"Yes," I said to both questions.
"Please, have a seat. All of your paperwork was completed long before today," he explained as he sat back down behind his desk "I'll take you for a tour of the school and you can start with your drama-speech class. It's scheduled to begin in a little less than a half hour. So, tell me, have you had a chance to see anything of London yet?"
"No sir. I only arrived yesterday and went right to work at the Endfields' and then came directly here this morning?'
"You'll have plenty of time for sightseeing. Don't worry about that, and it's part of our curriculum for you to attend theater on the West End. I promise you. This will be a most rewarding experience in every way. I'm so happy for you. Well, let's not waste any time," he said, jumping up again. "Let me show you around."
I rose and followed him out of the office.
'Presently for the summer session, we have only forty students. They are here at different times doing different things, so at any one time you may be with only a dozen or so students. We pride ourselves on our individualized attention."
As we walked deeper into the building, I began to hear a beautiful male singing voice. He was singing something in Italian. Mr. MacWaine saw the interest in my face.
"That's Randall Glenn," he told me. "A real discovery. He's from Toronto, Canada."
We paused at a door that had a large window in it and looked into the room. I saw a nicely built boy about six feet one or two with thick chestnut brown hair framing a handsome face. His eyes were such a vivid cerulean blue that I could see them brighten as he reached high notes, turning his body slowly in our direction.
A short, plump, charcoal gray--haired man accompanied on the piano. His fingers were so thick they looked glued together, webbed like the hand of some amphibious creature. When he turned toward Randall Glenn, I saw his face was round with thick, soft features.
"No, no, no," he cried, lifting his hands from the piano keys. "Too much in the throat. Sing from here, from down here," he cried patting his own diaphragm. Randall lowered his head and closed his eyes as if he had just been whipped.
"That's Professor Wilheim from Vienna. He is a tough taskmaster, but he has turned sand into pearls. If he believes in you, you will quickly learn to believe in yourself."
I watched as Randall Glenn looked up and began again. His voice carried with such resonance, I couldn't imagine anyone complaining. His eyes which were directed toward the ceiling lowered until they met mine. Seeing me staring at him must have broken his concentration, for Professor Wilheim slammed his hands down on the piano keys. The professor paused to calm himself down, then he looked at Randall and saw where his eyes were, and he spun on his piano stool, Mr. MacWaine lifted his hand and then turned to me.
"Let's move on. The professor hates the slightest interruptions," he added.
He showed me a small cafeteria off a tiny kitchen. There was a cork bulletin board with all sorts of notes, advertising the sale of thi
ngs, including show tickets.
"The students make their own lunches here. We keep a variety of meats and cheese, yogurt and other things in the refrigerators. There's a microwave and a cooker to prepare soups and tea, if you like. After a while you'll see that we're all a little family?'
The next two rooms were classrooms with blackboards. In one a half dozen students were reading and studying The Taming of the Shrew. A tall, thin, light brown--haired woman of about thirty walked about the room with her eyes closed, listening to the recitation. Every once in a while, she would stop the reader and ask him or her to interpret what he had read, how it should be acted and what the reactions of the other performers on the stage at that time should be.
"Every student," Mr. MacWaine whispered, "becomes something of a director as well as an actor. Here we believe the two are intertwined. That's Mrs. Winecoup who also teaches the drama-speech class you will be entering in about fifteen minutes?' He made it sound like the countdown to a rocket launching. I felt the butterflies circling my heart.
We followed the hallway to another stairway which brought us to the dance studio on the second landing. Mr. MacWaine explained how they had knocked down walls to create it. A tall, muscular black boy was going through ballet exercises. We watched him for a while.
"That's Philip Roder," Mr. MacWaine said in a loud whisper. "He's already performed in a production of The Student Prince in Amsterdam. He's a homegrown boy from London. By the way, Mrs. Hudson arranged for me to have everything you need purchased ahead of time for you. When we return to my office, give you your tights, dancing shoes, books and accessories?'
"Oh. Thank you."
"You have quite a benefactor in Mrs. Hudson," he said raising his eyebrows.
"I know."
On the way down the stairs, we passed the elocution class. I saw Leslie and Catherine and two other girls, one very tall with strawberry blond hair and the other slim, about my height, with flaxen blond hair, repeating sentences as the teacher, a dark-haired man of about fifty, recited them. There were two younger-looking boys as well.
"How now brown cow," Mr. MacWaine kidded. "Words are our tools here," he explained.
When we returned to his office, he gave me my things and my class schedule. After the drama-speech class, I was to report to Professor Wilheim who would audition my voice and then after lunch I was to see a Mrs. Vandermark who would evaluate my dancing skills.
"That way we'll know exactly where to start with you," he explained. He welcomed me once again, checked his watch and told me it was time for me to go to my first class. "Good luck," he offered.
After seeing some of the students, I really wondered what I was doing here. I felt like someone who would soon be tested and discovered to be a fraud. Tomorrow they would give me my walking papers and I'd be on a plane heading back to the States. I almost wished it would happen. That's how nervous I was. In schools for performing arts like this, I imagined people were always studying you, evaluating you, judging and measuring you. It was impossible in such small classes to disappear into the woodwork like so many students did in the public school I had attended. I knew students back in D.C. whose teachers didn't know their names after having them for months. What a difference between something like this and going to school in the ghetto, I thought.
Leslie and Catherine were already in the classroom when I arrived. The other two girls I had seen in the elocution class were seated behind them. They turned to look as I entered.