Authors: Masha Leyfer
A group that definitely deserves a huge thank you is the NaNo Boston community. You guys are my favorite people to write with and your support and enthusiasm made writing 50,000 words in one month a tangible and wonderful reality.
More friends!
Thank you to Kristina, for dropping by my house whenever she walked her dog.
Thank you to Liza for being super a modern-age Pechorin, but with a sense of humor and a good personality.
Thank you to Vika, for a lot of things, but especially for your baking skills and sophisticated sense of humor.
Thank you to Lina Conlin, who exceeded all of my wildest expectations for book-revision. I wish I had space for an entire essay to thank you, because your effect on this book is monumental and unquantifiable.
Thank you to the EmersonWrites community, especially Cassie and Kayleigh, for teaching me loads about writing.
At this point, I think it would also be appropriate to thank Grammarly, which is the grammar-check software that I use, because I’m pretty sure I set a world record for typos per paragraph.
I want to thank all of the teachers I've ever had, because all of you have shaped me in some way or another.
The next thank you goes to Felix Flax, who has an oddly musical-worth life, made elementary school totally worth it, and who listens to me complain all the time.
Next, I want to thank Lydia McCarthy for being my fellow theater enthusiast and listening to me rant about various things practically every day. She deserves a thank you for that alone. I would honestly pass out if I had to listen to myself rant.
It would be wrong to exclude all of the fantastic people who spiced up my short lunch time, so here's to Aine, Umang, Angela, Halley, Hazel, Maddie, Ashley, and Tracy (I'm pretty sure I misspelled at least one of you. Sorry.)
Thank you to the Dream Team, Kyle, Lydia, and Nadia for being the highlight of my eighth grade. Thank you to Lydia for sobbing over my dead body and to Nadia for being my faithful Bounty Hunter. Kyle, thank you for writing my eulogy
To Greta Gaffin, I am very glad we got to be friends, because you are a fantastic person. Thank you for auditioning with the confused Sixie-me.
I want to extend a very special thank you to Laura A.K.A. Gavroche, for being my fellow musical obsessor and singing dramatic duets with me. Words cannot explain my love for you. Next person who deserves my thanks is Susan. Thank you for being the sassiest ginger ever and for spicing up my day any time, all the time. Without you, life would be gray and meaningless.
Thank you to everybody who has ever listened to me talk about this, because, wow, do I talk a lot. I especially want to thank the dude that told me he would buy my book when I was writing next to him on the train and that girl from KSP who actually remembered the plot and congratulated me on finishing this almost nine months later when we met again. Also, huge thank you to her dog Sasha.
On the topic of dogs, thank you to every single dog I have ever interacted with, but especially Scooby, for being a shameless little sausage, Wolfie, for being the epitome of dog, Gosha, for being the fluffy companion that completes my life, Naussie, for being a drama queen like the rest of her family, and Robbie, for being the grandchild I’ve always wanted.
Next comes the Urinetown cast. Before I thank them I would like to thank Mark Hollman for writing my favorite song and Greg Kotis for not only writing the most amazing, fabulous, wonderful, awesome, beyond-power-of words incredible musical ever, but also for being a wonderful human being.
Anyway, Urinetown. I can't help but go off on a rant whenever I even think about it, but I'll try to keep it short. So what is Urinetown? you ask. Excellent question. Aside from being the awesomest musical ever, Urinetown is so many things. It's so many things, in fact, that there's an entire song about it. It's called "What is Urinetown". Go look it up. In fact, go look up the entire musical, because it's so amazing. Anyway, why did I bring up Urinetown? Did I write this book just for the sake of talking about Urinetown?
Ok, admittedly a little.
But there is a valid reason that I brought Urinetown up, aside from the fact that it has had an enormous effect on me. I was in my school's production of Urinetown in the seventh grade and I fell in love with it. So, the thing is, I have the name creativity of a peanut. You may be thinking, A peanut can not come up with names, because it is not a sentient object. Yes. Me too. If I try to come up with names, everybody ends up named weird names that are actually Latin words. For example, for the first book that I made significant progress, I needed to come up with two names. I literally could not come up with two names in four years. I had
four years
to come up with two names. And I didn't.
So, anyway, I decided not to go through that again, so I just stole the names of the cast and crew.
So thank you guys for not suing me for using your names. I feel like this section is already too long, so I won’t bother with specific apologies, but I will say that I’m vaguely sorry for stealing your names.
Thank yous in order of appearance:
To Molly, thank you for being an amazing and unnaturally talented human being and I'm sorry that your character is an idiot.
To Mike, Thank you for the best break of the fourth wall I have ever witnessed.
To Nate Krieger, Thanks for some quality co-captainship and numerous awesome jokes.
To Nathan Hermida, Thank you for proving to an entire generation of BLS students that dreams can come true.
To Anna Schuliger, Thank you for being pretty much a perfect human being and for inspiring me, both directly and indirectly.
To Maggie, thank you for being the rare combination of an incredibly kind person with an uncannily accurate demon impression.
To Anna O'Dea: Thank you for your awesome personality and for being one of the best conversationalists I have
To Hannah, thank you for casting me and for being an amazing director. Your awesomeness is like the sun.
To Carpino, thank you for always making me feel at home. It was awesome to be in a show with you.
To Kristina, thank you for basically being my older sister and CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING INTO BERKLEE!!!!! I'M SO PROUD!!!!!!
To Rowen, thanks for being a gorgeous person, inside and out.
To Emily, thank you for being the glue of BLS theater.
To Cole, thank you for being the gaff tape of BLS theater. We could not function without you two. I'm pretty sure if you didn't exist, the Earth would literally stop spinning.
To Desmond, thank you for your awesomeness. I still think you would make a great train robber.
To Nora, thank you for being an amazing tech director with an awesome sense of style.
To Gus, thank you for being an overall fantastic human being, for being my first (and favorite) reader of this book, and for being so incredibly supportive of me for the entirety of this process.
To Liz, thank you for being an amazing costume mistress and for being incredibly talented in all areas of the arts.
To Chris, thank you for teaching me lights, even though I wasn't actually your assistant.
To Jamie, thank you for always finding stuff for me to do and for putting up with my incredible incompetence.
To Drew Hoener, thank you for not getting mad that all your character does is whine.
To Cecilia, thank you for your incredibly energetic aura.
To Jimmy Harold, thank you for being out-of-this-world awesome.
To Julia, thank you for being an actual goddess.
And to Ben Davis, thank you for hands down being one of the best people I know.
Thank you to the Casts and Crews of Urinetown, the BLS One Acts 2014, Harvey, Pullman Car Hiawatha, Anything Goes, the Addams Family, and the Party.
And very lastly, to Joe Gels, thank you for bringing this whole thing together.