When the messenger brought the script the next day, Jeremy ripped off the envelope to get at it as soon as possible.
He spread the envelope’s contents across Max’s coffee table. Max was at work, which gave Jeremy full run of the place, so he sat on the floor to look at everything he’d received. There was a script. There was sheet music for Benjamin’s songs, plus a copy of the complete score. He picked up the score first and looked at the contents. Twenty-four songs in all, if one counted the reprises. Benjamin sang in more than half of them.
A page fell out of the score and slid to the floor. He picked it up. A summary of the show.
What he learned made his heart pound. See the Light was a story about closeted teen Benjamin. The show opened not with a big overture, but with Benjamin walking out onstage by himself. He then sang the “I Am” song, explaining that he’s worked out that he’s gay but is afraid to tell anyone.
Jeremy was already excited.
The musical played around with structure, having a big musical number that seemed a lot like an overture happen after that opening song, probably to allow some actors to get into position. There was also a note in the synopsis that all of the songs were fantasy sequences, like in a Kander and Ebb show—Chicago or Cabaret, for example—in that they were relevant to the show but not fully integrated into the plot. And since the show was mostly told from Benjamin’s point of view, he sang in almost every number, often by stepping to the side of the action to explain something to the audience through song.
The catalyst for change in the show was a school shooting, depicted in a montage involving lights, percussion, and the ensemble in a choreographed modern dance number.
Jeremy put the paper down. He’d never experienced a school shooting, but given how prevalent they’d been in the news lately, this felt like a timely plot point, and something altogether too plausible. He could also see how the musical would play out: each of the characters that had been introduced so far would have to deal with the fallout in a different way.
But the main focus was Benjamin. He was so shaken by the shooting that he resolved to change his mundane life. By the end of Act I, he came out of the closet.
Act II was about the fallout both from the shooting—Benjamin’s best friend, Julie, became an activist—and from Benjamin coming out. A classmate became a love interest. The climax happened in a march on the state capital, in which the legislature decided to pass a gun control law the students were fighting for. If only real life were that easy. Afterward, Benjamin and his love interest, Austin, shared a sweet kiss. Then there was a big finale song that pulled together themes from the bigger showstoppers in the musical.
That much singing was intimidating. Jeremy thumbed through the score and saw that some of the songs had some challenging phrasing. The composer, Mark Taupin, was relatively young, but his success scoring movies, including a recent Oscar winner and a well-regarded animated movie, meant he had some cachet. He definitely had the chops.
Jeremy could see his influences right away. Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim were clear lyrical inspirations, given how the composer had paired complicated musical and verbal phrasing. There were what seemed like a few big showstopping ballads, too, and that was where the real power of the show was. Musicals lived and died by the music, by how catchy the songs were, how singable they were. There should have been at least one big song that teenagers could belt out at talent shows, like “Memories” or “Defying Gravity” or “Let It Go,” a signature song for the show. And the show should have a whole song list people could sing along with.
The score looked good, but Jeremy wasn’t the strongest sight reader, so he’d know better once rehearsals started whether this show had the kinds of songs high school theater nerds would randomly belt out in the halls.
Nothing against theater nerds; Jeremy had been one once, after all.
Jeremy spread everything out on the coffee table again. “Can I do this?” he asked the empty room. He swallowed, tried to shore up his confidence. “I can do this.”
“I can do this.”
When Max came home, he found Jeremy laying on the floor again. “Are you dead?”
“No,” Jeremy said.
“Is this going to happen every night? And were you aware that there’s a perfectly good sofa to lay on right there.”
“Yeah. I was just...” Jeremy sat up, then pressed a hand to his forehead. “I’m fine. I’m good, even. I was just going over the script and the score and everything, and I got overwhelmed.”
Jeremy’s light brown hair was adorably mussed at the back, but he rubbed it to get it to fall back into place. Max put his things on the kitchen counter and walked into the living room area. Jeremy had spread what looked like a script and a bunch of sheet music across the surface of the coffee table.
“It’s fine,” Jeremy said. “I have to sing, like, fourteen songs, but I can do it. I...it’s my first starring role in anything and it’s a big one, but no pressure.” He laughed hysterically. “The show is going to debut on Broadway in three months, which is about a quarter of the time a show like this would normally have, but no big deal.”
Max stepped forward and offered his hand. “You need help?”
Jeremy pressed his lips together and looked at the coffee table. “Yeah, okay.” He reached up a hand, so Max took it and helped Jeremy to his feet. Unlike yesterday, there were no too-long hugs, no awkward too-intimate moments, and Max couldn’t decide if that was an improvement or not. Once Jeremy had his balance, he took a step back.
Jeremy looked back down at the coffee table; it was clear where his attention was focused. “The producer emailed me demos of a few of the songs, so I have a few days to learn those.”
“Are the songs good?”
“Great! I listened to the demos about an hour ago. It’s the composer singing on them, and his voice is not the best, but you can hear what he intends. Here, listen to this.”
Jeremy bent over, giving Max a nice view of his ass as he picked up his laptop and put it on the coffee table. Jeremy crouched down and opened the laptop, then hit a key. Tinkly piano music filled the room, then a man with a thin voice began to sing. Max tried to listen with his full attention, although the look on Jeremy’s face—a kind of beatific awe that belied how excited he was to be doing this show—was distracting.
The song was about how the singer felt isolated because he had a big secret but wasn’t ready to tell anyone. There was a theater metaphor that ran throughout about lifting the curtain to reveal something beautiful, but not just yet.
“This is the opening song,” Jeremy said, talking over a musical interlude in the middle. “The singer is being coy, but this is my character telling the audience he’s gay, basically.”
“Okay.”
Max sat on the couch and listened to the rest of the song. It ended with a piano flourish. “That’s the musical cue for the second song. This show fools around with standard musical structure a lot, so basically, my character, Benjamin, walks onto an empty stage alone and sings this song, then the curtain rises on a set that looks like a hallway full of lockers in a high school as the overture plays.”
“So the secret is that he’s gay?”
“Yeah. I guess that’s not supposed to be obvious in the opening number. The show reveals information in layers, like peeling an onion.” Jeremy scratched his head and gave his laptop a long look before he closed it again. “What do you think?”
“It’s a good song.” Max tried to imagine it in Jeremy’s warm honey tenor. “In the right key for you.”
Jeremy sang a couple of bars of it, and Max got goose bumps. And that was without Jeremy putting the full power of his voice in it. Max was biased, of course, and his affection for Jeremy probably made him predisposed to think every note out of his mouth was perfect, but he could see how this would go. Jeremy was handsome and had a beautiful voice. He’d be the breakout star of this show. Whether that meant something bigger than this show remained an open question, but he could get other Broadway gigs, and bit parts on TV shows filmed locally, and then maybe real TV and movies. He could be a Sutton Foster or a Jeremy Jordan, someone who became famous among Broadway fans before breaking into something bigger.
Max believed Jeremy had the looks and the talent to pull it off. But Max was biased.
Jeremy stood again. “What are you thinking about so hard?”
“Imagining your future. When you’re a big star.”
Jeremy laughed. “If only.” He frowned. “And I was their second choice.”
“Are you the one who is always saying New York is lousy with talented theater actors? You’re one of them, you know. And it doesn’t matter how you got cast, just that you got cast and that you’ll be great in this part.”
Jeremy gave Max a small smile, then shook his head. “Thanks. But the show could bomb in previews and close two weeks after it opens.”
“Or it could be a huge hit.”
He shook his head. “I’m trying to keep my expectations tempered. I think this show has potential. It’s timely, and honestly, it could have been designed in a lab to appeal to the young theater fans that keep Broadway alive. It’s the sort of show every high school will want to put on when the performance rights become available. I don’t see it being Hamilton big, but nothing ever will be.”
“Even if all you get is a season, that could be enough to launch your career. If this isn’t a big hit, the next one will be.”
Jeremy walked around the coffee table and sat next to Max on the sofa. He threw an arm around Max. “Oh, Max. I love that you have faith in me.” He let out a breath and took his arm away before Max could get too used to it. “But enough about me. How was your day?”
“I met with my latex guy about making goblin masks.”
Jeremy laughed. “We have very different jobs.”
“Look, you have your jobs you want more than anything, and I have mine. There’s a new show opening in a couple of months that’s based on a fantasy novel. I really want to do the makeup because I think it’ll be a ton of fun. I’d make people into elves and dragons and goblins and things. It’s the most creative makeup job that’s come my way in a while, and we’re in serious contention to get the job.”
“That does sound awesome.” Jeremy hopped off the sofa. “You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
“I can’t believe you have a latex guy.”
“It sounds dirty when you say it.”
Jeremy fished into the fridge for a couple of beers and returned to the sofa carrying them both in one hand and a bottle opener in the other. After he popped the tops off both, he handed one to Max—all of this was done in one fluid movement, as if it were part of a choreographed dance—then he clinked his bottle against Max’s.
“Well, here’s to our success. You think you’ll get the monster gig?”
“Odds are good. I have a meeting with the show’s producers and costume designers on Monday to review my designs, but that seems mostly like a formality.” Max let out a breath. “That means if my studio also does See the Light, I might send Daphne to your show. No offense, but the monster makeup is more challenging. As head of the studio, I should oversee that one. Well, plus I just want to. It’s monster makeup!”
Although, the truth was that Max didn’t trust himself to share the kind of intimate space he would with Jeremy if he did Jeremy’s makeup every night. Bad enough that they were living together and that Max was already starting to want what he couldn’t have, but to work together every night on top of that would be too much.
Jeremy smirked. “Are you saying it’s easier to make me look like a teenager than to make me look like a troll?”
Max gave Jeremy a once-over, from his sparkly blue eyes to his perfectly formed jaw, to his neck and shoulders and his clearly adult male body. The sigh escaped without Max’s permission. He cleared his throat and said, “Actually, yeah.”
Jeremy laughed.
“Besides, Daphne’s good. Or I could send Nikki to See the Light. She used to work on one of those teen dramas on the CW where everyone in the cast was, like, thirty-five. If she could make people look young enough to barely pass for high schoolers on that show, she could do it on Broadway. The people in the mezzanine can barely see your face anyway.”
Jeremy narrowed his eyes. “I know what you mean, but that sounds like an insult.”
“You know how theater makeup is. For a show where you play someone your age, we’d play up your features so the people in the cheap seats can still make out your facial expressions. Aging you down onstage is the same idea, but exaggerated. Big eyes, rosy cheeks, that sort of thing.”
“I’m not Raggedy Andy.”
Max shook his head. “You know what I mean. The blush of youth, or whatever.”
“I do know what you mean. I’m just giving you a hard time. But if Nikki draws freckles on my face, she’s fired.” Jeremy took a sip from his beer. “Still, bummer we might not be working together. How fun would that be?”
“I promised Regina I’d do the makeup design, so I’ll probably do the first few shows until everyone understands what they’re supposed to paint, then turn it over to my staff to go make monsters a couple blocks away. I love you, man, but this is a huge opportunity. If I nail this, who knows what other offers the studio would get. I love doing theater makeup, but getting a job on a movie would really help pay the rent on this closet.” Max waved his hand around the living room.
Jeremy grinned. “And you should absolutely do the monster show. I think you’ll kill it.”
Jeremy’s conviction made Max smile. “Thanks. And I’m sure there will be some other show at some point in the future that we’ll wind up in together, since these opportunities will make us both wildly famous.”
“Here’s hoping!”