Read Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later for Free Online

probably picked up cheap when some old movie palace was torn down. The seats were inconsiderately placed one directly behind the other, and with no incline in the floor, it was almost impossible to see comfortably from anywhere but the first few rows. However, for a first-time playwright like Will Connolly, the idea of having a play anywhere in New York City, especially a theater with this kind of proximity to Broadway, made it almost magnificent.
    Green-and-yellow-striped banners hanging from a flagpole outside announced The Follies of 1763, a new play with music that revealed the love triangle of the venerable lexicographer, essayist, and poet Samuel Johnson; his biographer, James Boswell; and the object of their affections, Mrs. Hester Thrale, written by the same Will Connolly. Posters bordered the entrance with photos of actors in eighteenth-century costumes in the midst of what had to be a serious argument: angry faces with heads jutting turtlelike at each other in attack mode. Somehow, it had a comic feel.
    Not an autobiographical first play in the kitchen-sink style, Elizabeth guessed. Since getting the job at the magazine eight months ago, she’d been enjoying the hubris of being something of a theater insider, the result of endless catch-up play reading and watching hours of American Theatre Wing interviews and other theater panel shows. No, not autobiographical at all; in fact, an unusual and risky choice for a debut play. Not a musical, but a play with music. She had asked to read the script but was told the author had refused. It made her even more curious.
    Elizabeth tried each side of the double front doors, but they were both locked. And there was no one around to ask how to get inside. A tiny wisp of panic at the thought of screwing up her first interview by not finding something as stupidly simple as the stage door entrance hit the theater insider, adding more discomfort to the heat of the late July day. And then she saw the blessed smoker, an older man, his face creased from years of cigarettes, looking very theatrical in his jeans and wifebeater worn under a suede vest. He was sitting on the stoop in front of the brownstone next door, smoking away.
    “Excuse me,” she asked. “Are you from the show?”
    “I am.” Just those two words gave away his Irish accent. “What can I do for you?”
    “I have an appointment with the playwright and I’m not sure how to get inside.”
    Elizabeth was hot enough to move the man into action. He pushed himself up from the step, crushed his cigarette with his shoe, and walked over to Elizabeth.
    “Follow me,” he said, leading her to another door a few feet down from the front entrance. “You’re here for the auditions, right?”
    “Sort of.”
    The man hesitated and turned to Elizabeth, now suspicious. Was this one of those nutty fans or an actor without an appointment? Actors would try anything. “What do you mean, ‘Sort of’?”
    “Well, it’s more like a magazine. Do you know Show Survey ?”
    “No.”
    “You’re an actor, aren’t you?”
    “Stagehand’s union.”
    “Well, it’s like a Zagat for Off Broadway, and I write for it.” She hated that description, felt it denigrated the magazine, but it led to instant understanding. Despite her own disapproval, she found herself using it more often than she wanted.
    “Ah, so you’re a writer.”
    Immediately, her credit rose from lowly, needy actor, one step below everyone, to intellect. Elizabeth loved that fringe benefit, though she still didn’t think she deserved it. She had been writing professionally for close to five years but still felt like she was in on a pass.
    “Follow me,” he said, pulling open the heavy metal door. “See that door at the end? That’s the theater part. They’re all in there.”
    He watched as she walked down the hall to the doorway, turned, waved him a thank-you, then pushed open the door and disappeared inside.
    Elizabeth stepped into the theater and was