature who danced like a black cat and belted like a bugle.

I jumped up, grabbed the wooden chair next to me, snatched the bowler hat off Demi’s head, and hit the pose from the
Cabaret
poster: one foot on the seat of the chair, the other leg extended, hat shading my eyes.

“Oh, you’re
perfect
!” Demi cried. “I love you!”

“It’s the best movie.”

“The best. That’s what life is, right? A cabaret.”

“A cabaret.”

We were silent for a moment. I sat back down.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Demi announced.

“Do not.”

“Do, too. Let me tell you.”

“Go for it.”

“You are thinking, where did this hot black boy in a silver shirt come from? Because I have seen that kid at school and he does
not
look anywhere near as good as he looks today.”

“I was thinking about Juliet,” I said. “But that was a close second.”

“Juliet? She’s only fourteen. Don’t waste your energy trying to figure
her
out.”

I laughed.

“I’m biding my time,” said Demi. “That’s the answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Until I can get to New York. I just go to school, do my homework, and wear my invisible straight-boy drag. No one sees me. No one hears me. No one talks to me. That way, no prejudiced, homophobic football player decides to kick the stuffing out of me in the locker room.”

I nodded. Listening to Demi was like sticking my arm in a socket. I felt this jolt of something—joy, kinship, something—that I didn’t remember ever having felt before, not even in tap class.

“That badness happened to me last year when we lived in Michigan, and there is no way I’m letting it happen again,” he went on.

“Got it,” I said. “They won’t hear it here.”

“Okay, then. Enough about me,” said Demi, reaching up and touching my hair under his bowler hat. “Let’s go back to your name.”

“What’s wrong with my name?”

“Sarah? Please.”

“What?”

“Sarahs are dull and mild and small and pretty,” said Demi. “Are you dull and mild and small and pretty?”

I had to admit that I was not. But in Brenton, it had always seemed like a problem.

“No,” he went on. “You are . . . Let me see. You are . . .”

“Tall.”

“Tall. Yes. And full of attitude. And I can’t call you pretty, not with that nose,” he said. “But you are . . . dramatic.”

“Wait, are you disparaging my nose?”

“No, ‘dramatic’ is too basic. You are . . . gawky-sexy. That’s it.”

“I’m what?”

“Gawky-sexy. And that means that you are
not
Sarah.”

Hm.

Demi had already made it clear that he was gay. But still it felt good to have him say those things. Even with the crack about my nose, he seemed to appreciate who I was,
precisely
. Like he really saw me.

With the Lurking Bigness inside.

It was like we fell in love a little, just then. Even though we didn’t.

“You think Frances Gumm was content to go through life with a stupid name like that when all her saucy amazingness was dying to get out?” Demi asked. “No. She changed her name to—”

“Judy Garland,” I interrupted.

“Very good. And what about Norma Jean Baker?”

“Marilyn Monroe.”

“See?” Demi argued. “That’s all the difference in the world. Norma Jean. Marilyn. One is a nice librarian. The other is a sex goddess.”

I still had his bowler hat, so I tilted it rakishly.

“What should my name be?”

“Sarah. Sarah . . .” he mused. “What are the nicknames?”

“I don’t know. Sally. Sarie?”

“No, something more exotic. Serenity. Or Zarah, maybe.”

“Sadie, that’s another one. I like that, actually.”

Demi looked at me appraisingly. “Sadie. That could suit you. Only, you should be Sadye with a
Y
, like Liza with a
Z
.”

“Spell it for me.”

“S-a-d-y-e.”

It sounded dramatic and funny and gawky-sexy. “Okay, that’s it. I’m her,” I said with finality. I pulled my Wildewood application form out of my bag, and found a pen.

Sarah, crossed out. And Sadye, written in.

S
OMEONE OFFICIAL
made an announcement. They would call us into the studio one at a time. We had two minutes for the monologue, sixteen bars for the song, plus a minute for question and answer. At four o’clock we were all to reappear for the dance audition.

Demi went third. He was doing a dramatic monologue from
Top Dog/Underdog
and a song from
Hair
.

Thing was, during the first two auditions we hadn’t been able to hear any sound beyond the dull thump of the piano through the closed door. But when Demi sang, every note came through.

He did “Manchester, England,” the song where Claude fantasizes (or lies) that he’s from Manchester rather than Flushing, New York, because he thinks it sounds better. He calls himself a “genius genius,” and believes in himself so much that he figures even God believes in him.

The song was very Demi, all the way through. Even just knowing him an hour, I could tell. He belted the number out so large that everyone in the hallway shut up and listened. He coasted through the high notes like they were sweet air.

He finished. Then silence through the door, while they asked him questions.

Demi came out and collapsed theatrically on the floor of the hallway.

“You nailed it,” I told him.

“You could hear me?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He glanced at the closed door, through which we could hear nothing besides the thump of the piano on the low notes as the next person sang. “I must be serious loud, then, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Well, loud is good,” said Demi. “Wildewood, here I come, baby.”

F
OR THE NEXT
hour, Demi and I chatted about
Rent
and Brenton High and what we thought Wildewood would be like if we got in—but I wasn’t concentrating anymore. I was panicking. Juliet on the balcony was now not even a fraction of my problem. Because if you had to sing like Demi to get into Wildewood, then I hadn’t a chance.

If you’ve heard the sound track to
Wicked
, you know that “Popular” is performed by a tiny, blond bombshell (Kristin Chenoweth) with an incredible voice that veers from comically nasal to effortlessly high and clear. The song is funny: Galinda, future Glinda the “Good” Witch of the North, is offering a makeover to the homely, green-skinned Elphaba, future Wicked Witch of the West.