Part 6

“I didn’t find it,” Connie said. “I found Linda Lewis, my roommate, which was a good deal easier. She was already living here, and when her roommate got married, she asked me if I’d move in.”

“And how did she find it?” Amy asked.

“Same way,” Connie laughed. “These places get passed along from friend to friend. You could hunt for apartments every day for a year and never even see a place like this. You just have to know somebody, or be lucky. I’d hate to show you the miserable place I lived in before I moved in here.”

“Here” proved to be a spacious room with an extraordinarily high ceiling and a fireplace with a tremendous copper hood. An open stairway mounted up one wall to a landing, then turned a corner and went up again. The only other room downstairs was a kitchen. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a bath.

“That’s the whole house,” Connie explained. “It used to be a carriage house for one of the big places on the street, before all the big places were turned into apartments. Now come on in and meet everybody.”

Linda Lewis, Connie’s roommate, rose from the piano bench to greet the girls. She had apparently been playing until the bell had announced their arrival. Linda was a tall, slim, rather plain girl with a sweet smile who was a music student at Juilliard, considered by most people to be the best music school in the country. She greeted them shyly, and returned to her place at the keyboard, where she began playing quietly, as if to herself.

Pip rose from his seat on the raised hearth of the fireplace to greet them and to introduce them to his companion, a striking woman in her mid-thirties. “This is Mona Downs. She’s in the play, too.”

Before they had a chance to do more than say hello, Connie was introducing them to the last person in the room, a handsome middle-aged man with curly dark hair that had turned completely white at the temples. His name was Thomas Galen, and he, too, was a member of the cast.

“I suppose it’s terribly tactless of me,” Peggy said, “but I don’t mean it that way at all. It’s just that I always thought that these off-Broadway plays were done entirely by students or—or—very young actors and actresses. I mean....”

Mona Downs laughed. “Don’t feel embarrassed to talk about our advanced ages. We aren’t supposed to look like fresh young things!”

Tom Galen smiled in agreement. “We’re here because Randy needed some actors for the more mature parts, and we were lucky enough to be picked. The off-Broadway plays are a good showcase for experienced actors, too, you know. Take me, for instance—I’ve been acting for a good many years now, but I’ve never had any really good vehicles. I’ve made a living on supporting roles and road shows, and I’ve even played some good leads in stock, but somehow I’ve never quite hit it. Maybe I’m not good enough, but on the other hand, I may just not have had the breaks. These off-Broadway shows nowadays are seen by all the top critics in New York, and if I do a good job, and if they like the play, I have a chance to go on to a whole new kind of career. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why Mona is here. Besides, you can’t do a believable show with just young actors.”

“I see,” Peggy nodded. “And I hope you didn’t mind my mentioning it....”

But before Tom Galen or Mona Downs had a chance to reassure her again, the buzzer rang, and they broke off.

“That must be Randy and Mal,” Connie said. “I’ll go get them.”

She pushed the button to unlock the gate, and opened the front door expectantly. A few seconds later, Mal entered with a tall, grinning, engaging-looking young man with flaming red hair. For a moment, everyone seemed to be talking at once. Randy and Mal were apologizing for being late; Connie was saying that they weren’t late at all; Pip was trying to get Randy away to introduce him to Amy and Peggy; Mona and Tom were asking him about the financing he had managed to get for the show, and Linda was playing “Hail the Conquering Hero” in loud, solid chords.

When the initial excitement had died down and the last resounding notes of the piano had quieted, Randy Brewster was introduced to Peggy and Amy by an excited Connie.

“We’re having all the luck today!” she exclaimed. “You come up with the backing for the play, and Pip discovers these two wonderful girls who want to be beasts of burden for the show!”

“The two prettiest beasts in New York, I’m sure,” Randy said with a smile, and Peggy was positive that she was blushing, though she tried her hardest not to. “I’m grateful for your interest,” Randy continued, “and I only hope that we have a chance to use your help.”

“Why, now that you’ve raised the money, isn’t it certain that the play will be produced?” Peggy asked.

“We have a better chance today than we had yesterday,” Randy explained, “but it’s far from a sure thing yet. You see, we have the central problem now of trying to find a theater we can use. And I’m afraid that’s going to prove to be a harder job than raising the money, or even than writing the play in the first place.”

“Mal and Pip and Connie mentioned the problem of finding a theater a few times today,” Peggy said, “but I didn’t know it was as serious as all that. Why should there be such a shortage?”

“For a lot of reasons,” Randy answered. “And there’s a shortage even on Broadway—maybe even a worse one. Forty years ago, there were more than twice the number of theaters in New York than there are now, and every year we lose a few more. One reason is the fire laws that make it illegal to have a theater with anything built over it. In other words, you can’t have a Broadway theater on the lower floors of an office building; and with real-estate values as high as they are in Manhattan, it just isn’t profitable to use up all the space a theater takes without building high up as well. Off-Broadway rules are a little easier, but the downtown theater has become so popular that everybody and his brother wants to put on a play off-Broadway, and all the available theaters are booked way in advance. Not only that, but dramatic groups have rented almost all the places that can be converted to theaters, and there don’t seem to be any left for us.” Then, breaking his serious expression with a sudden grin, he said, “But don’t let it worry you. I’m trusting to luck that we’ll find something.”

“I hope luck does it,” Peggy said doubtfully, “but I’d prefer to trust in something a little more trustworthy!”

“If you have any ideas, I’ll be happy to hear them,” Randy said, “but right now, we’d better get on with this evening’s meeting and reading. I’ll talk to you over sandwiches and coffee afterward, if you like.”

Peggy delightedly accepted, then found herself a seat with Amy out of the way to watch the proceedings.

First, Randy told the assembled group about the investment in the play, and about his hopes for the small remaining amount they would need. Then, having completed his report, he turned the evening over to Mallory Seton, who immediately began the readings with an authority and toughness that went well with his rugged face.

Peggy observed carefully how Mal would interrupt one or another of the actors, acting out a line for him or her, or asking for a somewhat different emphasis. Sometimes a small change in timing or inflection would turn an ordinary line into an unexpectedly comic one, and Peggy and Amy laughed aloud several times.

Randy followed with his master script, every so often stopping the action to make a change in dialogue. “Sometimes a thing sounds fine when you write it, but it just doesn’t read well,” he explained. “That’s one of the main purposes of these early readings—to let me have a chance to hear what I’ve written and see if it plays.”

Other changes were made at the suggestion of one or another of the cast, who found a line unnatural to say, or somehow uncomfortable or out of character. Randy listened to every suggestion, and took most of them, but on one or two occasions he insisted that the actors accommodate themselves to what he had written.

Peggy was fascinated by the whole process, and particularly appreciated the air of good will with which changes in script, style of reading, and interpretation of character were made. This was a company of willing, hard-working friends, and they were already molding the play in a joint effort. She was sure that they would be successful.

At last the readings for the evening were completed, and people started to say good night. Randy brought Mal with him and said, “Why don’t you come along for coffee and a sandwich with us? Peggy seems to have some ideas about the theater problem.”

“Oh, no!” Peggy disclaimed. “Not really! I was just wondering if—”

“Let’s wonder over coffee,” Mal cut in. “Come on, Amy. Let them talk about the theater, and we can talk about you!”

A few blocks’ walk brought the four of them to a coffee shop where, seated around a tiny marble-topped table, they studied the menu. To Peggy and Amy it was a revelation. There were over twenty kinds of coffee offered, most of which they had never heard of, plus dozens of exotic pastries and sandwiches. They finally settled, on Randy’s advice, on _cappuccino_, which proved to be coffee flavored with cinnamon and topped with a froth of milk, and which was perfectly delicious. With it, they had an assortment of _amaretti_—hard, sweet Italian macaroons that came wrapped in gaily decorated tissues, and cornetti—pastry horns filled with some creamy whip.

“Now,” Randy said, when they were all served, “what did you have in mind about a theater for us?”

“Well, nothing at the moment,” Peggy admitted, “but I’m against the idea of just trusting to luck, the way you said you were going to do. It seems to me that some hard looking would get better results.”

“I agree, and I have been looking,” Randy replied. “We have our names on the waiting lists of every known off-Broadway theater in the city, and I call regularly just to remind them that we’re serious about it.”

“Have you been looking around for a place that you might convert to a theater, too?” Peggy asked.

“We gave up on that. We found that it would cost too much to do a decent conversion, and not only that, but we’d be in the real-estate business as well as the play-producing business, and we don’t want that.”

Peggy nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Well, how about all the theaters that you said used to be in existence forty years ago? What’s happened to all of them? Maybe some of them are just sitting around and not being used.”

“Oh, they’re being used!” Randy laughed. “They’re being used as movie houses and television studios and ice-skating rinks and churches and even supermarkets.”

“Have you looked at them all?” Peggy pursued.

“Well....” Randy said, “maybe not all, but....”

“Then that’s what I’m going to do for you first!” Peggy announced with determination. “I’ll go look at them all, and maybe I can find some usable place. At least, I’m willing to try.”

“But, Peggy,” Mal put in, “you don’t know anything about New York at all! It’s not like Rockport, Wisconsin. It takes a lot of looking, and you have to know where to look. How will you start?”

“I don’t know just yet,” Peggy answered, “but I’ll think of a way. I used to help out as a reporter on my father’s newspaper, and I’m used to digging up facts. If there’s an empty theater in New York City, I’ll bet I know about it in a couple of weeks. If there isn’t one, I’ll know that too, and at least that will save the rest of you all the trouble of looking.”

Randy looked a little doubtful. “I’m sure that you mean what you say, and I don’t doubt that you can get things done as well as any of us, Peggy, but as Mal said, New York isn’t Rockport. And I don’t mean just that it’s bigger. It’s not a—well, a _nice_ city in every part. And a search like this can lead you into some pretty tough parts of town.”

“Oh, pooh!” Peggy said. “In the last two weeks, I’ll bet Amy and I have walked around more of New York than either of you has in the last two years! And that included some pretty tough-looking neighborhoods, and nobody bothered us, and everybody was very nice. I think that’s a lot of nonsense! Besides, we’re big girls, and we can take care of ourselves by now.”

“We certainly can,” Amy agreed. “And I plan to go, too, just the way I’ve dragged my aching feet after Peggy for two weeks now. That girl can cover more territory in a morning than a Tennessee Walking Horse can manage in a whole day!”

“Well, if you really want to try, it’s okay with me,” Randy said. “And I’m grateful to you for wanting to. If you need any help along the way, be sure to ask for it.”

“You can start by giving me a list of all the places you’ve gone to, so I won’t waste my time, and I’ll take it from there.”

Randy promised to bring the list to the Academy the next day, at which time, if it was okay with Peggy and Amy, he would like to join them for lunch. Then their interest turned to other things, including more coffee for the girls and another huge sandwich to be split between the boys.

By the time they had finished and walked to the Gramercy Arms, it was nearly midnight. Peggy and Amy whispered quiet good nights on the stairs, and hurried up to bed. Tomorrow was school again, and they needed all the sleep they could get.

X _Peggy Produces a Plot_

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; a peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked; if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?”

“A perfect peck of pickled peppers, Peggy,” said Miss Linden, the elocution instructor, “except that you picked them a trifle too quickly. That’s the big temptation of tongue twisters; you always want to show that you can rip them out at great speed without making a mistake. What I want you to do this time is to say the same thing, but to concentrate on a normal rate of delivery that will allow your voice to carry to the rear of a hall without becoming blurred. Distance, you know, tends to make sounds run together. Now, Peggy, if you don’t mind....”

More slowly this time, and concentrating on making her words reach the back of some huge, imaginary hall, Peggy once more spoke the tongue twister.

“Much better. Much better,” Miss Linden approved. “Now, John, will you please read ‘round and round the rugged rock the ragged rascals ran,’ and try to read it as if it had a meaning, as if those ragged rascals were at the end of their endurance, as if you were one of them, almost. Make the words clear, project them, and at the same time give me a note of urgency and a feeling of near-exhaustion.”

John, a handsome boy whom Peggy had already judged vain and stupid and who, she suspected, had gone into acting on the strength of his appearance, struggled with the assignment. Peggy tried to maintain an interest in what he was doing, but her mind was on her coming lunch meeting with Randy Brewster.

What on earth was she going to suggest? Why had she volunteered to undertake the search for a theater with such confidence? It had been bothering her since she had awakened this morning, and the more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that she would come up with an idea worth pursuing. Still, there must be some angle that Randy and Mal hadn’t thought of, some idea that would occur to her, with her reporter’s training, that had escaped them. That all sounded very good, she commented to herself, but what was the angle? Miss Linden’s tongue twisters were child’s play compared to this puzzle.

Before her turn came to read again, it was time for the elocution class to end and time to go, empty-headed, to meet Randy. Peggy had never in her life felt so stupid, nor so embarrassed, for having made the boast last night that she could find what they had missed.

Amy, sensing the reason for Peggy’s gloomy silence, didn’t question her about it. Without a word, the two girls moved through the crowded corridor to the elevators, rode downstairs, and stationed themselves at the front door. Finally Peggy spoke.

“Oh, Amy, I hope he doesn’t think I’m a complete fool! I like him so much, and I’ve made him take this special trip to bring me his list of theaters, and if I don’t come up with an idea that makes sense, I won’t blame him for thinking I’m a dope!”

“Are you trying to find a theater or a boy friend?” Amy asked with a sly smile.

Blushing, Peggy stammered, “Why, Amy, I ... I just met him last night ... the same as you ... and ... Oh dear! Here he comes now, and I look like an embarrassed lobster!”

“Don’t worry,” Amy said with a laugh, “with his red hair and your red face, you make a lovely couple!”

Before Peggy could answer, Randy had reached them and either did not notice, or gallantly pretended not to notice Peggy’s confusion. He greeted them with a smile, and gaily waved a large paper bag.

“I took the liberty of ordering for you, ladies,” he announced in the manner of a musical-comedy headwaiter. “The caviar, _pâté de foie gras_, and pheasant under glass are not of the best quality today, so I decided instead to get ham on rye, pickles, and potato chips. I also have two cartons of milk of a superior vintage. We dine on the terrace by the lake.”

In the laughter, Peggy regained her self-possession, and the three of them started for the park where, Randy told them, they would be joined by Pip and Connie.

At the mention of Pip, Amy said, “I was wondering how, with a name like Peter Piper, Pip ever got through that tongue-twister stuff. It must have been terrible for him!”

“Ask him to do it for you sometime,” Randy replied. “He’s learned that the best defense is a good offense, so long before he came to the Academy he had that one perfected. He can do Peter Piper in any accent or dialect you ask, and can even do it in a rapid-fire stutter! It’s funny enough so that nobody ever kidded him about it. In fact, he’s got it worked up into part of a first-rate comedy bit.”

On their arrival at the lawn by the lake, they found that Randy had brought a large paper table-cloth and some oversized paper napkins for the girls to sit on. As she helped set out the lunch, Peggy was impressed by this extra display of thoughtfulness, and felt that she had been right in thinking Randy Brewster was a special kind of person. She had just finished setting the “table” when Connie and Pip joined them and added their own lunches to the spread.

When they were all settled comfortably, Randy opened the conversation with the question that Peggy had been fearing all morning. “Well, Peggy, I brought the list of theaters we’ve seen, and now will you tell us what you have in mind?”

Much to her surprise, Peggy found herself answering as smoothly as if she had known all along what she was going to do. “The first thing,” she said, “is to make use of all the city records. Since a license is required to operate a theater, there must be a list of all the places in the city that have been licensed. I’m going to go to City Hall, find the list, and copy the names and addresses of every theater that has been opened in the last fifty or sixty years.”

“Are you sure the city will let you see the records?” Connie asked.

“Of course,” Peggy answered. “They have to. Anything in the city files that doesn’t concern individuals is a matter of public record. I learned that from my father. He always said that the city or town archives of any place were the best reference books a reporter could want.”

“I think that makes good sense, Peggy,” Randy commented. “But it’s going to be a long list. What are you going to do when you’ve got it?”

“I’m not sure,” Peggy admitted, “but I think the best thing to do would be to cut the list down before I start to work with it.”

“I see,” Randy said. “That’s why you wanted the list of theaters we’ve already visited, so you could eliminate them.”

“Right. The next thing to do, I think,” Peggy went on, with a dreamlike feeling that she did not know at all what she was going to say next, “is to look up theaters in the classified telephone book. All the ones that are listed, I’ll eliminate from my list, on the theory that they’re probably being used by somebody right now.”

“Peggy, you’re a smart girl,” Pip said admiringly.

“You sure are,” Connie echoed.

“I won’t dispute that,” Randy agreed, “but I’m still a little puzzled. When you’ve eliminated all the theaters listed in the phone book from the theaters listed by the license bureau, what will you have?”

“What I’ll have,” Peggy said triumphantly, “is a record of all the places in New York that started out to be theaters and aren’t theaters now!”

“Wonderful!” Amy said. “Then you and I will go to visit all the addresses and see if any of the places aren’t being used, and if they’re for rent!”

“It makes a lot of sense,” Randy admitted. “But you know, it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of walking. And disappointment, too. You won’t be able to find even a trace of many of those theaters.”

“On the other hand,” Peggy answered, “we may be able to find a hidden theater that nobody even knows is there! And wouldn’t that be grand?”

“I can see it all now,” Pip said in a hollow voice. “A huge, haunted opera house of a theater, its hangings in tatters, its chandeliers covered with dust and its stage peopled by the ghosts of players long gone! There it sits, undiscovered, unknown, hiding behind a Chinese restaurant just a block east of Broadway!”

“Don’t tease her, Pip,” Randy said. “I think Peggy has a good idea, and it would be a pity to discourage her before she gives it a try. Maybe she won’t find a theater, but at least this is the most sensible way I’ve heard of yet to start looking for one.”

A little shamefaced, Pip said, “I didn’t mean to tease. You know me; I always want to turn everything into a comedy routine. But, seriously, I think this makes sense and, Peggy, if you need any help in tracking down places, you can count on me!”

All the others chimed in their agreement, and Peggy thought proudly, and with some surprise, that she had gotten herself out of a spot quite well. At least Randy didn’t think she was a fool, and that was something to be pleased about.

When lunch was finished, and the last crumbs had been fed to the ducks, it was time to return to the Academy. Peggy said good-by to Randy and went up to her afternoon’s work.

Only by dint of the most intense concentration on the study of Elizabethan drama did Peggy keep her attention from the theater-hunting problem. But the minute the class was ended, all other thoughts fled from her mind. “Come on, Amy!” she said. “I’m heading for City Hall right now!”

“I’m sorry, Peggy,” Amy said, “but you’ll have to count me out today. I didn’t know that you’d have any plans, so I made a date to have a soda with Mallory Seton. I’ll go with you tomorrow, though.”

“And you accused _me_ of looking for a boy friend instead of a theater!” Peggy said with a grin. “If anybody around here should blush, I think it’s you, Amy Shelby Preston!”

“Why, Ah don’t know what yo’ talkin’ about!” Amy said, in her best Southern belle manner. “Mistah Seton asked me to join him, an’ Ah scarcely thought it would be ladylike to refuse the gentleman!”

Then both girls dissolved into very unladylike giggles, and Peggy made a dash for the elevator. “See you tonight,” she called.

XI _Rehearsals_

“So. ’Ow marches the search for the theater, Peggee?” Gaby asked, bouncing into the living room at the Gramercy Arms.