Backstage Pass_(1)

copyright: Lesley Tara, 2009

I grew up in a medium-sized resort town on the English coast. Every summer, the local theatre would put on a show during the holiday season, with the lead roles taken by an actor and an actress who were familiar faces from television – not famous stars, as we were not big enough to afford them, but those making a name for themselves or second-rank celebrities. One summer, they decided to do ‘The Sound of Music’, an ever-popular family favourite. Either to save money or as a publicity stunt, the production company advertised for local schoolchildren to audition for the parts of the younger Von Trapp children. Those successful would be paid a modest amount, and more importantly the experience would help if they had ambitions to go into acting as a career.

Encouraged by my family and friends, I decided to have a go. Although there were dozens at the first auditions, I won through and was picked for the part of the second-oldest daughter. In a way it was not a great surprise, for I had a good strong singing voice, and I looked just right for the role. Although I had just turned sixteen, I was only five foot four inches tall, and had a slight figure, boyish with slim hips; my breasts were nice, but a bit below the average size for my age. Most of all, I had a youthful and innocent face, and my long, straight blonde hair was suitably Germanic. The part itself was easy enough: I had only a few lines of dialogue of my own and no solo songs, so it was mainly being on stage with the others and joining in the choruses. Because of my age, there were legal limits on how long I could work, and so I shared the role with another girl, each of us doing alternate days.

On most days, there were two shows: an afternoon matinee and an evening performance. I had become friendly with the leading actress who was playing Maria, and the pattern developed that I would pass the couple of hours between shows in her dressing room, chatting idly or sometimes listening to records or the radio. As she is still a well-known television actress, I won’t give her real name: let’s call her Felicity. At that time, she had recently come to public notice in a popular drama series, and she had a really powerful clear singing voice. She was then still quite young, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. She had brown hair which had been dyed blonde and cut fairly short for the part of Maria, who starts out as a convent girl. Felicity was tall and slim, but with a generous bust for her build. She was fun and interesting, and treated me sort of like a kid sister – there was no arrogance or superiority about her at all, and she clearly found it relaxing just to be ‘girls together’ with me; for that reason, she politely discouraged any of the other actors or crew from joining us, which wasn’t too awkward as her dressing room was quite tiny.

We talked of all sorts of things – her family and mine, and our ambitions, hopes and fears. Once I asked if she had a boyfriend and she shook her head; no, there just wasn’t time – she daren’t turn down acting jobs now they were starting to be offered, and her hours of work were so strange as well. Slightly sadly, she said that relationships didn’t tend to stand the strain, but then she brightened, saying that however there were compensations – though she didn’t explain what that meant. She enquired about my ‘love life’, and it was a thrill to hear an adult call it that, even if it was basically non-existent – at least she assumed that I might be having one! But I replied honestly that I had no boyfriend, had never had one, and frankly didn’t think that I was missing much, going by my friends’ experiences. She gave me one of her warm vivacious smiles, and asked if I had a girlfriend then. I felt a bit strange with that question; I wasn’t sure what she really meant, or if she was just ribbing me, so I decided not to rise to it and just replied that, of course, I had several female friends, we did quite a lot of things together, and so on. Felicity may have sensed my awkwardness – she was very attuned to people, one reason for her acting success – as she changed direction a bit. ‘You must have someone you admire’, she said, ‘someone you know personally, I mean, not a pop star or anything like that.’

And so, perhaps in reaction to the unsettling moment just before, I told her all about Miss Henderson, my wonderful English Literature teacher. I must have gushed on enthusiastically for quite a while, but Felicity was content to listen with a slight smile on her face. Miss Henderson had only been at our school for four years, and I knew that it was her first teaching job since completing her training, which put her age around twenty-six. I thought she was so good-looking: she had lovely auburn hair that fell in waves below her shoulders (although generally she kept it pinned up), together with her bright greenish eyes and round pretty face. She had a nice figure, with a high bust that was more prominent when you saw her in profile, and shapely legs. Miss Henderson always wore neat and tasteful skirts and dresses in warm bright colours, and in winter she had tooled brown or sheer black leather boots. I don’t think I had ever seen her in trousers, and her skirt length rose and fell with the seasons, getting quite short in the summer, but she never looked less than professional. Her favourite combination was a calf-length red skirt with a bright green woollen turtle-neck jumper; the latter was quite tight and figure-hugging, and it was cinched around the waist with a wide tan-coloured belt. I waxed lyrical about the way she dressed, her lively personality, her good humour, her patience and helpfulness with awkward or struggling students, her command of her subject, and so on, as Felicity regarded me with a mixture of interest, amusement and understanding. ‘She sounds lovely’, she said, slightly wistfully, as I finally ran down, the gush of my admiration slowing to a trickle in my embarrassed realisation that I had let myself go – indeed, had said things I had never said aloud before, and even barely thought. ‘Oh, yes,’ I responded, ‘she’s brilliant!’ ‘Well,’ said Felicity, patting me on the knee, ‘I think you’ve got quite a crush on her.’ I hadn’t exactly put it that way to myself, but of course she was quite right.

A couple of days later, after we had taken our curtain calls for the matinee, Felicity and I trotted down to her dressing room, chatting amiably. We hung up our costumes, Felicity donning a silk kimono over her underwear, whilst I put back on my short summer skirt and short-sleeve top. Then we cleaned off our make-up – another nice thing was that we always helped each other with this chore, once she had shown me the correct way to do it – and I settled down on the couch.