FRIDAY NIGHT STAGE LIGHTS

Brooklyn has one love: ballet.

She’s competing for a spot at the Texas School of the Arts, where she can focus on dance. Her first step: impress TSOTA’s scouts at the All-City Showcase with a pas de deux. Her teacher suggests a volunteer activity to round out her application and has the perfect project. Enter the fumbling (pun intended) Leighton Middle School football team; they’re taking conditioning classes at Brooklyn’s ballet studio, and Brooklyn will model the positions. Many girls in her class are excited about the boys—but not Brooklyn. The studio is her haven in her football-obsessed town, and she’s not pleased at the prospect of sharing it with boys who goof around during lessons and treat ballet like a joke. When dance partner Jayden breaks his leg, Brooklyn almost gives up on the showcase, but then her teacher suggests Logan, a football player, fill in. He agrees, on one condition: that Brooklyn give football a chance. She promises, but that will never happen. Or will it? A family dispute over Brooklyn’s superstar high school–football-player stepbrother Tanner’s future adds an extra layer of tension to the story. Brooklyn’s friend Mia is biracial, Japanese and white. Former partner Jayden is 6 feet tall and, as he calls himself “the LeBron James of ballet,” is implied black. Brooklyn, her family, and Logan are all default white (as is much of the rest of the cast).

Will inspire readers to go for their dreams, one leap at a time.