Way Beyond Improv
January 12, 2016 – Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA
Students from Heritage Middle School marched across the stage and then stood awkwardly at attention. Mrs. Yolanda Grimmel paced below them, tall, thin, and dressed completely in black. All she needed was a fur coat to look like a villainess from an old Disney cartoon.
Mrs. Grimmel taught 8th Grade English, but her first love was the theater. Even in everyday life, she spoke as if quoting lines. She never used contractions and every sentence rose in a crescendo, as if leading to a dramatic exclamation point. Her critics might argue with her style, but they could not argue with her results. Mrs. Grimmel was entirely responsible for making Heritage’s annual Spring Play a true spectacle. The play had launched Broadway and television careers. Supporters drove hundreds of miles to see it.
For the 2016 play, Mrs. Grimmel was introducing her own version of Annie. She had already picked a bubbly 7th Grader for the title role. Now she had to decide on the second most important cast member – Daddy Warbucks. The seven boys in front of her had been pre-screened by the assistant director, who also happened to be the assistant principal.
“All of you have watched the movie before signing up, so you know that Daddy Warbucks is a powerful character,” Mrs. Grimmel called out to the boys. “I am looking for someone with a commanding presence. When he speaks, we know he is in charge. I want each of you to say the line, ‘A child in my house is to be seen and not heard.’ Use a voice that can fill an auditorium.”
The 7th Grader who was first up pulled his nervous hands from his pockets. He stared silently at Mrs. Grimmel and the row of parent volunteers seated behind her. “Uh . . . A child’s to be seen and not heard,” the boy said, in a not very intimidating voice. Mrs. Grimmel scribbled something into her notebook and the next boy took his turn.
Toby Lauderback stood second-to-last in the lineup. Unlike the other boys, Toby was not there because of his parents. He had told his mom about the play, but her reaction was, “If you want to do it, I’m not coming to get you after practice.”
Toby could not say for sure why he wanted to be in the play. It was not for the attention. When his friends made videos imitating fads and pranks they saw online, he stayed quiet and off camera. He was big for an 8th Grader. Teachers trying to be polite called him stout. Kids trying to be mean called him fat. Despite his size, no one saw him as threatening.
When it was Toby’s turn to say the audition line for Mrs. Grimmel, he dropped his arms to his sides and aimed his voice toward the cafeteria wall, 100 feet away. The words erupted from deep in his diaphragm. “A child in my house is to be seen and not heard.”
Toby looked toward Mrs. Grimmel and thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch. “Let us hear that again,” she called.
Toby boomed another version of the line, this time adding a crescendo in the same way as Mrs. Grimmel. She jotted furiously in her notebook before moving on to the final boy next to Toby.
For the second half of the audition, Mrs. Grimmel demonstrated some simple dance steps she wanted the boys to imitate. As she repeated the moves she said, “I do not consider dancing the most important part of the role, but I want to see you can be light on your feet.”
Each of the boys on stage stumbled through the steps. Normally a group of 7th and 8th Graders would crack up while watching each other attempt to dance, but under the withering stare of Mrs. Grimmel, it was like they were practicing for a funeral march. No one dared snicker or even smile. Toby was the only boy asked to demonstrate the dance twice before the group was dismissed.
Results from the tryout were posted later that week in a ceremony around the school’s central office. The assistant principal taped lists to the wall and a crowd of students gathered around. A hundred phones sent pictures and texts to parents. Toby waited patiently for his chance to reach the lists. Near the top was his name under Daddy Warbucks.
“You’re going to be famous,” said a girl standing next to him.
As Toby told his mom about his part, he tried to convince her that it was a big deal. “Somebody famous might see me. I’ll get discovered. Maybe I’ll be in a movie.”
“All because of a Middle School play?” replied his mom. “Don’t get your hopes too high.”
While the actual performance was not until April, play practices started immediately. At the first meeting, all sixty student cast members had to sign a contract which committed them to attend practice each day after school and attend each performance. Parent volunteers stayed busy helping students memorize lines or practice singing and dancing. Mrs. Grimmel oversaw everything happening on the school’s stage.
“Every word, every note, every step must be exact,” repeated Mrs. Grimmel. “The character you are playing must become a part of you. On stage, there can be no hesitation. Your lines should flow like water in a river.”
During most practices, less than a minute of any particular scene was repeated over and over until it was part of what Mrs. Grimmel called the “muscle memory” for the actors.
“No! Back to the start!” she would shout for the slightest misplaced foot or flubbed line.
Toby did not realize what he was getting into when he signed his contract. Daddy Warbucks was a major part and Toby had lots of lines to memorize. He studied his script like he had never studied anything in his life. It was as if every test he had ever taken was now rolled up into one mega-test. Only practicing after school was not enough. Soon his mom was reading lines with him every night.
“You must command the room!” Mrs. Grimmel kept shouting at him. “You must sound powerful and confident! From the second your feet hit the stage!”
Toby’s most important scene for making a powerful impression involved Daddy Warbucks decorating his new mansion. His servants were to walk on stage holding expensive, classical paintings. They first showed them to Toby, who was supposed to act like the painting was not good enough for him. Then the painting would be turned toward the audience as Toby reconsidered.
When the Mona Lisa was brought onstage, Toby was supposed to conclude with the line, “On second thought, she reminds me of my mother. Put her in my study.” The painting called The Scream appeared next. After initial disgust, Toby was to say, “It’s hideous, but it will scare off intruders. Put it near the backdoor.” The Van Gogh painting Sunflowers arrived last, and Toby’s eventual response was, “Very soothing. Put it in my bedroom. It will help me sleep.”
“This is your chance to show people how rich and pompous you are,” called Mrs. Grimmel.
Toby did his best to sound rich and pompous as he recited his lines, but Mrs. Grimmel kept shouting, “Again! You must really believe it! Those lines should come out of you automatically!”
Toby was soon dreaming about his lines. He could recite them on a noisy bus or with the TV blaring in his face. He could recite them in his head while reading his Spanish textbook out loud. By the time the April performance arrived, the lines were truly wired into his brain.
The entire production of Annie involved sixty student performers, a dozen parent volunteers, a stage crew, elaborate props, and authentic costumes. A live piano accompanied a recorded soundtrack. It was much too grand for the cafeteria at Heritage Middle School. As had become tradition, the actual presentation was scheduled at a nearby performing arts center, which held 1000 people. There would be four showings over two successive weekends.
A convoy of trucks moved all the props from the school. Just as everything seemed to be set up for a dress rehearsal the day before opening night, the performing arts center lost electrical power.
“I spoke with the building supervisor, and they won’t have power until tomorrow,” announced the assistant principal to a crowd of students gathered outside the building.
“What are we going to do?” cried the girl playing Annie. “We have to practice on the new stage!”
As general panic was about to set in, Mrs. Grimmel calmly stepped forward like she was addressing scared soldiers facing their first battle. “Nonsense. All of you know your parts like you know your own names. It does not matter whether you are performing on this stage or in the middle of a street. You will put on a wonderful performance no matter what.”
Mrs. Grimmel turned to Toby, who was dressed in his Daddy Warbucks costume with a dark suit and top hat. “Are you worried about tomorrow, Toby?” she asked, obviously hoping that he would inspire confidence like the character he was playing.
“No, I’m not worried, Mrs. Grimmel,” Toby boldly replied.
“Just what I want to hear,” cried Mrs. Grimmel. “Now all of you get a good night’s sleep. We shall return and bring down the house tomorrow night.”
Toby and the other students returned home feeling reassured by Mrs. Grimmel’s speech. The first time they actually set foot on the performance center’s stage was the next night, an hour before the start of the first show. The crew in charge of props and scenery dashed around like frantic rescuers at a collapsed building.
Toby walked over the stage wearing his suit and hat. The floor dimensions were close to those for the stage at school. He peered through the curtains at the crowd already arriving. He spotted his mom close to the front. Her attitude toward the play had dramatically changed. She was now eager to record and share video clips with her entire family so they could see her famous son in action.
Mrs. Grimmel gathered all sixty of the student cast members and gave them another rousing speech. She concluded with, “You already know exactly what to do. Now you simply must do it.”
The pre-recorded music blared and the curtain opened. The first scenes went precisely to plan. While there was some nervousness in the student voices as they stared out at the huge audience, no one hesitated on the lines they knew so well.
Then it was Toby’s turn for the big scene in Daddy Warbucks’ mansion. He strutted and boomed commands at the students acting as his servants. He ordered them to bring out the paintings to be used for decoration. A student walked in with the first painting, the front of which was only visible to Toby.
He had practiced the scene over a hundred times and each time he had done it, the first painting to appear was the Mona Lisa. But now perched in front of him was the Sunflower picture. Toby knew there must have been a mix-up backstage, but he only had a split second to react. Should he adlib and skip to the line about the Sunflowers or should he deliver exactly what he had memorized?
Toby broke into a cold sweat before his training kicked in. He belted out, “On second thought, she reminds me of my mother. Put her in my study.”
When the student holding the painting turned to show it to the audience, 1000 faces looked confused. Many of them turned to their neighbor and asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”
Painting number two entered the stage. It was supposed to be The Scream, but it was the Mona Lisa. Toby had already made his decision. He would go with the line he knew. “It’s hideous, but it will scare off intruders. Put it near the backdoor.”
Members of the audience looked at each other again with confusion. Was the line supposed to be funny? Should they laugh?
The Scream arrived last and Toby dutifully and convincingly called out, “Very soothing. Put it in my bedroom. It will help me sleep.”
This time the audience was sure it was supposed to be a joke. People chuckled politely, although they were not sure how the lines fit with the play and the portrayal of Daddy Warbucks. For the rest of the scene, everyone in the theater was on edge. Toby and his fellow actors delivered the rest of their lines, but they sounded worried and rushed. People in the audience waited nervously for more funny dialogue. They wondered if they had missed something.
As Toby and the students playing his servants walked off the stage, Mrs. Grimmel was waiting for them. They knew they had messed up and Mrs. Grimmel’s angry expression told them it was a major disaster. They all dropped their heads. Toby removed his top hat and held it in his hands. Mrs. Grimmel motioned for all of them to follow her toward a room away from the stage, out of earshot of the other cast members, who were busy on the next scene.
As Mrs. Grimmel had watched the wrong paintings appear and then the audience reaction, it felt like stubbing a toe. She wanted to cringe and scream, but she kept herself together. She followed her students to the quiet room while mentally checking off a list of people to blame for the fiasco. The list started with the prop crew and whoever handled the paintings. And why had the students holding the paintings not recognized the mistake? And then there was Toby. All he had to do was switch up the lines to match the paintings he saw.
The student actors stopped walking and gathered in a half circle. Their heads were dropped to shield their faces from the fire sure to be fly from Mrs. Grimmel’s mouth.
“We need to talk about what happened out there,” she began, with obvious disgust in her voice. “Toby, let me start with you.”
Toby pitifully raised his eyes above the top of the hat he was still holding. In that moment, Mrs. Grimmel remembered her first play. She was Sleeping Beauty and humiliatingly tripped over her dress in the first scene. Then she remembered her own warnings during practice about saying lines exactly as memorized. Suddenly, she was calm and relieved, much like the feeling five minutes after stubbing a toe, when the pain finally fades.
“Toby, you were perfect. You did everything right. I predict you will have a long acting career ahead of you.”
Toby’s puppy-dog eyes lit up as his mouth creased into a broad smile. He proudly returned his hat to his head.
Headline – Improv Script in a Play
Headline – Famous Paintings Sunflowers, Mona Lisa, The Scream
Headline – First Time Actor in School Play
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