1 [Cast Call] 1 2 [The Hopefuls] 12 3 [First Reading] 21 4 [A Shy Angel] 30 5 [An Unexpected Scene] 39 6 [Two Acts of Faith] 50 7 [An Intermission] 58 8 [Curtain Fall] 69 9 [One for the Money] 80 10 [Two for the Show] 93 11 [Three to Make Ready] 108 12 [Which Way to Go?] 119 13 [A Decision] 130 14 [Race Against Time] 137 15 [Act One] 152 16 [Act Two] 161 17 [S. R. O.] 167

PEGGY PLAYS OFF-BROADWAY

I
Cast Call

“First casting calls are so difficult,” Peggy Lane said, looking ruefully at the fifty or more actresses and actors who milled about nervously, chatting with one another, or sat on the few folding chairs trying to read.

“With only nine roles to be filled,” she continued, “it doesn’t matter how good these people are; most of them just haven’t got a chance. I can’t help feeling sorry for them—for all of us, I mean. After all, I’m trying for a part, too.”

Peggy’s friend and housemate, Amy Preston, smiled in agreement and said, “It’s not an easy business, honey, is it? But the ones I feel sorriest for right now are Mal and Randy. After all, they have the unpleasant job of choosing and refusing, and a lot of these folks are their friends. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.”

Peggy nodded thoughtfully, and reflected that it must, indeed, be more wearing on the boys. Mallory Seton, director of the new play, had been an upper-class student at the Academy when Peggy had started there, and he was a good friend of hers. She had worked with him before, as a general assistant, when they had discovered a theater. It would not be easy for him to consider Peggy for an acting role, and to do so completely without bias. It would not be a question of playing favorites, Peggy knew, but quite the reverse. Mal’s sense of fair play would make him bend over backward to keep from giving favors to his friends. If she was to get a role in this new production, she would really have to work for it.

And if it was difficult for Mal, she thought, it was more so for Randy Brewster, the author of the play, for her friendship with him was of a different sort than with Mal. Mal was just a friend—a good one, to be sure—but with Randy Brewster, somehow, things were different. There was nothing “serious,” she assured herself, but they had gone on dates together with a regularity that was a little more than casual and, whatever his feelings were for her, she was sure that they were more complicated than Mal’s.

“Do you think they’ll ever get through all these people?” Amy asked, interrupting her thoughts. “How can they hope to hear so many actors read for them in just one afternoon?”

“Oh, they won’t be doing readings today,” Peggy replied, glad to turn her attention from what was becoming a difficult subject for thought. “This is just a first cast call. All they want to do today is pick people for type. They’ll select all the possible ones, send the impossible ones away, and then go into elimination readings later.”