Kirkus Reviews QR Code
CURTAIN GOING UP! by Elizabeth Starr Hill

CURTAIN GOING UP!

by Elizabeth Starr Hill

Pub Date: April 1st, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-85919-2
Publisher: Viking

The sequel to Hill's earlier Street Dancers and Broadway Chances finds Fitzi Wolper busy with a small role in a hit Broadway musical and trying to get noticed by the teenage star, Mark Hiller. Fitzi's parents and grandfather are players also; when Tony nominations are announced, her loyalties are torn—Mark and her grandfather are up for the same award. Hill succeeds in conveying Fitzi's adolescent insecurity, aggravated by her glamorous yet superficial life—a show-biz childhood isn't all roses. The plot is too transparent to be suspenseful: Mark is charming but ill-suited boyfriend material; his understudy, Jerry, is a better match for Fitzi; Mark quits the show after getting beat out of the Tony, and Jerry and Fitzi move into featured roles. Never mind that in real life understudies don't automatically get the part when the star leaves—the way is open for a sequel. Corny but harmless, Andy Hardy-style doings for the stagestruck. (Fiction. 10-14)