Part 5

“I think I must be a twenty-four-hour person.” Dot laughed. “I work on stage until eleven-fifteen, but it doesn’t keep me from getting up as if I were on a farm. I have to, though. I have a busy day. We rehearse three days a week, just to keep the chorus work tight, and I have special rehearsals for my understudy part. It keeps me going nearly every day from nine in the morning until after midnight, but I seem to thrive on it.”

Greta left for her office, to put in a day of script editing (whatever that is, Peggy thought), Irene went upstairs to “put herself together” for a photo shooting to take place later in the morning, and Maggie went off to a rehearsal studio to practice her stretches and scales. Amy and Peggy sat alone in the kitchen.

“What shall we do?” Peggy asked. “I feel so useless having no program, and we sure can’t spend the day sitting here in the kitchen.”

“Why don’t we go out for a walk, and learn something about the neighborhood?” Amy suggested.

“Good! In fact, why don’t we find a sight-seeing bus and take a ride around the city? My father said—”

“So did mine!” Amy interrupted.

“We get more alike every minute!” Peggy said, grinning. “Let’s go up, put our things away, and go out to learn all about New York.”

Later that afternoon, sipping her first cup of Automat coffee, Peggy slipped her shoes off under the table and sighed, “I certainly had a lot to learn when I said we’d go out and learn all about New York! My feet are killing me, and we haven’t even begun to see the city!”

“We saw a lot, though,” Amy replied thoughtfully. “We saw Chinatown and Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side and Riverside Drive and Park Avenue and Central Park and Sutton Place and....”

“And neither of us could find our way back to any one of them unless we took a sight-seeing bus again!” Peggy said. “Why, we’ve hardly begun! I’ve been checking off where we’ve been on my city map and guidebook, and we haven’t seen anything but the sights the guides think are picturesque! I saw loads of places that we just shot by that I’d love to go back and explore when we have time; and the guidebook lists hundreds of things that we didn’t even come near! Did you know that there are Italian street festivals, and an Indian mosque, and a Spanish museum, and shops that sell nothing but cheeses from every country in the world, and an Armenian district, and a Greek one, and Russian restaurants, and Japanese, and French and German and Turkish and Mexican and....” She ran out of breath and stopped, eyes shining with excitement.

“My goodness!” Amy said. “You make it sound like a World’s Fair!”

“It is. It’s the biggest permanent World’s Fair anywhere, and we have a chance to see it without anything to take our minds off it from now until school starts!”

“Your energy just scares me,” Amy said in a make-believe little-girl voice, accentuating her Southern drawl. “Ah’m afraid you’ll just have to carry li’l ol’ me.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do the carrying,” Peggy retorted, “unless I can get these shoes back on! I think all the walking we’ve done has made my feet three sizes larger!”

Sensibly, they finished the day’s excursion with a Fifth Avenue bus ride downtown.

The next few days until the Academy opened were a round of sight-seeing, eating exotic foods in the restaurants of many lands that Peggy had only started to enumerate, and shopping in the famous stores.

The shopping expeditions were among the most exciting things that Peggy and Amy did. The huge stores, crammed with merchandise from all over the world, were like nothing that they had ever seen before. Even the afternoon that Peggy had spent window-shopping with her mother had failed to prepare her for the size and complexity of these shops. Everywhere were rows on rows of dresses, coats, skirts, blouses, robes, and gowns. Counters and showcases displayed incredible arrays of lingerie, purses, shoes, gloves, scarves, and other accessories. And everywhere, at every time of day, the crowds of shoppers clustered as thick as bees around a hive.

Beautifully dressed women in furs walked side by side with trim young secretaries and vied with them for bargains at sales counters. Embarrassed men sidled past lingerie departments in search of gifts for their wives and sweethearts; short, stout women admired dresses designed for tall, slim models; elderly ladies tried on hat after hat, each one looking less suitable than the last; girls sprayed themselves with perfume at the cosmetic counters, or stood and watched demonstrators at work. One demonstrator who especially fascinated Peggy was a beautiful girl with long blond hair, who was showing a new hairstyling spray. She would spray it on, and with a few expert flips of a comb, create a hairdo; then, combing it out again, she would quickly arrange it in a different style. Each one took her only a minute or so to make perfect, then, out it would come, more spray would be applied, and another coiffure would be combed in. Peggy wondered how she wore it when it was time to go home at night. Probably pulled back in a bun, she thought.

These shopping tours represented diversion as much as necessity, though in the course of visiting all the stores, the girls did buy what they needed. Peggy got several dresses, some skirts and sweaters, a new coat, shoes, bag, and a hat. Also, on Amy’s advice, she bought some school things that would be suitable for stage work, plus a leotard, tights and ballet shoes that Mr. Macaulay’s secretary had told her she would need.

When neither girl could think of anything else that she needed to buy, the temptation to revisit the stores just to see things was still great.

“We’d better not, though,” Peggy said sensibly. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to resist temptation, and I’ve just about used up all my clothing allowance. Let’s visit some museums next.”

“Oh dear,” Amy sighed. “I suppose it’s a good idea, all right, but I just wish school would hurry up and start. I’m afraid I’m going to get indigestion from swallowing all of New York in one big gulp!”

So did Peggy, but museums were on her “little list,” and museums it would be. Besides, she knew that once school began, she would have little time for anything else.

So the guidebook came out once more, together with the flat walking shoes. But, though their time was spent in museums, their minds were in the future, and their talk was of nothing but the Academy, which was due to open in a few short days.

VIII _First Act_

Peggy and Amy thought they had arrived early for opening day at the New York Dramatic Academy, but when they entered the old building, they found the long hallway filled to capacity with students waiting their turn on the ancient elevators.

Some obviously new students milled around aimlessly, looking somewhat lost and more than a little frightened. Peggy wondered if she and Amy looked the same, and made a determined effort to appear at ease and knowing. But her pose couldn’t have been very convincing, for a small, thin boy with huge glasses and a shock of black hair came over to them with a grin and said, “You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Why, yes,” Peggy answered. “Do we show it?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” he assured them earnestly. “You look just fine. It’s just that I’ve been here two years, and I know everyone. I’m Pete Piper, but everyone calls me Pip. I just thought I’d help lead you through the maze, if you’d like.”

Peggy and Amy introduced themselves, and thanked Pip for his help.

“Oh, don’t thank me,” he said. “Everybody does it. Whenever we see new students on the first day, the old-timers introduce themselves and offer to help. It’s kind of a custom.”

Looking around, Peggy noticed that the “lost lambs” she had first seen were by now in conversation with other, older students, and all of them looked a good deal more relaxed.

“I think it’s a lovely custom,” Amy said. “It makes our Southern Hospitality look right cold by comparison!”

By this time, it was their turn at the elevator doors, which suddenly flew open with their usual wail of protest. Peggy, Amy, and Pip were almost carried in, with no need to walk at all, by the mass of students around them, and soon were packed as tight as berries in a basket. Protesting loudly, the elevator slowly ascended.

Upstairs, the halls which had been nearly empty when Peggy had last seen them were now swarming with students. The ones who seemed to know where they were going swirled and eddied around others who looked around doubtfully and hesitated to go anywhere.

Pip shook his head and said, “More waifs and strays up here, I see. I’ll set you on your way, and then gather up a new crop. You just go right into the little theater—ahead of you, through those doors—and take seats. From there on, you’ll be told what to do and where to go. I’ll see you around.”

He started off to gather a new group of first-term students, but before he had taken more than three steps, he was back again. “Let’s have lunch together with some of the others,” he said. “That okay with you?”

“We’d love to,” the girls chorused.

“Good. Meet you downstairs in front of the building at twelve. S’long!”

Feeling no longer lost, but already a part of their new school community, Peggy and Amy proceeded into the little theater, found seats near the front, and started to introduce themselves to the other new students nearest them. The exchange of names, home towns, impressions, and ambitions occupied the next fifteen minutes or more until the dimming of the house lights and the illumination of the stage brought a hush to the small auditorium.

The last few whispers died when Mr. Macaulay walked to stage center, bowed formally to the right, the left and the center, and then unexpectedly sat down on the apron of the stage with his legs dangling.

“The bows were your formal welcome to the Academy, and I hope they take the place of a speech,” Mr. Macaulay began. “I hate speeches. From now on, we’re going to be informal and friendly, because that’s the only atmosphere in which people can get any work done. And you have a lot of work to do. You will have physical work in which you will learn to walk, to move, to dance a little, to stand up and to sit down. You may think you already know how to do these things, but you probably don’t.

“You will have mental work,” he went on, “in which you will learn how to read a play, how to understand the motivation of a character and his relationship to the other characters. You will learn elocution, voice projection, and a dozen other things that have to do with speaking lines. You will learn the history of the theater, become familiar with the classic plays, and learn something about stage design and construction. In this last area, you will pick up the practical craft of making flats, painting scenery, and wiring lighting—a type of pedestrian work that has occupied the time of nearly every actor before he was allowed to appear even in a walk-on role.

“And last, and perhaps most important,” Mr. Macaulay concluded, “you will learn that the informality and friendliness of the theater must not be mistaken for lack of discipline; in short, you will learn how to take direction!”

Still seated on the edge of the stage, Mr. Macaulay called out his staff of instructors one by one, introduced each to the students, and gave a short history of each one’s background and qualifications for his or her work. All were seasoned professionals, and were very impressive to the students.

Mr. Macaulay also explained that leading performers from the Broadway stage, movies, and television would make regular guest appearances at the Academy, as would outstanding directors, choreographers, designers, and playwrights. The size of the staff, in effect, was unlimited.

After this, the individual instructors spoke, each saying a few words about his specialty and what he hoped to achieve in his course. Each one, it seemed to Peggy, opened up whole new areas of knowledge for her, until at the end she felt that she knew absolutely nothing at all, and wondered how she could ever have thought of herself as an actress. This was going to take a lot of work!

After the meeting, the rest of the morning was spent in the routine of registration, getting class cards, finding out where the rooms were, getting locker assignments and book lists and, bit by bit, eliminating the first sense of confusion.

Peggy and Amy, happily, were registered in the same class, and went together through the busy morning. Before they knew it, it was time for lunch with Pip Piper and “some of the others.”

The others proved to be Connie Barnes, a cheerful comedienne who managed to be wonderfully attractive without being in the least pretty, and a dark, muscular, tough-looking young man with a face like either a private detective or a gangster in a grade-B movie, who was introduced by Pip as Mallory Seton.

Much to Peggy’s surprise, when he spoke it was not at all the tough, New York sound she had expected, but a quiet, cultured English accent. “Call me Mal,” he said. “Mallory’s rather a mouthful, isn’t it? At least, it seems so here. At home, they used to call me ‘Mallory John’ all the time, so as not to confuse me with my father, who is named ‘Mallory Peter,’ but I can’t imagine anyone in America doing that. If I’d been brought up here, I’d probably have been called ‘Bud.’”

Following Pip, the students walked around the corner to stop in front of a narrow delicatessen store. The sign on the window said, “Tables in the rear,” but Peggy could see from the crowd that clustered at the counter that there would be no chance of getting one. And besides, the place didn’t look wide enough to hold a table that would seat the five of them.

“Oh dear,” she said, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eat here, there are so many of us. Perhaps if Amy and I went somewhere else, you three would have a chance? We don’t want to make it difficult for you—”

“Don’t be silly,” Pip cut in. “We didn’t expect to get a table here. You’re lucky if you can get a seat at the counter for one, much less a table for more than one. We’re going to buy sandwiches here and take them to the park.”

Whipping out a notebook, Pip started to take orders and money, with frequent reference to the menu pasted to the delicatessen window. Then he plunged into the place and, in less time than Peggy thought possible, was back with a giant bag full of sandwiches and cold, bottled drinks.

It was only two blocks to the southern boundary of Central Park, and once they had crossed Fifty-ninth Street and stepped into the tree-shaded, winding footpath, the city seemed to disappear behind them as if it had never been. At the foot of the first gentle hill, there was a small lake bordered by a bench-lined path. There were some empty benches, but Pip ignored them.

“If you don’t mind walking a little farther,” he said, “we have a favorite spot on the opposite shore, where hardly anyone ever comes.”

The path brought them across a small arched footbridge, through a thick copse, and out alongside a broad lawn which ran down to the lake’s shore. It was here that they chose to eat, sitting on the grass.

“Now that we’re comfortably settled,” Mal said, “I have some great news for you, but first I think we ought to tell Peggy and Amy what we’re talking about, so they won’t feel left out of the conversation. Connie, you tell them about the play.”

“Just a minute, Connie,” Pip interrupted. Then he turned to the newcomers. “Do you know what the term ‘Off-Broadway’ means?”

“Why, yes, I think so,” Peggy replied. “It means you’re not using one of the regular, big theaters, and you charge less admission, and—”

“More than that,” Pip broke in. “It’s generally an experimental group—though that doesn’t mean necessarily that it’s amateur, and one thing you can be sure of—it never has enough money. Everybody has to do a little of everything. Now go on, Connie.”

“Well, the three of us are in that kind of group,” Connie started, “and we’re trying to produce a play off-Broadway. We’ve been working at it for about six months now, trying to raise the money and get a theater and do all the rest of the work that goes into these things. The play is called _Lullaby_, and it’s terrific, or it will be if it ever gets produced. Mal’s going to direct it, and I’m already cast as the comedienne, and Pip plays opposite me. There are a few more of us in it too, of course, and there’s Randy Brewster, who wrote it and is producing it. But I want to hear the great news before I talk any more. What is it, Mal?”

“I don’t want it to be a shock,” Mal said, “so I’ll say it very slowly. Randy has raised almost all the money we need, and he’ll have the rest in a few days. It looks as if we’re actually going to get this on the boards this season—if we can find a theater for it!”

“Wonderful!” Connie breathed.

“Wow!” Pip exploded.

“But where did he get the money? What happened? Do you know?” Connie asked.

“You remember the reading we did at that Park Avenue penthouse a couple of months ago?” Mal asked. “The one where all the people seemed so cold and hostile, and we felt that we had made a miserable botch of it?”

“Don’t tell me!” Connie said.

“All right,” Mal said, his tough features composing themselves into a broad grin, “I won’t.”

“It’s only an Americanism, Mal,” Pip said eagerly, “and it means ‘tell me.’”

“Oh, I would never have guessed,” Mal said innocently. “Well, that was the reading that did it. Actually, those penthouse people weren’t hostile at all. It’s just what they consider good manners or something. Anyway, several of them came through, and we have almost all we need to put the play on. And Randy says that once you have most of the money, it gives other investors confidence, and they come along, too.”

“How much do you need?” Peggy asked. “I shouldn’t think it would take so very much to do an off-Broadway play.”

“Those were the good old days,” Pip said mournfully. “Nowadays you need at least ten thousand dollars, which is still practically nothing compared to what it costs to put a show on Broadway. You have to pay high rent for theaters now, if you can find one at all, and you have to spend money on costumes and sets, because the public expects more from off-Broadway than they used to. And you have to pay your actors, or else Equity, which is the actors’ union, won’t let you open. And you have to advertise, and print tickets, and pay for lighting equipment and a hundred other things. It all adds up to a lot of cash.”

“Will the backers have a chance of making money?” Amy asked.

“Well, it all depends on the type of theater we can find, and on the critical reviews of the play,” Mal explained. “If the reviews are good, and if the theater holds enough people, and if they keep coming for long enough, there’s a chance. If any one of those factors is lacking, then there isn’t a chance.”

“What’s the play about?” Peggy asked.

Connie frowned and said, “That’s kind of hard to answer. It’s a comedy, but at the same time it’s a serious play. I mean it’s serious in what it talks about, but funny in the way it says it. It’s mostly about a boy genius—”

“That’s me!” Pip interrupted.

“—who feels that the only way to get along in the world is not to let people know how smart he is, because people are jealous and suspicious of people who are too smart. He meets a girl genius—that’s me—who has come to the same conclusion. Both of them try to act like ordinary people, and to adjust to the world, because everybody says it’s best to conform and be just like everybody else—”

“And one of the main problems is that neither one of them wants to let the other one know that he or she is any different,” Pip interrupted, “and that leads to a lot of misunderstanding and—”

“And a lot of serious discussion under the comedy,” Mal said, “about whether or not conformity is any good, and what to do with outstanding people, and how they can be educated, and how to use them properly in the world. It’s a really first-rate play.”

“It sounds wonderful!” Peggy said. “Has this Randy Brewster written any other plays? Who is he?”

“Randy has written lots of others,” Mal answered, “but this is the first one that looks as if it’s going to be produced. He’s a good playwright, and I think he’s going to be a success. At least I hope so, because if the play is well received, we all have a chance of success too.”

“What does he do besides write plays?” asked Amy.

“He’s a dancer and a singer,” Connie said. “He’s been working in night clubs and on television, and he’s good, but he has a real talent as a writer, and we all agree that he’s wasted as just another song-and-dance man. If you want to see him, you can tune in to your television set on Saturday night. He’s got a spot on the Road Show hour.”

“I haven’t got a television set,” Peggy answered, “though I guess I could find one to watch, but I’d like to do more than look in on this via TV. Is there anything I could do to help with the show?”

“Well....” Mal began doubtfully, “we’re almost all cast for it now, and the few parts that are open aren’t exactly your type—”

“Oh, no!” Peggy said. “I didn’t mean to ask for a part! Why, I’m just beginning here, and I don’t think I’d be good enough at all! No, I meant that if you need an extra pair of hands to make costumes, or to paint flats or to sell space in the theater program, I’m volunteering. I’ll run errands, or—”

“Me, too!” Amy put in. “Can you use a pair of maids-of-all-work?”

“We sure can!” Connie said eagerly. “That’s the hardest kind of people to find. I’m certainly glad that Pip thought to ask you two to lunch!”

Mal looked quite relieved to find that he was not to be put in the position of having to refuse more actresses. Since word about the project had first gotten out around the Academy, he had been besieged with students who wanted to be in it, and the work of casting and at the same time not hurting the feelings of friends had been pretty difficult.

As they strolled back to the Academy, Mal told the girls that there was to be a meeting of the theater group that evening at Connie’s apartment, and invited them to attend. “I know that everybody will be glad to meet you, and you’ll get a chance to read the play and to find out what we’re up against in trying to produce it.”

After leaving their new friends in the school corridor, Amy and Peggy went off to their first elocution class, feeling as if they were really a part of the Academy and the new life around them, and looking forward eagerly to the meeting at Connie’s that night.

IX _Theater Party_

Connie’s apartment was not the easiest place to find, but she had given detailed instructions, even to drawing a little map on a paper napkin, and after only a few wrong turnings, Peggy and Amy found themselves that night at a low pink door set in a high brick wall on a winding street in Greenwich Village. They pushed the button marked “Barnes-Lewis,” and soon an answering buzz let them know that the door was unlocked.

Pushing it open, they entered, not a house, but a narrow alley between two buildings. Along one wall was a bed of flowers and green borders, and hidden among them were small floodlights which gave a gentle, guiding glow. At its end, the alley opened into a little courtyard with a small fountain and a statue of a nymph surrounded by canvas lawn chairs. Fronting on it was an old, low, white-brick house, its door opened wide. Connie came out to greet them.

“I see you didn’t have any trouble finding our hideaway,” she said. “I must be a good map-maker.”

Tactfully refraining from telling her about the wrong turns, Peggy and Amy agreed with her.

“What a wonderful place you have here!” Peggy said. “However did you find it?”