Good Book

When I was a senior in high school, I spent almost every morning hiding in hanging out in the band room. Earlier in the year, I was forced out of the closet by a gender-neutral-named boyfriend I had had over the summer. His name was Donnie, and upon returning to high school, I told a friend I had met a girl named Dawn. This friend being the then closeted-gay son of the mayor, started snooping and discovered that Dawn was Donnie and was a guy - this information from a guy who had spent the summer at the same Governor's Scholars campus as me and knew who Donnie was. Earle, the information guy, then took it upon himself to make my senior year a living hell in an effort to keep from going to said place in the afterlife.

So, yeah, in the morning rather than making myself an open target in the halls of Muhlenberg North High School, I hung out with friends in the moments before first period choir practice. I played the piano, and they sang along - that is until, Mr. Band Director got tired of the Andrew Lloyd Webber songbook and told me to get out. It was time for me to get to drama class anyway.

Drama class wasn't much better than the hallway (or lunchtime for that matter) - I loved Drama class (even if I had to listen to this little Ms. Know-It-All constantly blathering on about how Richard Gere was gay because he loved to gerbil) and I loved my teacher, but she was clueless and eventually I was cast as the effeminate intellectual which I was totally NOT ok with. I couldn't become the role because I was made fun of constantly for being the type. And eventually when performing and people began to laugh, which they were supposed to - being attacked by ants at a picnic is afterall funny - I hated every moment of it.

It wasn't until the next production in which I was behind the scenes that I truly began to fall in love with the theater. So much so, that when I went to college, I went as a theater performance major in lighting design. My work-study was the theater department, and the Carrick Theater crawlspace was home.

So, this introduction is to tell you that I love Marc Acito, whose books (How I Paid For College and its sequel Attack of the Theater People) are about not simply the theater, but theater people, theater life, the love of theater - he IS in book form what Almodovar's All About My Mother is on film.

Attack of the Theater People is the continuing adventures of Edward Zannie who at the beginning of this very funny, very quick read (quick because of funny) is kicked of Julliard for being "too jazz hands." Here's the blurb on the back:

It is 1986, and aspiring actor Edward Zannie has been kicked out of drama school for being "too jazz hands for Julliard." Mortified, Edward heads out into the urban jungle of eighties New York City and finally lands a job as a "party motivator" who gets thirteen-year-olds to hand at bar mitzvahs and charms businesspeople as a "stealth guest" at corporate events. When he accidentally gets caught up in insider trading with a handsome stockbroker named Chad, only the help of his crew from How I Paid for College can rescue him from a stretch in Club Fed.

Laced with the inspried zaniness of classic American musical comedy, Attack of the Theater People matches the big hair of the eighties with an even bigger heart.

So, remember, read How I Paid For College first and THEN Attack of the Theater People. Then also stop whatever it is you are doing and go watch All About My Mother. And then possibly Get Real because Acito's Paula = Get Real's Linda.

And when you finish all your assignments, check out The Gospel According to Marc. :)