The use of pagers and cellular telephones during the performance is strictly forbidden.
Please unwrap your cough drops NOW.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
(in order of appearance in my life)

MILES	our Tragic Hero, age sixteen. Misunderstood. Possibly a genius. Definitely tall for his age.
THE MOTHER	a woman of infinite patience, a minivan, and a hot glue gun
THE FATHER	Keeper of the Remote Control. Teller of Puns. Says "Please" a lot when I sing in the shower.
THE ELDER SISTER	who took the good bedroom and then fled to college
THE YOUNGER BROTHER	age nine. A villain. Ate the last Pop-Tart and felt nothing.
BISCUIT	a dog, played by himself. My only true audience.

The action takes place in a split-level house in New Jersey,
a mere bus ride from Broadway, and yet a WORLD away.

ACT I
Innocence

Scene 1. The family room, 1990. A small boy, six, stands on the coffee table wrapped in a bedsheet. I perform the entire Little Mermaid for my relatives, playing every part, including the crab. I am told it ran ninety minutes. The movie is eighty-three. I added things.

Scene 2. A church basement at Christmas. I am cast as Shepherd #3, a role with no lines. So I wrote some. At the crucial moment I stepped forward and cried, "Behold! I, too, have seen the star!" The reviews were mixed.

"Lovely." — The Grandmother
"We'll talk about it later." — The Pastor

And so a legend was born.

~ INTERMISSION ~
Kool-Aid is available in the lobby (the kitchen). Please return promptly. I will know.

ACT II
The Tragedy of Tree #2

Last spring. A hallway. A cast list is taped to a door. Our Hero approaches. The music swells. (Imagine it swelling.)

I had auditioned with "To be, or not to be." I had practiced it in the mirror for three weeks. I had PAUSED in all the right places. I read down the list, trembling, and there, at the very bottom, it said:

TREE #2 ............ MILES

Not the prince. Not the villain. Not even Tree #1, who had a LINE ("The wind blows cold tonight."). Tree #2. Silent. Rooted. Forgotten by the gods.

Did I weep? Friend, I wept.

But then I did what any true artist would do. I became the greatest tree that stage had ever seen. The Mother hot-glued 212 felt leaves onto a brown turtleneck. I studied how trees move in wind, in rain, in grief. I rustled as no tree has ever rustled. On the second night a branch fell off, and I held it for the rest of the act in a way the director called "distracting" and I call ART.

"You were a very convincing tree, honey." — The Mother
"Which one were you?" — The Grandmother
"Wood you please stop talking about it." — The Father (pun)

ACT III
To Be Continued...

The present. Our Hero, older now, wiser, sits at the family computer. Snow has not yet fallen, but it will. Oh, it will.

Auditions for the winter play are in November. I have been preparing. I do vocal warm-ups every morning. I have listened to my Les Mis tape so many times it squeaks. Will our Hero rise at last to a role with a NAME? Will he speak? Or will he be... a shrub?

Act III is still being written. Much like me.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Okay. Curtain down for one second. For real: I would play Tree #2 a hundred more times. Standing in the dark backstage right before the lights come up is the best feeling I have ever had, and that's the one thing on this page I'm not exaggerating.

(Curtain back up.)