By Melissa Brayden
Love and ambition clash on stage
Subject
Themes
Jenna McGovern, a twenty-three-year-old graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, lands the supporting role of Alexis in the national tour of Clean Slate, the hottest show on Broadway. She bonds instantly with fellow cast member Lanie Rowe, who becomes her closest friend and confidante, and comes out to her during their first week together. On tour, Jenna meets the show's star, Adrienne Kenyon, a former television actress who reinvented herself for the stage. Their connection is immediate and electric. After a day together at Navy Pier in Chicago, Adrienne suggests keeping things light between them, but the feelings prove impossible to contain.
Jenna McGovern, a twenty-three-year-old graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, lands the supporting role of Alexis in the national tour of Clean Slate, the hottest show on Broadway. She bonds instantly with fellow cast member Lanie Rowe, who becomes her closest friend and confidante, and…
Published in 2012, Waiting in the Wings emerged during a transformative period for lesbian romance fiction. The early 2010s saw a significant shift in LGBTQ+ literary publishing, as independent presses like Bold Strokes Books expanded their catalogues and digital distribution made queer fiction…
Ambition is presented not as a flaw but as a force that requires careful negotiation with the rest of a person's life. Jenna's drive to succeed is genuine and admirable. She has trained for years, sacrificed comfort, and earned every opportunity through talent and hard work. When she wins the role…
Love between Jenna and Adrienne is never presented as easy or inevitable. It is earned through a painful process of learning to be vulnerable with another person, and the narrative makes clear that both women must overcome deep-seated fears before they can truly commit. The emotional architecture of…
Physical and emotional desire functions as a disruptive force throughout the narrative, repeatedly breaking through the boundaries that both Jenna and Adrienne attempt to erect around their feelings. From the earliest moments of their connection, desire operates as an honest signal, revealing truths…
Identity is a contested territory throughout the narrative, with Jenna's sense of self repeatedly reshaped by the tension between who she believes she should be and who she actually is. At the beginning, her identity is almost entirely professional. She defines herself as an actress, a dancer, a…
The world of professional theatre and film is not merely a backdrop for the love story; it functions as an extended metaphor for the emotional dynamics between Jenna and Adrienne. Throughout the narrative, the language and mechanics of performance, rehearsal, direction, audience, roles, and scripts,…
Jenna McGovern is a young actress whose journey from wide-eyed conservatory graduate to self-aware woman forms the emotional spine of the narrative. At twenty-three, she arrives at her first professional audition with nothing but raw talent and a fierce determination to succeed. Her ambition is not…
Adrienne Kenyon is the star of the Clean Slate national tour, a former television actress who successfully reinvented herself for the stage. Her public persona is one of confidence, elegance, and effortless talent. She commands attention in every room, whether performing onstage, singing at a jazz…
Lanie Garfield, later Lanie Rowe, is Jenna's best friend and the emotional anchor who keeps Jenna grounded throughout the highs and lows of her career and love life. From the moment they meet at the Clean Slate audition, Lanie establishes herself as someone who is both fiercely supportive and…
Sienna Ivy is an ensemble member of the Clean Slate tour who functions initially as the story's antagonist before undergoing a transformation that recontextualises her behaviour and its lasting consequences. When Jenna first encounters her, Sienna radiates hostility. She is territorial about…
Jenna McGovern, a twenty-three-year-old graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, receives an unexpected phone call from her agent, Andrew Latham, about a last-minute audition in New York. She rearranges her travel plans and arrives the next morning at a cramped studio where dozens of…
The final day of rehearsal arrives, and Jenna is drowning in self-doubt. The put-in rehearsal forces her to run the full show with the cast on the actual stage for the first time, complete with sets, props, and lighting cues. It is nerve-wracking but exhilarating, a reminder of what she has trained…
During a performance, Adrienne collapses onstage after a spin, clutching her knee. Jenna watches in horror from the wings as Adrienne somehow pulls herself upright and finishes singing, bearing all her weight on one foot. When Jenna enters for the final scene, she improvises extra stage business to…
Four years have passed. Jenna is twenty-seven, living in Los Angeles, and nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the independent film Tenth Avenue. She loses the award but handles it gracefully, attending the after-party with her mother. At the event, she reconnects…
Four weeks into filming, the Phase Two cast has bonded into a tight ensemble. Jenna, Adrienne, and co-star Michelle spend late nights at the hotel bar, and the atmosphere between Jenna and Adrienne has softened into something approaching genuine friendship. While shopping for a maid-of-honour dress…
Jenna rents a beach cottage in the Hamptons for Lanie and Ben's wedding weekend. In the bride's room at the church, she helps Lanie prepare and is overcome with emotion at how beautiful her friend looks. During the ceremony, Jenna steals glances at Adrienne, who sits with Kim in a deep burgundy…
Stuck in terrible traffic on the way to her meeting with director Rick Latham in midtown, Jenna finds herself oddly unbothered by the delay. She tosses an orange in the confined space of the car, staring out at the gridlock, and begins to wonder why the prospect of a career-defining film role in…
Jenna McGovern is a young actress whose journey from wide-eyed conservatory graduate to self-aware woman forms the emotional spine of the narrative. At twenty-three, she arrives at her first professional audition with nothing but raw talent and a fierce determination to succeed. Her ambition is not…
Adrienne Kenyon is the star of the Clean Slate national tour, a former television actress who successfully reinvented herself for the stage. Her public persona is one of confidence, elegance, and effortless talent. She commands attention in every room, whether performing onstage, singing at a jazz…
Lanie Garfield, later Lanie Rowe, is Jenna's best friend and the emotional anchor who keeps Jenna grounded throughout the highs and lows of her career and love life. From the moment they meet at the Clean Slate audition, Lanie establishes herself as someone who is both fiercely supportive and…
Sienna Ivy is an ensemble member of the Clean Slate tour who functions initially as the story's antagonist before undergoing a transformation that recontextualises her behaviour and its lasting consequences. When Jenna first encounters her, Sienna radiates hostility. She is territorial about…
Jenna McGovern, a twenty-three-year-old graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, lands the supporting role of Alexis in the national tour of Clean Slate, the hottest show on Broadway. She bonds instantly with fellow cast member Lanie Rowe, who becomes her closest friend and confidante, and comes out to her during their first week together. On tour, Jenna meets the show's star, Adrienne Kenyon, a former television actress who reinvented herself for the stage. Their connection is immediate and electric. After a day together at Navy Pier in Chicago, Adrienne suggests keeping things light between them, but the feelings prove impossible to contain.