“What will it be like tomorrow?” Nydia asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t done this before either. Every single audition I’ve ever been to has been different. I have no idea what they ask you to do at a screen test.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Anne-Marie said. “Because we are prepared, aren’t we?”
Nydia and I looked at each other. For the last month Anne-Marie had made us meet at her house three times a week to learn the lines from the play and rehearse all the songs over and over again. “No one knows Spotlight! better than us. They’ll have to choose us, they’ll just have to.”
“But they might not,” I said carefully. I had the feeling that getting a part in the film meant more to Anne-Marie than anyone else. “They might want American kids and I heard that Sunny Dale might be up for Arial.”
“She’s rubbish,” Anne-Marie said. “I can knock spots off her any day of the week, and if they think I’m going to have that girl screen-kissing my boyfriend then they’ve got another think coming.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Nydia said. “If you or me got the lead we might have to kiss Sean too, Ruby. How disgusting would that be!”
“Yuck!” I said, and I pulled a suitable face. But worryingly, the second Nydia mentioned it I realised I didn’t think it would be too awful to kiss Sean Rivers at all. I thought of that twinkly, blue-eyed smile he’d given me earlier that day and for the first time since I’d known him it made my tummy lurch. But not in bad way.
“Oh no, that’s a terrible, terrible idea!” I said out loud before I realised it. “That would be really, really bad.”
“He’s not that bad a kisser,” Anne-Marie giggled, whacking me with one of my pillows.
“Well, he’s been kissing you for nearly a year so he can’t be that good,” I teased her, keen to get the stupid feeling out of my tummy.
“Attack!” Nydia yelled, launching herself at me with the final cushion.
There were feathers all over the floor by the time my mum caught us.
SPOTLIGHT! THE MOVIE MUSICAL
SCREEN TEST SCENE SCREENPLAY BY JOSETTE HUGHES AND SIMION HUGHES based on LYRICS AND MUSIC BY MICK CARUSO and BOOK BY DEN FELTON
Scene 37
Ext. Evening. Fire escape at the back of the drama school. ARIAL is sitting on her own, crying. A figure appears at the window. It’s SEBASTIAN. He hesitates and then climbs out of the window and sits beside her. He considers putting a hand on her shoulder, but in the end is not brave enough.
SEBASTIAN
Arial, why are you crying?
ARIAL looks up at him, as if she’s only just realised that he is there. Hastily she wipes her tears away and tries to smile.
ARIAL
I’m not crying, I just have…um hay fever. That’s all – it makes my eyes run.
SEBASTIAN hesitates again. He knows that ARIAL is lying, but he doesn’t want to embarrass her.
SEBASTIAN
Look, I know you haven’t got very many friends here yet, and that some of the girls are giving you a hard time – but that’s only because they are jealous.
Only because you are more talented than they are. Kinder, nicer, funnier and more beautiful…
ARIAL looks up sharply at SEBASTIAN.
ARIAL
Pardon?
SEBASTIAN looks scared and then his face changes as he makes a decision to say what he’s really thinking.
SEBASTIAN
I said I think you are really beautiful.
They look at each other for a moment longer and then SEBASTIAN loses his courage. He climbs back in through the window, leaving ARIAL sitting alone once again.
Cue production number four SEBASTIAN and ARIAL’S 1ST DUET “I’m in Love!” Sung as a duet but shot in two separate locations: SEBASTIAN’S room and the fire escape.
“I’m in Love!”
| ARIAL: | I’ve never felt this way before. I see your face and my heart hits the floor. |
| SEB: | I don’t understand what’s going on, Only that I miss you whenever you’re gone. |
| BOTH: | I feel crazy and happy and sad. I feel lazy and zappy and mad! I want to sing, I want to run, to fly in the sky above! What’s happening to me? Could it be that I’m in love? |
| SEB: | None of the guys have ever felt the way I do. |
| ARIAL: | All of the girls would laugh if they ever knew. |
| BOTH: | But I’d do anything to spend a few minutes with you Because only you can make me feel the way I do. I feel funny and stupid and fine! And Honey I wish that Cupid would make you mine! I want to sing, I want to run, to soar in the sky above! What’s happening to me? Could it be I’m in love? |
DANCE INTERLUDE
| SEB: | None of the guys have ever felt the way I do. |
| ARIAL: | All of the girls would laugh if they ever knew. |
| BOTH: | But I’d do anything to spend a few minutes with you Because only you can make me feel the way I do. I feel funny and stupid and fine! And Honey I wish that Cupid would make you mine! I want to sing, I want to run, to soar in the sky above! What’s happening to me? Could it be I’m in love? Music fades. SEBASTIAN looks wistfully out of his bedroom window at the moon and then draws down his blind as his roommates enter. ARIAL takes one more look at the moon and then climbs back in through the window, pulling it down behind her. Scene closes. |
“Right,” I said to everyone as we sat in the waiting room right outside where the screen testing was, with a slight note of panic in my voice. “All we have to do is act, sing and dance. It will be fine.”
“It won’t be fine,” Nydia said anxiously. “This isn’t a scene, it’s a whole act! I thought