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Theater of the Absurd

Two stereotypes about acting school students: 1) They love show tunes. 2) The drama doesn’t stop when they get off stage. And Juilliard student Edward Zanni is guilty as charged. Kicked out for being “too jazz-hands,” the musical devotee gets embroiled in a corporate espionage scam and dodges the Feds in Marc Acito’s outrageous novel Attack of the Theater People (out April 22).

Though it’s a sequel to 2004’s How I Paid for College, in which Zanni embezzled and blackmailed so he could pay for the prestigious NYC acting school, you don't need to have read the original. Now it’s two years later — 1986 — Acito ups the ante on screwy situations — and musical references. At one point, Zanni, channeling his Fiddler on the Roof training, disguises himself as a Hasidic Rabbi to spy on the slick businessman who got him in trouble: “I go for a generalized shtetl-speak, which I learned when I played the tailor Motel Kamzoil.”

But being himself is the toughest role of all. Woven in with the madcap adventure is a touching account of Zanni’s struggle to find his identity: “I’m not so much gay as gayish — Almost Gay,” Zanni rationalizes. Cue the big, swelling self-acceptance ballad.


Attack of the Theater People will be available April 22 from Doubleday.