“Obviously not,” she says. “Anyway, I don’t know why he picked this musical when there’s, like, two Latino kids and one Black kid who do drama.”

“That’s not true. There are . . .” My eyes skim the people sitting in the hallway. She’s not wrong. “More than that. Anyway, it’s nice that he wants to do a show like Bronxtown Brooms.”

Her smug grin fades away. “Don’t tell me you drank the Mr. B potion.”

“Whatever. You’re here too.”

“Can’t let you be the only one getting the diversity brownie points,” she says, rolling her eyes.

The door to the auditorium opens, and Mr. B bounds out. Brittany follows close behind him. “All right, people!” he says excitedly, clapping his hands. “Let’s get this party started. We’re going to do the singing auditions first, and then the wonderful Brittany”—Brittany does jazz hands, and sparks shoot theatrically off her fingers—“is going to lead you all through some choreography for our dance call. Brittany is going to be your student choreographer for this show, so make some noise for her real quick.”

Everyone whoops and claps on cue. Brittany curtsies, then dramatically tosses her blond hair over her shoulders. “Thank you, thank you,” she says, as if she’s accepting an award.

Mr. B laughs indulgently at her, then turns his attention back to us. “I’m excited to tackle this show with all of you this semester. This is a very important show. Gets into a lot of issues.” He nods at us seriously. “We’re going to be learning a lot about gentrification with this one.”

I hadn’t really thought of this musical as being a deep discussion of social issues. Based on the Wikipedia summary I read, it’s mostly a comedic love story about two sisters falling for two guys who move into their neighborhood. I mean, the gentrification stuff is definitely there, but it didn’t seem like this big, deep thing. From his tone of voice, you would think the show was a tragedy about the AIDS crisis or the Sino-American Magitech Wars or something.

“I’ll be holding callbacks immediately following the auditions tonight, but don’t worry too much about those,” Mr. B continues. “You all know the drill. If I need to see more, I’ll call you back. If not, still make sure you check the cast lists when I post them tomorrow at four.”

Ugh. I have work after school tomorrow, so I won’t be able to check right away. I’ll have to get someone to tell me what the list says.

“Okay. I’m hoping to get you all out of here by six thirty—”

“So eight?” someone calls out from the back of the group. There’s a general rumble of laughter.