Louie the Unicorn continues his tale of student life at the New York School of Performing Arts in book two of the Unicorn in New York series.

The  New York School of Performing Arts will soon be celebrating its 50th anniversary. For the event,  the New York School of Performing Arts will be putting on the play “The Handsome Prince and the Princess Pointlessly Stuck in the Tower” for one night only, on Broadway. Auditions will be taking place soon. Louie believes he will get the lead role. Louie asks Arnie the Unicorn (the only other unicorn at school and the school’s top actor) for audition tips. Arnie ruthlessly tells Louie to practice circus tricks for the audition. Naive Louie begins learning quite a few circus tricks, spinning plates on his unicorn horn and  juggling torches to name a couple. During Louie’s audition he is asked,  ” ‘I wanted to stop you so I could ask, at what point in the show do you think this will be appropriate?’ ” (32) Louie does not get to part of the Prince, Arnie does. But Louie will be Arnie’s understudy. When Louie shadows Arnie’s every move so Louie can be the perfect understudy, Arnie turns Louie into his gofer. “Miranda and Danny said Arnie was treating me like a “gofer.” I like gophers and I’m sure Arnie does, too, but I think the phrase they were looking for was BFF.” (55)

Meanwhile, Frank the nice troll is about to loose his part in the play as the scary giant because he is not scary. Louie helps out his friend and roommate Frank by introducing Frank to method acting.  Frank states, ” ‘Finally! I think I can do this giant thing if I imagine I’m protecting the princess rather than scaring the prince. ‘ ” (68) Now Louie moves on to create a big school-wide surprise for principal Madame Swirler whose birthday is the same day as the school’s 50th anniversary.

Arnie has ordered Louie to polish his tap shoes until he can see his face in them. Louie does one better by polishing the bottoms of the shoes, as well. When Arnie preforms his tap dance number at the dress rehearsal, he slides right off of the stage and brakes his leg. Louie, the understudy, will have to perform in Arnie’s place. After the curtain call, Louie hushes the audience and presents Madame Swirler with a slide show and photo album of her 50 years of performances at the New York School of Performing Arts. Louie can tell Madame Swirler likes it because she looses just a teeny tiny bit of her sternness and cracks a small smile which Louie hopes won’t make her face muscles too sore.

Once again, Louie closes this book by writing home to his parents telling them about his latest experiences at the New York School of Performing Arts.

Illustrator Oscar Armelles livens up the pages with his sketches of Louie and his schoolmates.