For Trying Out Loud

Liz Horton tries out for the school basketball team and performs worse than she thought possible. Her friend Ashley Jenkins plays exceptionally well, but encourages Liz to try the choir and cheerleading too. Liz hopes she must be talented at something, yet each new audition makes that hope harder to believe.

At the Harlequin Dinner Theater, Shakespeare tells Edwin Blackgaard that a crowded elementary-school play shows how strongly families support people they know. Edwin resists allowing ordinary community members into serious theater until Shakespeare calculates the possible ticket sales. With a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream only a week away, Edwin announces auditions on one day’s notice.

Only Wooton Bassett appears. His acting experience consists of playing Brutus in a third-grade classroom, and his audition keeps stopping whenever he questions Shakespeare’s words or tells unrelated stories. Shakespeare persuades Edwin to find some useful place for the eager volunteer. Wooton tries operating the lights but blinds Edwin, then decorates the stage with lollipops and a giant snack cake because the original forest seems too frightening.

Liz’s choir audition ends almost as soon as she begins singing an extended version of a nursery song. Her cheerleading attempt is even worse: a tumbling mistake sends her crashing into the coach. Ashley performs beautifully, while Brenda Frazier makes obvious errors but confidently expects her popularity to secure a place. When the results are posted, Brenda makes the squad and Ashley does not. Liz believes the selection has become a popularity contest.

Shakespeare continues searching for a role Wooton cannot ruin. Because the theater desperately needs the tickets Wooton’s friends might buy, Edwin invents the role of Guard Number Three, even though the play has no first or second guard. Wooton receives one line asking Edwin to repeat his speech, allowing Edwin to perform a favorite soliloquy twice. Yet Wooton has trouble entering at the right moment and becomes increasingly nervous.

At Whit’s End, Liz tells Wooton that she has failed at basketball, choir, and cheerleading while Ashley seems good at everything. Wooton admits that he is not a gifted actor or stagehand either, but he believes God gives every person some ability. Sometimes people fail to recognize a gift because they are looking in the wrong place. He points out that Liz is deeply loyal to her friends, an ability she has never considered a talent.

Liz takes her suspicion about the cheerleading vote to Mrs. Nietchew, who has already discarded the ballots. Determined to defend Ashley, Liz searches the school dumpster and finds the ballot box. All sixteen votes appear to have been written by the same person, suggesting that the real ballots were removed and replaced. Mrs. Nietchew orders a carefully supervised new vote without accusing anyone before the evidence is complete.

The teacher is impressed by Liz’s persistence, skepticism, and refusal to accept appearances without investigation. She has also noticed Liz’s strong writing in class and invites her to join the school newspaper. Liz has finally discovered an ability that basketball drills, singing, and tumbling could never reveal.

The Harlequin performance sells out because Wooton has mentioned it to people all along his mail route and throughout town. Onstage, he misses cues, mixes up his only line, waves to friends in the audience, and finally delivers the play’s closing words when Edwin loses his place. The delighted crowd gives a standing ovation. Edwin assumes his own performance deserves the credit, but Shakespeare recognizes Wooton’s real gift: he connects naturally with people and brings them together. Edwin invites him into future productions as long as he helps promote them.

After the supervised vote, Ashley earns her rightful place on the cheerleading squad. Liz attends the play as a reporter and has already published an investigation of the school cafeteria. Ashley predicts that she will be an excellent journalist. When Liz approaches the actors after the show, she directs her first question not to the celebrated Edwin but to Wooton, whose unusual way with people has finally been valued too.