Echo After Echo by Amy Rose Capetta (review)

Zara has been in love with the Greek tragedy Echo and Ariston for as long as she can remember, so when she lands the part of Echo through an open audition, she leaves high school without regrets for New York City and the chance of a lifetime. Not only is this her favorite role in her favorite play, but the show is to be directed by the legendary Leopold Henneman and performed in the famed, and possibly cursed, Aurelia Theater. Amidst a cast that has long experience with the mercurial Leopold's eccentricities, Zara is understandably insecure, but she is flat-out frightened when Roscoe, the lighting director, falls to his death, and then a member of the cast dies backstage under mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, Zara has fallen in love with Eli Vasquez, the gruff young replacement lighting director determined to make a name for herself. Creatively remixing tropes from the entire history of stage lore, Capetta crafts a contemporary Gothic melodrama, complete with a naïve ingenue in thrall to an enigmatic, controlling director; a curse that presages a third death on opening night; a tightly knit, secretive cast plotting intricate revenge for past wrongs; and a handsome, cluelessly ineffective but well-meaning hero. True to form, it's the steamy forbidden romance between Eli and Zara that ends up saing the day when Zara risks her life to unmask the villains of the piece onstage. This isn't the book for getting an inside look at how things really are for working actors; this is for theater geeks who will revel in all the over-the-top drama and dramatic references they love and imagine about life on the boards. KC