"BSC087 - Claudia Kishi, Live From WSTO! - Martin, Ann M" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

"The first order of business," Kristy said, "is Claudia's problem. Okay. You've had a tap lesson. Now, Shannon and I would be happy to give you a drama lesson."
Drama lesson?
"Whoa," I protested. "Can't we just, like, talk about it?"
"You bet," Kristy replied. "Shannon, you have the floor first."
Thank you, Kristy Thomas, talk-show host.
Shannon, by the way, is one of our two associate members (the other is Logan). Associates aren't required to attend meetings, but Shannon's been helping out since Stacey left. Shannon goes to a private school called Stoney-
brook Day. (The rest of us go to Stoneybrook Middle School.) She's in tons of extracurricular activities there, including drama club.
"Well, we started You Can't Take It With 'You," Shannon said. "Right now we're just blocking, though."
"Not the football kind," Kristy remarked.
Duh.
"No. Blocking is mapping out all the movements. Entrances, exits. Stuff like that has to be precise. It's like choreography, sort of."
"I remember seeing some of that in Peter Pan rehearsals. Is it hard?" I asked.
"A little. All your moves happen on specific lines of the dialogue. You mark down all the moves in your script. You memorize your cue lines. Then, after you've memorized your own lines, you've memorized the blocking, too."
Right. Sure. Gee, that sounded easy.
I might as well join the math club.
"What happens if you forget your lines during a performance?" I asked.
Shannon smiled. "That's called 'going up/ The actor's nightmare. Happens to everybody."
Oh, yeah? Well, not to me.
My list was a bust. Zero for six.
The rest of the meeting was pretty busy with phone calls. We didn't talk much more about
my problem. Which was okay. I didn't want to make it seem like a big deal.
Ease up, Kishi, I told myself. Life wasn't so bad.
Just dull.
I said good-bye to everyone, then flopped onto my bed. In about ten minutes, I'd have to start helping with dinner. Not enough time for homework, and I didn't feel in an artistic mood.
I flicked on my clock radio. It was tuned, as always, to the local radio station, WSTO. A rock song was playing, and I listened to the end of it. My eyes started feeling heavy. I could feel myself dozing off.
"And that was U 4 Me, rockin' it for you here on WSTO!" chirped this goony-sounding deejay. "We'll have more music for you in a minute, but first let me tell you about our coooooool connnntesssssst. ..."
Those last two words were full of echo or reverb or whatever they call that. It was giving me a headache. I reached out to turn the radio off.
"Say, kids, if you've been listening to me and thinking, 'Hey, I could do that,' well, here's your chance. You can be the host of your own show on WSTO. A kids' show. That's right. If you're between the ages of ten and fourteen Ч that's years, ha ha Ч you can have
your own one-hour radio show, twice a week for ... a fuuullll monnnnnth!"
My hand froze.
"You find the guests/' he went on. "You plan and emcee the show. It's all up to you, if you're the winner of our Host of the Month Contest! To enter, just tell us why we should hire you Ч on one sheet of paper, please. Make it serious, make it funny, make it you\ Don't forget to include your name, age, address, and a description of yourself and your interests. We'll announce the winner on Monday, so hurry. And now, more greaaaat muuuusid"
My mind was in warp speed. ^
My very own radio show? Me, Claudia Kishi, a deejay?
Yes. I could see it.
This was it.
This was what I was looking for!
Chapter 3.
No. No. No.
Everything sounded awful.
I dropped my pen, propped up my elbows on my desk, and buried my face in my hands.
Think, Claudia!
What had happened to me? I used to be a pretty decent writer. Seriously. When I was doing my Personals column for the SMS Express, I had to deal with tons of horribly written personal ads. Sometimes I'd rewrite them from scratch. First I'd figure out exactly what the person was trying to say. Then I'd cut out the words that weren't necessary.
The essentials. That's what I needed.
The brilliance would come later.
I wrote out a list. Just short sentence fragments. Exactly why I wanted the job.
Then I worked on putting it all together into an essay. I tried to keep it short, sweet, and really me.
I consumed a Milky Way, a box of Peppermint Patties, two Chunkies, and half a bag of Cape Cod potato chips.
Finally I had to go to sleep. My brain was fried. (My stomach didn't feel too great either.)
I worked on the essay the next morning, before I went to school. Then, during lunch, I convinced Emily Bernstein (the SMS Express's
student editor) to let me use the newspaper's word processor for my final draft.