The Glow of the Spotlight: My Journey with Rebecca

Rebecca takes my hand and leads me into the dim lobby of the Coronet Theater. Compared to the polished halls I have heard about elsewhere, this place feels dingy and cramped, with peeling paint on the walls and a threadbare rug underfoot. But it is a beehive of activity anyway. Performers rush past us, pulling wigs and costumes over their street clothes, and a ballerina pirouettes in the corner while a juggler tosses oranges and apples without losing his rhythm. Somewhere in the crowd, instruments tune themselves into a mess of sour notes.

A man in the middle of it all shouts orders like a circus barker. He wears a derby hat and a brown suit stretched tight over his potbelly, and bushy sideburns and a drooping mustache nearly swallow his face. He waves a fistful of cardboard numbers over his head, shouting that there’s no audition without a number.

Rebecca pushes us through the crowd until we stand right in front of him. He looks me over and snaps that no kiddie act performs without a grown-up, telling us to come back another time with my parents. Part of me feels almost relieved. Maybe I will not have to prove I can perform alone after all, not today.

But Rebecca is not so easily turned away. She declares that my parents are already on their way, and grabs a number from the man’s hand before he can object. She presses it into my palm and pulls me back into the crowd before he can argue further.

A young stagehand leads us to the back row of the theater along with a cluster of other performers waiting their turn. Someone will fetch us when it is time to go backstage, he says, then vanishes up the dark aisle. The theater is packed to the walls, and the audience stomps its feet and claps in rhythm, chanting for the show to start. It is nothing like the polite families that attend my recitals. Rebecca and I sink into two tattered velvet seats, and my heart flutters harder with every act that flickers past under the stage lights.

The man with a drooping mustache, who Rebecca calls Mr. Walrus, steps on stage. He welcomes everyone to the Coronet Theater extravaganza, where the audience picks the featured acts by applause. He holds up two velvet bags and gives them a shake so the coins inside clink. The winner takes home five silver dollars and a spot in the next show, he announces, and the runner-up gets three.

The first act is an acrobat who struts onstage and launches into a routine of back handsprings and one-handed cartwheels while the band below the stage scrambles to improvise an accompaniment. He tumbles off to real applause, and I wonder how anyone learns to move like that. Next comes a juggler in a pointy, bell-trimmed hat, spinning fruit through the air until he misses. A tomato splats onto the boards, an orange smashes apart, and the crowd boos loud enough to shake the seats. Mr. Walrus hooks him offstage with a cane while stagehands rush out to mop up the mess. My stomach lurches at the thought of the same hook finding me.

An opera singer in a long gown trills out notes so high and shrill that I wince, and I am almost glad when her act ends. Right behind her comes a woman herding a troupe of costumed dogs through a set of paces, and the little animals trot and spin so earnestly that the whole crowd claps along. Then a comedian in an outfit two sizes too large tells jokes in a heavy accent, and nobody laughs until a man in the crowd heckles him about learning English. The comedian switches into another language entirely, gesturing wildly with his hands. Somehow that gets the whole house roaring.

Rebecca leans in close and tells me it is Yiddish. She translates the joke he tells next, about a man running down the street because two people are about to fight. When someone finally asks him which two people, he hollers that it’s the landlord and him.

After that, two girls in bonnets and long prairie dresses sing “Ave Maria” so sweetly that the whole audience, especially the women, melts into coos.

Then the stagehand calls the next group up from the back row, and that group includes me. My heart pounds so hard I can practically hear it over the noise of the crowd. I grab Rebecca’s hand and refuse to let go as we head backstage, my taps clicking sharply against the wooden floor. She stays close beside me in the wings while I wait my turn, listening to catcalls and applause and a strange clattering after every act. I finally peek out and see a stagehand sweeping up pennies the audience has tossed, and he carries them backstage and hands them straight to the performer, a kind of vote cast in copper.

A stagehand nudges me forward and mutters that I am on, but my feet stay planted as if they have grown roots into the floorboards.

Rebecca asks quietly whether I want her to come out there with me.