Free Life Is Not a Stage by Florence Henderson Page B

life. She was quietly crying and trying to hide her face. It made me so sad. I put my little arm through hers and tried to comfort her.
    There was also much to learn from watching the other students. They may have come from all parts of the country and diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, but there was great camaraderie. We were all striving for success, yet despite the competitive climate, fellow students were generous in helping one another. Thanks to that quality, my studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts would soon come to a sudden and abrupt end.

CHAPTER 5
Wish You Were Here
    I t was my first audition, a cattle call at the Alvin Theater for a part in the chorus in the original cast of the musical Wish You Were Here . “You can sing, so you should go,” my fellow students encouraged me. Some of them had already auditioned for the show, but nobody had gotten a job. I was told to bring a bathing suit, but of course I didn’t have one. One of the students, Candy Parsons, who was in South Pacific with me years later at Lincoln Center, lent me hers. Another student gave me a piece of sheet music to take with me and told me how to get to the theater.
    Ask any successful actor and each will have his or her own version of this rite of passage. For example, when Martin Sheen and Zalman King were starving young actors in New York, they actually shared the same suit for an audition. When the first finished, they went into the restroom so the other could change into it. Luckily, they were the same size. Unfortunately, Candy and I were not.
    I arrived with my long blonde hair and simple clothes, bathing suit in tow, and took my place in line. When it was my turn, I handed the sheet music for “Only Make Believe” from Showboat to the pianist and sang to the darkened audience. When I finished, the director and cowriter Josh Logan and composer Harold Rome emerged from the shadows and addressed me from their seats below: “Did you bring a bathing suit?” I told them that I had. “Go down to the basement and put it on and come back.”
    Downstairs, an old stagehand named Charlie Bauer heard me in distress.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “This bathing suit doesn’t fit,” I told him. It was both too wide and too low-cut over the breasts. I was struggling to hold the back end and the top part up at the same time.
    “Hold on. I’ll get some safety pins,” Charlie offered.
    It is one thing to be terrified about going to your first audition, but the added worry about accidental nudity (displaying more of your talents) did not help. The bathing suit was required because there was a real, fully functioning swimming pool in the middle of the stage. The musical was based on a play, Having Wonderful Time , by Arthur Kober, about a Jewish summer camp for young people in the Catskills.
    I went on the stage, but the safety pins were not doing the job. Everyone must have laughed as I sang and tried to hold myself together and keep the suit from falling down. “Are you okay?” they asked.
    “No. This isn’t my bathing suit. I borrowed it.” They laughed again. Luckily, I did not panic during the performance, and was spared the nightmare of a wardrobe malfunction.
    “Will you come back in a week and sing for us again? And bring a bathing suit that fits!” More laughter.
    So that is what I did. I came back. I had purchased a bathing suit that fit. There is a lot that can go wrong during a live performance. Who knows? Perhaps the fact that I showed some fearlessness and spontaneity under that pressure and turned the negative situation into an advantage gave me the decisive edge. I got in the show. I won the role of the New Girl. I would sing in the chorus. I would also be given one line: “Can I still see the game?” I will never forget that line!
    After the audition, I went back to the head of the school to get his advice. I had only completed a year, but had been invited back for the second year and was loath to