Read Online Not a Happy Camper by Mindy Schneider - Free Book Online Page B

were a couple of decent-sized non-singing female roles and I read for the part of the elegant but disliked Baroness. As soon as I spoke my first line, Rhonda yelled, “Stop!” and went into a coughing fit. But what at first appeared to be her standard round of hacking turned out to be a moment of elation.
    â€œEveryone, listen,” she said. “Do you hear how loud this girl is?”
    Terrific. Now I was too loud.
    â€œThis is how I want you all to sound.”
    I was stunned. Rhonda asked me to turn my script to the page with
Do-Re-Mi
while motioning to the Kin-A-Hurra waiter-turned-accompanist to play the piano. This was it. My big chance. If I could sing, Rhonda could replace Dana with me. And if I could replace Dana in the play, then maybe I could replace her once and for all in Kenny’s heart.
    I got as far as, “Let’s start at the very beginning,” and then I remembered Sherry Merlin’s words:
“Sometimes not singing is just as important as singing,”
and I stopped.
    â€œIs there a problem?” Rhonda asked.
    A problem? Was she kidding? If Sherry Merlin was right and I couldn’t sing, then everyone else was about to find out. And worse, if it turned out that I could sing and I won the part away from Dana, then Dana wouldn’t like me and then everyone else would hate me.
    I answered Rhonda’s question. “I don’t think I can do this.”
    Rhonda was very disappointed. I would not be her newest discovery. I told her I would feel more comfortable with a non-singing part, but instead of being cast as the glamorous Baroness, I got the role of Frau Schmidt, the frumpy old battle-ax housekeeper.
    â€œHow come you gave up?” Autumn Evening asked me later. “You sounded okay on that first line. Maybe not for Maria, but you could’ve had some other singing part. You could’ve had mine.”

    I wanted a lot of things Autumn Evening had. Cast as Liesl, she would be performing
Sixteen Going on Seventeen
with Kenny as Rolf, the misguided Austrian youth. And not only would she get to sing with Kenny, she was also well on her way to achieving her long-term goal of becoming a famous writer. During the winter, Autumn Evening’s piano teacher had helped her complete a musical comedy about the philosophy of Pure Reason,
You Kant Take It With You
, for which casting would begin in early August. Encouraged by her family, she was always coming up with interesting ideas and finding ways to make them come to life. She was a totally free spirit and no one ever stepped on her spontaneity and joy.
    While most Jewish children are named in memory of a deceased relative as a means of keeping that person’s spirit alive, Autumn Evening’s parents wished for her to be an original. They named her after a season filled with awe-inspiring color and a time of day associated with calm. I was named after two great-aunts who were killed by the Nazis. In Yiddish, my name means “Sea of Bitterness”.
    After getting over my initial envy, I was happy she’d gotten the part. Autumn Evening was not looking for a boyfriend and if I couldn’t play opposite Kenny, she was a safe second choice.
    Fourteen-year-old Borscha Belyavsky was a recent emigrant from the Soviet Union whose new synagogue in Canarsie, Brooklyn had paid her camp tuition and sent her to Maine in attempt to hasten her Americanization. This might have worked out if she hadn’t already decided for herself what being American meant. She’d seen enough of our finest primetime TV to know what to do. Modelling herself after J.J. from
Good Times
, she shouted out “Dy-no-mite!” when cast in the role of Mother Superior. I was curious to hear
Climb Ev’ry Mountain
sung with a strong Russian accent. Mindy Plotke and my bunkmate Hallie Susser would be the other singing nuns.

    We had exactly one week to prepare and, like a trained summer stock company, we focused all of