Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy (18 page)

What do I remember? I remember my hands shaking as I sang “Silhouettes,” and I kept hoping no one would notice. I remember the scene change into “Apple Of My Eye” happening smoothly all around me, and a guitar virtually appearing in my hands as the scene change ended and the song began. I remember another thrilling version of “Cry For Me” because I was hearing these guys—my guys—for the first time. I remember sweating so much during the Big Three that I couldn’t hold on to my guitar pick. And I remember lots of congratulations from the cast.

Michael Lomenda, Jeff Madden, Quinn VanAntwerp, Daniel Robert Sullivan

©Joan Marcus

Daniel Robert Sullivan, Jeff Madden, Quinn VanAntwerp, Michael Lomenda

©Joan Marcus

I do all right with this run; I was not great, but they all congratulate me as if it was a success. Good people.

I go to dinner at a local barbecue joint with some of the cast. Here’s a thing I am realizing about this area: the cast members of
Jersey Boys
get special treatment when they eat at local restaurants, and other patrons recognize them when they come in the door. This is a crazy feeling.

I watch the show this evening and take notes. I am trying to be very specific in noticing what Jeremy Kushnier does. As I mentioned before, there is no way to copy another actor’s performance and have it seem truthful. But there is something to be said for taking lots of what Jeremy does and making my own version of it, for the cast is used to his rhythms and certain of his moments. I am going to change things a lot here, but I am trying to keep the general rhythms and timings the same. So, my notebook is full of things like, “Say second speech slower than I have been,” “Respond to Frankie right away during every line of first scene - no air in between,” and “Put a lot of space before saying ‘what’ in bowling alley scene.” I have learned a lot from watching other guys play this role (Christian, Jeremy, Matt, Dominic). I tip my hat to them.

And the best part about tonight? My director from New York, Shelley Butler, arrived. After being away from any kind of artistic direction for weeks now, it will be nice to have her here again. I know the moves now. I know the lines now. And I know what I’m supposed to sing. Now, she will provide the discerning eye to make what I’m doing seem good and believable. Or she’ll tell them to fire me.

June 5th, 2009

This is a high-energy day. We work onstage with the full cast, props, and set. We have no band yet, just a piano for accompaniment. This is my first time moving pieces like the car seats and the whore bench on our actual set, and I find it difficult once again to find the proper marks on the floor. It looks like a landing strip for clowns—lots of marks in lots of colors. (Afterthought: “Landing strip for clowns” is not a great metaphor, but it is my honest first thought when I see the stage up close for the first time.) I also discover that I have to be very careful wheeling the whore bench out from the wings because the actress playing Mary Delgado sits on the bench with her hand slightly off the edge and I come very close to scraping her hand against the metal poles on the set.

The work-through goes well enough, but all I can think is that this rehearsal process is backward, with me learning the steps and technical elements before really even knowing how to play Tommy DeVito, the person. I am still not sure how to perform him well. And I open in eleven days!

Eleven days. Hmm. That actually seems like a good amount of time. I have mounted many shows in summer stock in two weeks or less. I even mounted a show in two days once. (Each of us in the show had done our respective roles before, so there was no new material to learn, but still…two days! We arrived in town and met each other for the first time on Sunday night, and then opened the show on the following Tuesday night.) So, eleven days left should be no problem. I should be fine building a solid, believable character in eleven days. Right? Right.

The show really is a tidy knot of perfection. There isn’t too much room for playing, improvising, or really doing anything other than the specific things I am told to do. But I find myself wishing I had more time devoted strictly to character work. I am lucky. Shelley thinks the same thing.

Instead of watching the cast’s evening performance, Shelley and I go into the rehearsal studio and work over all of the direct addresses Tommy gives to the audience in the first half of the show. We work on the way he brags right out of the gate. We work on finding a bit of a smirk. We work on figuring out the fine line between playing smart and playing dumb. This last one proves tricky. Tommy has a lot of lines in the show that come off as being a little dense, stupid even. But he also has some very slick, very witty lines that a “stupid” person wouldn’t come up with. So, I have to find the proper balance.

For some reason, I also start to freak out tonight that I will forget my lines during one of my first performances. This is idiotic. I have not forgotten my lines once yet, and I rehearse the entire show every single day. But I am thinking about character today instead of the technical aspects, and freeing my brain like that makes me have to trust that the words will come…but what if they didn’t? Tommy begins the show with twenty minutes of solo speeches to the audience. What if I were to launch into the wrong speech? That would be easy to do. Every speech feels the same because the spotlight is bright and I am in my own little bubble. If I were to begin the wrong speech, I am not even sure I would know it was wrong until I finished.

Many people have the impression that if an actor forgets a line they need simply whisper offstage to have someone cue them, but this is completely untrue. Were I to forget a line, I would be completely and utterly alone in trying to salvage the situation. There is no such thing as a “prompter” in the theatre. My options would be to say any of the following:

• “And you know something else? No? Well, I don’t either.” (Then exit the stage.)
  
• “And that’s all I have to say about that.” (Then exit the stage.)
  
• “Look back there!” (Then point to the back of the audience and exit the stage.)
  

At the end of rehearsal, I have a particularly dramaturgical conversation with Shelley, and I adore dramaturgical conversations. I heard it said that Tommy doesn’t change much by the end of
Jersey Boys
, that he remains the self-centered schemer that he is at the beginning. I have always believed, however, that every major character in literature and theatre has to undergo a transformation, that it is a prerequisite to being a major character in the first place. So, I believe Tommy changes. In real life, Tommy DeVito married his long-time girlfriend and reaffirmed his faith in Christianity. I believe the authors of
Jersey Boys
represent this change in the script by having Tommy acknowledge the loss of Frankie’s daughter (a heartfelt moment), and I feel I can accentuate the change by wearing a wedding ring in the final scene. Shelley buys this argument. And I feel good to have brought it up.

I ride the subway downtown with Michael Lomenda, who plays Nick Massi in the show. I have a lot of scenes with him, but this subway ride is the first time we have ever really spoken. He seems like a terrific guy. He, Quinn, and Jeff Madden (who plays Frankie) are taking Jeremy out for a final night on the town this Sunday. They have rented a limo for seven hours, and are going to hit all the classy places in the city, including the bar at the top of the CN Tower. I have to admit, I have a secret desire to be invited. I shouldn’t be invited, as it is their last time together and they are a tight unit, but I still hope I will be. I want to hang out with them, get to know them, and feel like a part of the group. Sunday is also the Tony Awards broadcast, but I think I would give up watching the Tony Awards to hang out with them. And I always watch the Tony Awards.

June 6th, 2009

I spend the cast’s first show of the day trailing Jeremy backstage and discover that he is a real ball-buster. Not a second goes by back there that he is not smacking another actor, chasing a musician, singing a funny song to a dresser, throwing guitar picks at a stagehand, or flicking a towel at…well…anybody. And this all occurs just moments before he steps onstage to sing the next song. He is a personality to contend with, for sure. And he keeps things active and fun. He’s done the show for two years, so I guess this is one way to keep himself, and everyone else, in the game.

No one in the show has time to go to their dressing rooms to change costumes. This was true with the National Tour and remains true here in Toronto. And the quick-change into the Big Three, a change that I witnessed once before and knew would be tricky, actually happens as four quick-changes right next to each other. I didn’t realize this before. The Four Seasons line up next to each other with four dressers ready to go. The dressers help rip off shirts, Velcro up new ones, slip on jackets, and push the Seasons back onstage. Seeing this group of eight people work so swiftly and precisely is great fun. It is a backstage ballet. And if something goes wrong, I have a feeling “Sherry” will start without them.

It is also fun to see one of our stage managers, Melanie Klodt, call the show today. She dances through many of the pages, calling the cues on beats of the music as she wiggles around. I have never seen a stage manager dance before, so it must be the effect of the music. There are some shows that you get sick of hearing the music, shows where you turn down the dressing room monitors so you don’t have to hear the songs when you are not onstage. But there are some shows where the music is genuinely catchy, powerful, or engaging and you rarely tire of hearing it. I’m starting to think that
Jersey Boys
falls into the latter category, and that this explains why the Four Seasons have sold more than 175 million records.

Casting Director Merri Sugarman arrives this evening from New York, causing quite a stir. She is here in town to cast a replacement for one of the female roles, as one of the actresses is on medical leave and the only female swing has been covering the part every day for too long now. I notice tonight how my relationship with Merri has changed. Now that I am in the
Jersey Boys
family, we are buddies and can talk about all kinds of things. It is like I have crossed the line from being the person who walks in the audition room very respectfully and does everything she says to being just another friend from work.

Although I have no actual rehearsal today, just trailing Jeremy and watching the second show, I do discover something funny about yesterday’s rehearsal. Fake marijuana joints are used in the show, and since I don’t smoke I have been practicing inhaling with them. Stage management gave me a bunch of (very fat) joints to rehearse with and I mistakenly left two of them on a table in the rehearsal studio. A children’s theatre group rehearsed in that same studio this morning. And yes, a child found the joints, brought them to his director, and asked what they were! They were turned over to security, for the director assumed they were actual marijuana joints. Woops.

June 7th, 2009

Based on my work two days ago, I have an hour of notes with Victoria, the dance captain. And I thought the notes were specific before! Now, they are even more so.

“Dan, your guitar should be at 60° instead of 80°.”

“Um, ok.”

“Dan, your body should be at 45° around the microphone stand instead of 30°.”

“Um, sure.”

“Dan, your hands should actually touch your legs after the snaps, not just come close to touching your legs.”

“No problem.”

“Dan, you have to pull your guitar neck back beyond your shoulder instead of just to your shoulder.”

“Of course.”

“Dan, your head should snap to the right on the first count of the second eight, instead of the last count of the first eight.”

“Is that a change generated by Meisner’s technique, or Stanislavski’s?”

“Huh?”