CHAPTER THREEThe acting instructor, Lena Harrison, had us do all kinds of things I’d never done before. It was kind of like in the beginning of that movie, Tootsie, where Dustin Hoffman’s character does things like have two people face each other, and one of them has to imitate what the other is doing—scowl, stick their tongues out, laugh, cry, whatever. Or maybe one person has to stand alone in front of everyone else while shaking their body and whining. Lena said if we could bring ourselves to do stuff like this, we’d be able to open up enough to be creative with our personal presentation in the world, on and off stage.
That Friday, Lena had us do something we’d never done before. And she started with me and another guy in the class, a sophomore. Alden Armstrong was tall, his limbs slen
