From the catwalk, I watch as rehearsal goes from bad to worse. It’s like seeing a train derail in slow motion. You know something awful is happening, but you’re powerless to do anything but watch. And if it looks terrible from up here, I can only imagine what it looks like from a theater seat.
Well, I don’t have to imagine. Mr. Apple is making it pretty obvious.
“Goddam it,” he says under his breath over and over again. He’s been huffing and sighing all rehearsal, growing more and more angry in the dark.
At the beginning of Act II, Summer is straddling a tree stump that is supposed to swing out from behind her when she sits. But when she tries, it doesn’t budge.
“It won’t move,” she says.
“Goddam it,” Mr. Apple says again down below.
Grace jumps out onstage wearing a tool belt.
“I’ll get it,” she says.
Derek is up in the audience and running.
“Don’t touch that,” he says.
“It’s no problem,” Grace says, taking a set of pliers from her belt.
“Stop!” Derek shouts.
He leaps from the pit onto the stage where Summer is sitting.
“There’s been enough human error tonight,” he says. “Let a professional take over.”
Grace looks like she’s about to tear him a new one. But instead she steps back, smiles, and holds the pliers out to Derek.
“All yours, Double D,” she says.
Derek scowls and snatches the pliers out of her hands.
“This will be a quick fix,” he says.
He gives Mr. Apple a thumbs-up then bends over behind Summer.
She starts to get up.
“No, stay there,” Derek says. “I promise this won’t hurt a bit.”
He fiddles with something around her butt.
“What are you adjusting exactly?” Summer says.
The actors laugh.
“True that it’s difficult to adjust perfection,” he says.
I’m praying he won’t be able to fix the problem, that he’ll look like an idiot in front of everyone.
But he twists his wrist for a couple seconds, then steps back.
The stump swings freely on its hinge now. There’s a spattering of applause.
“And Bob’s your uncle,” Derek says.
He tosses the pliers in the air and catches them one-handed before passing them back to Grace.
“How lovely,” Mr. Apple says. “That should cinch you the Tony for Best Stump this season. Now continue!”
WESLEY
I do not, nor I cannot love you?
SUMMER
And even for that do I love you the more.
The stump breaks and Summer tumbles to the floor. Wesley jumps forward to catch her and trips over her instead, which sends him flying into Peter, who bangs into Johanna. All four of them go down like dominoes.
“Stop!” Mr. Apple shouts. “Stop! Stop!”
Carol Channing leaps off Mr. Apple’s lap and spins in a circle, yelping.
“My God,” Mr. Apple says. “This is terrible.”
He buries his face in his hands.
“I was about to say my line,” Wesley says from the floor.
“It gets worse when you speak,” Mr. Apple says.
“That’s not cool—” Wesley says.
“We’re trying to act,” Johanna says, “but someone keeps pausing because they don’t know their lines.”
She indicates Summer.
“I’m doing my best, too,” Summer says.
“Maybe your best isn’t good enough,” Johanna says.
Summer looks up, desperation in her eyes. I wish I could signal her somehow, tell her she’s doing okay, but I know she can’t see me behind the light.
“Take it easy,” Peter says. “She’s had the role for a day and a half.”
“She could have it for a year and a half and it wouldn’t matter,” Johanna says.
The actors split into warring group, arguments breaking out all over the stage.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Apple says.
He’s ignored.
“Hello?” he says.
Wesley pushes Peter and he bumps into a set piece. Now Derek is up and shouting at the actors. Everyone is yelling at everyone else. Total chaos.
“I hate my life,” Mr. Apple says quietly beneath me. He puts his head in his hands.
Derek is gesticulating wildly onstage, trying to show the actors where they should walk to avoid trouble. Meanwhile the headset is filled with chatter, techies blaming one another for various mistakes.
“I—HATE—MY—LIFE!!!” Mr. Apple bellows at the top of his lungs.
The theater goes silent. Everyone freezes.
“I hate my life, I hate this theater, I hate Shakespeare. I hate salmon croquettes!”
He throws his script on the ground.
“He’s freaking out,” Peter says.
“You know what else I hate?” Mr. Apple says. “I hate Sylvester for making me pay half the rent. I’m an artist! I need a sugar daddy. Then I could spend my days doing yoga and getting pedicures like Tad. And I could do my little plays at night. Tad has a theater company, and he gets pedicures. Where is my pedicure? Where is my Kundalini?”
“Who’s Tad?” Johanna says.
“I so don’t want to be gay right now,” Peter says, covering his face with his hands.
Mr. Apple rifles through his briefcase until he comes up with his brown paper bag. He paces up and down the aisle breathing into it.
“You’re scaring us, Mr. Apple,” Johanna says.
“What should we do?” Summer says.
“Seriously,” Wesley says. “Tell us what we should do and we’ll do it.”
Mr. Apple puts down the bag.
“This is supposed to be a love story,” he says. “Haven’t any of you been in love?”
The actors look at each other.
“Sort of,” Wesley says.
“That’s not what you said last week,” Johanna says.
“I can’t be responsible for what I say during a make out session.”
Johanna punches him.
“I’m not talking about high-school love,” Mr. Apple says. “I’m talking about the big L, passion, the kind of love they write plays about. The kind of love that makes you go to acting school when your mother wants you to be a dentist. The kind of love that has you marrying your boyfriend even though he’s a social worker specializing in HIV prevention in underserved communities, and you have exactly zero chance of buying a condo.”
Mr. Apple gets upset again and buries his face in the paper bag. He mumbles to himself as he paces the floor.
“Why is he talking about real estate?” Hubbard says.
“I think he’s having a nervous breakdown,” Peter says.
“I was this close to dental school,” Mr. Apple says, measuring off an inch with his fingers. “I could taste the nitrous oxide. But I had passion. I had to move to the city to eat ramen noodles and go to Stella Adler. And what good did it do me? I end up at Montclair friggin’ High School. My personal vision of hell. No more. No more!”
He pops the paper bag with his fist. Then he packs his briefcase, jamming sheets of paper into the bottom.
“I’ve had enough,” Mr. Apple says.
There’s a gasp from the actors.
Derek says, “Please, Mr. Apple. Let’s step out and discuss this.”
“There’s nothing to discuss, Mr. Dunkirk. I’m out of inspiration, and none of you seems to have had any to begin with.”
He flings his briefcase over his shoulder.
“Please, Mr. Apple,” Derek says.
Derek steps towards him, but Mr. Apple holds up a hand to stop him.
“I refuse to be a part of bad high-school production number three thousand four hundred and infinity. Directed by Jonathan Apple Jr., fat failure.”
He rushes up the aisle and throws open the theater door.
A white blur shoots up the center aisle and passes through the door with a loud yelp.
“Carol Channing! You screwed up my exit again,” he says, and he chases her out.
Nobody speaks for a long time.
“That was horrible,” Johanna says.
“I’ve never seen a teacher have a meltdown before,” Peter says.
“That wasn’t a meltdown. That was Chernobyl,” Wesley says.
“What’s Chernobyl?” Johanna says.
“What do we do now?” Summer says.
I watch as the actors fall apart onstage. Some of them cry, some stand around, shocked. I wait for Reach or a techie to make a crack on the headset—anything to take the edge off—but it’s silent.
I climb down the ladder and join the crowd onstage.
It’s the perfect time for an inspirational song, à la Les Misérables. I imagine myself standing in front of the actors, waving a flag, rallying them to the cause.
We have to fight, I say. It can’t end like this.
And then I burst into song. It begins as a solo, but it swells into a group number with full chorus.
The problem is I don’t know how to inspire people.
But Derek does. He walks to the front of the stage, then hoists himself up into the middle of the actors. His voice is soft, almost a whisper.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says. “I’m sorry I had to see it. Mr. Apple is clearly distraught and doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“We open in two days,” Jazmin says.
“How can we open without a director?” Johanna says.
Derek thinks for a moment.
“Right you are,” he says. “We need a director….”
He scratches his chin.
“What are you thinking?” Wesley says.
I start to get a bad feeling. Derek is too excited by Mr. Apple walking out. I edge towards the side exit.
“Where are you going?” Reach whispers
“I have to find Mr. Apple,” I say. “Fast.”
I rush out the back of the theater.
I run through the halls of the theater department. I look for Mr. Apple around the rehearsal rooms. I check his office, but the door is locked.
I start to panic, thinking he may have already gone home.
I rush out to the school parking lot.
There are only a few cars left in the lot, and one of them is Mr. Apple’s Civic. From across the parking lot, I can see him sitting inside, the seat pushed all the way back so his stomach doesn’t hit the wheel. As I get closer, I notice he’s chewing rapid fire, his hand moving from the seat to his mouth in a blur. A box of Hostess Cakes is torn open next to him, the plastic wrappers scattered across his lap. He looks up, startled to see me. There are tears coming down his eyes as he sticks a chocolate cake in his mouth.
“Mr. Apple,” I say.
He peeks at me through an inch of open window. He wipes snot from his nose.
“Are you okay?” I say.
He starts the car.
“We need you,” I say.
“You don’t need me,” he says. “You need someone who cares about you. Who cares about the theater. The way it’s supposed to be.”
“Please don’t go,” I say.
He wipes tears from his eyes.
“I’m sorry, lad.”
He rolls up the window and backs out of the space, his tires squealing as he speeds from the parking lot.
I stand there stunned, watching him go.
I hear the voices of the techies behind me.
I turn to find the cast and crew streaming out the back door of the school.
“You’re too late,” I tell Reach. “He’s already gone.”
“We’re not here for him,” Reach says. “We’re going on a field trip.”
“What?”
“A journey to find love. That’s what Derek called it.”
“Where can we find love?”
“In the city.”
“That’s crazy,” I say.
“No kidding. Love is expensive in the city. Have you read the back of The Village Voice?”
“Seriously. What’s the plan?”
“There’s a Shakespeare film festival in the Village. Derek wants us to get inspired, and the actors are backing him. Either we go along with the plan or …”
“Or what?”
“Or nothing. There’s not really an option.”
I think about the train ride to Manhattan, and I start to get afraid. I can barely remember the last time I was there. I only know it was with Dad.
“I haven’t been to the city in a long time,” I say.
Reach studies my face.
“We’ll go together,” he says. “Just stay close to me. And for God’s sake, stop worrying so much.”