Dancing Diva by Whoopi Goldberg

Author:Whoopi Goldberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction - Young Adult
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

“Okay.” Mr. Lester claps. “Girls, you go on in. Linc, let me take you to the costume designer, so she can do a quick fitting. Then you’ll probably want to get some sleep, since we’ll be rehearsing pretty much nonstop for the next several days.” He turns to us. “Linc’s been in Germany for the last month.”

Linc nods. “I’m a little tired, that’s for sure. Nice meeting you girls,” he says, following Mr. Lester into the theater.

We enter the theater, too, just in time to see Linc and Mr. Lester disappear behind the curtain. I’m disappointed that Linc’s gone already.

“When do we practice with Mr. Simmons?” Jessica asks Ms. Debbé.

“Tomorrow night,” says Ms. Debbé. “Today, the director will work with you girls by yourselves first. But you’ll have the chance to dance with the other adults in the scene. Then there will be dress rehearsals Thursday and Friday nights.”

The theater is mostly dark, as if there were going to be a performance. But the stage is all lit up. There are three dancers rehearsing onstage. The two guys are wearing T-shirts and tights, and the woman is wearing a faded blue unitard with leg warmers and a scarf.

A man and two women sit in the audience several rows back from the front. As we get closer, I see that the man is Mr. Tonetti. He talks to one of the women while she scribbles things down on a notepad. He moves his arms and hands around wildly while he talks, which makes him look like he’s mad, but I can’t see his face to know for sure.

Mr. Lester slips back into the theater and joins us. He waits until Mr. Tonetti is done waving his arms around. “Mr. Tonetti?” he says, hesitantly. This is weird. Mr. Lester always seems very cool and in control of things, but it looks like he’s a little afraid of Mr. Tonetti.

Mr. Tonetti turns around to face us. “Yes?” He blinks, then rivets his gaze on us. “Ah. The girls.”

“Yes. This is—” It seems as though Mr. Lester is just about to introduce us when Mr. Tonetti interrupts.

“Good.” He claps loudly for attention. The dancers onstage stop dancing and look.

“That is enough for now. We’ll move on to scene two,” Mr. Tonetti says.

The dancers leave, stopping to scoop up the water bottles and sweaters they’ve left at the sides of the stage. The clipboard woman scurries up the steps and disappears, maybe to get the other scene-two dancers.

Mr. Tonetti looks at us. “You have practiced?”

What kind of question is that? I wonder. Of course we’ve practiced.

Mr. Lester jumps in. “They’ve done a great job. They all know their parts very well.”

Mr. Tonetti makes a noise in his throat. “Very well. To the stage, please,” he says.

Mr. Lester leads us down the side aisle. It feels like a very long trip. When we get to the front, Mr. Lester tells us we can leave our things in the front-row seats. We’re already wearing our dance clothes, but we sit down in the plush velvet seats to put on our ballet slippers.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.