Elizabeth Durkins

Elizabeth signing 'Nice to meet you'

- Singing Opera

Elizabeth is a supporting characters in A Performer's Life Beyond the Drapes. She is the roommate of Willow King, and an aspiring opera singer.

## Appearance

Elizabeth is an attractive young woman of average height and thin build. She has long, honey-blonde hair that goes down to her waist, and cognac-colored eyes. She is considered to be one of the prettiest girls at Carnegie, along with Greta, Crystal, Elena, and Fallon.

Her clothing style is described as a mix of preppy and 50s. She usually wears various shades of blue, and is always dressed in more conservative clothing.

Due to her deafness, she usually sings onstage barefoot (the reason for this being that she can feel the vibrations from the speakers in the stage, allowing her to sing along with the music perfectly).

Her singing voice is noted to be beautiful, yet slurred due to not being able to hear herself.

## Personality

Elizabeth has a fair-spoken, kindly personality. She likes to compliment people, and genuinely enjoys making people smile.

Due to her beauty, she is constantly being flirted with by many boys; however, because of her asexuality, she never acknowledges any of these and prefers to ignore them.

She treasures her friendships and feels immense guilt if she ever does anything that makes her friends mad. This is shown when Quinn kisses her without her consent, and she profusely apologizes to Max (despite it not being her fault).

Inspired after watching *Phantom of the Opera* when she was 13, she decided to pursue a career in opera. To achieve this, she practiced tirelessly to train and perfect her voice.

It's later revealed that her deafness was caused by a car accident when she was fifteen. While leaving a party with friends, the car swerved into a tree to avoid a deer; she suffered extreme head trauma, which caused her deafness. Though initially depressed about this, she decided to continue singing, and began practicing to sing by feeling the vibrations of the music from the speakers in the floor (thus starting her tradition of singing barefoot).

She seems to cling to people who can use sign language, seen when she continually tries to befriend Willow, despite the latter's constant pushing her away.

## Relationships

### Friends

#### Willow King

The two have a rocky start in the first part of the book, with Willow refusing to socialize with Elizabeth. Despite this, Elizabeth takes an instant liking to her due to Willow being able to understand and communicate via sign language.

While Willow is held captive by Jackson in their dorm, Elizabeth unknowingly walks in on the scene. Knowing that she could contact the police, Jackson abducts her as well. As he is pulling her into the room, Elizabeth throws her room key in order for someone to be able to get inside to help.

Afterward, the two become good friends, often performing together in class projects.

## Trivia

* Meaning of name 'Elizabeth': "My God is an Oath"; "My God is Abundance". Meaning of surname 'Durkins': "Idiot".
* The idea for Elizabeth to sing barefoot comes from the character Toph from *Avatar: The Last Airbender*, who can tell a person's location by feeling the vibrations in the earth. However, Toph always goes barefoot while Elizabeth is only barefoot while onstage singing.
	+ The main difference between the two is that Toph is blind while Elizabeth is deaf.
	+ This tradition is also seen with Mandy Harvey, another deaf singer who made it to the finals of Season 12 of America's Got Talent. The author has stated that she didn't learn about this until after creating Elizabeth.

## References

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy\_Harvey
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s\_Got\_Talent\_(season\_12)
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s\_Got\_Talent