Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy (16 page)

And thanks to the union(s), the three costume fittings I have this week will actually be paid days of work. So, my week off will still have a little money coming in.

Cara comes with me to the fitting today, my first at a new shop that makes just one type of shirt for
Jersey Boys
—the bowling shirts. That’s it. And this shop is so incredibly grateful for the work.

Imagine that! They only make one type of costume for the show, but treat the job as if it were a gift. That just goes to show how much of a big business
Jersey Boys
is. The same equation I used with St. Laurie Merchant Tailors can be used here: four guys wear the shirts, plus their two understudies, plus the second Frankie, multiplied by seven companies worldwide, plus replacements that go into the show every year. This is big business for a small costume shop.

And the lady fitting me into a mock-up of the shirt enlightens me about something. “We’re lucky,” she tells me. “Most of the big shows that are mounted in different countries like Canada and the UK use shops in those countries to build the costumes. But
Jersey Boys
wanted a perfectly uniform look, so they negotiated early on that all companies everywhere would have their costumes built by a few New York shops. It gives them consistency, and it gives us a lot of work.”

No wonder this lady is so grateful. She says that costume shops have been hurting for work as Broadway budgets get smaller, and that some of the shops I’ll be visiting might have been forced to close their doors had it not been for the popularity of
Jersey Boys
.

I spend the early part of the evening running through the entire show in an empty room in our apartment building. Ordinarily this room is used for exercise classes, but it is empty and available for my use tonight. But because it is not totally private I fear that somebody will walk in on me while I am doing the “Walk Like A Man” sways. That would not be cool. Unless the person walking in is an actor who knows the show. Then it would be the absolute coolest thing ever. (Sadly, none come in. Though I’m not the kind of guy to show off anyway…)

May 26th, 2009

Today is the first day since mid-April that I am not doing a single thing related to
Jersey Boys
, so maybe I shouldn’t even be writing. But it is such a great day that I think I’m going to include it anyway.

Today is our first wedding anniversary! Sort of. If you have been reading this closely, you know that our real first wedding anniversary was May 18th, but Cara and I decided long ago to celebrate today, the only day we both have off from work.

We head out to Flushing, Queens early in the morning to one of the most unusual and awesome places I have ever experienced in New York: Spa Castle. It is an adventure to get there, for we have to take the subway out to the end of the line, then run up a hill to catch the shuttle van, and then ride in the cramped backseat ten miles to the location. But it is well worth it.

Spa Castle is billed as a combination of “traditional Asian saunas and luxurious European spas,” and has five gigantic floors of self-service bliss. We spend the day in rooftop hot tubs with jets that point every which way (oh yes, every which way), saunas of varying hot temperatures and scents, an ice sauna that we can’t last more than a few seconds in, massage chairs, and a naked room.

Wait. Did I just say naked room? Yes, I did. Most of this place is co-ed, but one floor is separated between males and females and is full of giant scented hot tubs where clothing is not permitted.

For an extra charge, we have extreme massages. I call them “extreme” because I am literally picked up and slammed down onto the massage table multiple times. And I like it.

We come back into Manhattan for a fancy dinner on Park Avenue and after eating so much that I feel hatred for my belt, jump in a cab to take us to Midtown. I have a surprise for Cara. For a few years now she has wanted to see
Avenue Q
. I know it is leaving Broadway soon, so I have bought us some great seats. We see the show, laugh like
Lion King
hyenas, and comment how much we love the work the lead actor is doing. That lead actor is Howie Michael Smith, who auditioned with me for
Jersey Boys
way back at the beginning of my journey.

May 27th, 2009

Cara left for Cincinnati this morning. It was a trip planned long before I was offered the out-of-town job, long before we knew this will be my last week in New York for at least a year. I won’t see her again for three weeks when we’ll meet in Toronto for my opening night. By now, I think anyone reading this knows how I am feeling today.

My own workday begins with an early fitting at yet another costume shop. This shop is the exclusive builder of the “Four Lovers” jacket worn by four guys in the show for just one very short scene.

Then, for a great mini-climax in my rehearsal process, I go to see a matinee of the
Jersey Boys
Broadway Company. I am permitted to sit on the stairs at the side of the auditorium and see the show for free. An usher asks me, “Are you an actor?”

“Yes, I am,” and I’m glad to be answering this question.

“Are you going into this show somewhere?”

“Yes, I am,” and I’m proud to be answering this question.

“What role will you be playing?”

“Tommy,” and I’m bragging with this answer, maybe just a bit.

“Tommy? But you’re blond!”

Why is this such an issue?

The stairs I sit on are comfy enough and have a great view of the audience and their reactions. And the reactions to this performance, especially happening so close to New Jersey, are rowdy! But here’s the thing: now that I know the show so well, I am much less intimidated by it. No longer does this show seem unattainable or impossible to perform.

And now I see another variation of the Tommy character. This is the fourth version I’ve seen, and the toughest. Dominic Nolfi is spectacular, and has been playing Tommy for about a year since Christian Hoff left. Dominic has been with
Jersey Boys
since it began out at La Jolla Playhouse in California, and is the only guy I have heard of to understudy both Frankie and Tommy. Imagine the vocal range he must have! And his performances understudying Tommy must have been good, for he was the one chosen to replace the Tony Award-winning performer.

I would not be very effective playing Tommy as tough as I saw him today. I need to play up the small bits of intelligence Tommy shows in the beginning of the show. I need to play up the jokester, the hothead. If Dominic’s interpretation of Tommy could easily beat up the other guys, my version of Tommy just thinks he can! I am learning a lot watching these interpretations and am lucky to have all these options to draw from.

May 28th, 2009

The alarm is set for very early this morning so I can have a full day of working on the show. Because I only watched the show yesterday instead of running it myself, I was feeling guilty last night and thought I should atone. For me, waking up early when I don’t absolutely have to is extreme atonement.

Upon waking, I instantly begin running all of the choreography with my headphones on…in my underwear. Again. Dancing in my underwear is becoming like a fetish. I am in my bedroom, but this time the shades are drawn tightly, so I feel it is an acceptable form of professional, Broadway-style rehearsing.

It is getting very easy to do a run-through and get everything correct, but now I have to work on character and truthful moments and actually being good in the role. This character is a complex one, and there is a trap to playing him—it is easy to come across as fake. It is easy to fall into a Sopranos stereotype, or fall back on a broader musical theatre stereotype. If I bring one real skill to this job, it is that I am confident in my ability to play scenes truthfully. But it takes some time to get there.

Every actor has their own way of getting to the truth of a scene, and most every actor is trained in at least one of the major techniques. At the risk of trivializing two hundred years of theatre instruction and exploration, I am going to attempt to explain the most commonly used acting methods in three hundred words or less. Take the scene where the band finally decides to buy Tommy out of the group.

• Stanislavski’s System: I know my character wants to maintain control of the band, so I will reach my arms out to them and, in doing so, begin to feel the emotion that my reach unleashes within me.
  
• Strasberg’s Method Acting: I know my character wants to maintain control of the band, so I am going to remember what it smelled like the last time I wanted to maintain control of something in my real life and recall that smell while I am onstage.
  
• The Meisner Technique: I know my character wants to maintain control of the band, but if Frankie says his line on Wednesday night in a way that makes me think maybe I don’t want to maintain control after all, then I will give up the idea of maintaining control and react to Frankie in some completely different way than I ever have before.
  
• The Stella Adler Technique: I know that the author thinks my character wants to maintain control of the band, so I will pretend to tell this to the band in as loud a voice and with as large a hand gesture as I can muster so that it all seems quite epic and grand.
  
• The Spolin Technique: I know that my character wants to maintain control of the band, but I don’t know how to act that out so I am going to play a bunch of fun games with my castmates until somebody tells me that what I did in the game looks cool enough to replicate onstage.
  
• Suzuki Training: I know that my character wants to maintain control of the band, but I am going to forget about that for a while so that I can do some martial arts and a lot of stomping. When I go back to the show, I will seem more grounded and well-balanced.
  
• Viewpoints Training: I know that my character wants to maintain control of the band, and it will be cool if I say my lines to the band while following them around onstage, mimicking their gestures, and repeating some of the things they say.
  

Did my sarcasm register? I hope so. Which method do I use? I like a little from the first and a little from the third.

May 29th, 2009

I come full circle (again) today when I go to the Dodger’s rehearsal studio to run the show. This is not a required rehearsal; I asked if I could book the time just to keep the show active in my brain. But the run-through actually gets pretty boring. Can you believe that? I’m rehearsing for my childhood dream, and it gets boring. I know all the stuff I am supposed to know and have learned to do these things correctly, but unless I do them with other people, it’s boring.

I have to build a relationship with the other guys onstage and with the audience too. I spend the first twenty minutes of the show talking to the audience and, silly as it sounds, I feel like I need an audience to figure out exactly what that relationship is. Des McAnuff told me early on that the Tommy-Audience relationship is one like buddies at a bar—they are a captive audience but I still need to prove something to them, to defend myself to them. This is a great place to start, but I can’t wait for the preview performances to work out the kinks.

Preview performances are those that take place before the official opening night, and are viewed with a bit more leniency than regular performances. They are used to get a feel for what impact an audience has on a show. Oh, wait.
Jersey Boys
:
Toronto
is already open. I don’t get any preview performances. (Damn.)

I have my third costume fitting of the week, heading back to St. Laurie Merchant Tailors to try on my suits.

“Hmm. You’ve lost weight,” the tailor tells me.

“Oh, I wish!” I say while looking down at my belly, which has a few too many pints of beer and late-night nachos floating around in it.

“No, no. You’ve lost weight. These pants are too big. Even this jacket is too big.”

“Oh. Well, honestly, I weigh myself every morning hoping for some good news, but I haven’t had any in a long time!”

He is not in the mood for such sarcasm. “Well, clearly you have lost weight because these sizes are just all wrong.”

“Maybe the measurements were off?” I suggest, not realizing that telling a tailor that his measurements are off is like telling an actor his motivation is not clear; it insults the fundamentals of the profession.

“Perhaps, perhaps,” he says, but he really means, “No, you are dumb.”

I don’t want to argue anymore and come across as “the annoying actor,” but come on. I was just here, what, three weeks ago? The scale in my bathroom says exactly the same thing it did when I left for Orlando. And isn’t it physically impossible for a person’s shoulders to shrink from a size 42 (like they built) to a size 38 or 40 (like I am and always have been)? I adore having suits made for me, but this is an unsettling trip.

May 30th, 2009

It’s my last full day in New York for a long time. Cara comes back home tomorrow after I leave. Mark has been reclusive the past two days, barricading himself in his room most of the time. Is he upset that I am leaving? Or psyched that there will be one less person in the apartment making sure he does his homework? Who knows. I love him, but I am never sure how to approach him. I don’t even know how to tell him what I’m thinking right now, which is that it kills me to know I will be away for an entire year of his schooling, and that I know I will not be able to miss another school year after this. No matter how much this dream job means to me, I know I’m going to have to come home soon(ish) to this New York family life I am committed to.

I go to the gym early, then for a run. Double exercise! Gotta be like John Lloyd Young! Then I meet a friend for brunch at Blockhead’s, feeling an incredible need to say goodbye to somebody. I used to go out of town for work quite often, but that feels like a lifetime ago and going out of town for a long period now just feels sad. Mark doesn’t want to come to brunch with us. No surprise there, I guess. But I wish he would.