Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy (19 page)

“Never mind.”

No excuses anymore, I guess. And before I get sarcastic again, I think I should remind myself that actors have been fired from this production for not being up to par. I do not want to be fired for not being up to par.

Later, I make a call about an apartment. I have to leave the retirement complex I am currently living in by the end of the month, and I am starting to spend my free time (ha! free time!) looking for a new place that is nice enough to spend a year in and big enough to have Cara and the kids with me part of the time. I was given the phone number of Lindsay Thomas’ boyfriend. Lindsay is the cast member on medical leave, and her apartment directly next door to the theatre is becoming vacant. Her boyfriend makes plans to show me the place tomorrow.

I head home on the subway and, again, have dinner by myself at the dive in my neighborhood. The four
Jersey Boys
are doing their night on the town to say goodbye to Jeremy tonight, and I was not invited as I had secretly hoped. I told myself that I should not have been invited and it would have been weird to have me there, but still I harbored the secret wish! So, to the Tony Awards I go. Well, to my television I go, rushing back from dinner to catch the opening sequence.

Although
Jersey Boys
isn’t eligible for awards this year, they do have a featured performance. The performance is “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” in which five of the actors playing Frankie Valli from across North America each sing a section. While they sing, the city in which they are performing flashes on a giant screen behind them: Las Vegas, Chicago, National Tour, New York, and Toronto. Wait. Toronto?

It turns out that our Frankie Valli, being the only actor from outside of the United States, is not able to participate in this performance because the producers couldn’t get work papers processed for him in time. So, the Toronto Frankie that shows up on the broadcast is actually the National Tour Frankie (justified because the National Tour played Toronto last year before the Toronto Company took over), and the National Tour Frankie that shows is actually the National Tour Joe Pesci. You get all that?

That is a disappointment, and maybe one of the reasons our Frankie, Jeff Madden, is going out tonight instead of staying home and watching the Tonys himself. He is an amazing actor, one who brings more depth to the role of Frankie Valli than I would have thought possible. And Jeff just won a Dora Award for the role, the Canadian equivalent to a Tony Award.

The Tony Awards have always been a special night for me. As a kid who loved theatre, the only way I knew what was going on in the professional theatre world was by watching the Tony Awards. Each performance was a three-minute glimpse into what was happening in those grand, mysterious theatres off in the magical city that I had not yet visited: New York. There will always be kids watching the Tonys and dreaming about one day being a part of them. I taped the Tonys every year and memorized all of the performances. I can still tell you what songs were performed from each nominated musical from about 1988 until today. I was proud to be the only person I knew who had these broadcasts on tape and could watch them whenever I wanted. Imagine my disappointment when the website BlueGobo.com came along with a vast archive that let everyone in the world see these same broadcasts. My VHS tapes are no longer valuable, but I still keep them under my bed. Damn that BlueGobo. Damn that Al Gore and his internet.

June 8th, 2009

Today is a day off, so I spend it hunting for an apartment. I begin by looking at buildings down on the waterfront. (Ok, maybe I begin with a luxury side trip to the top of the CN Tower. What a place! It is over a hundred stories tall and has a glass floor way up there near the top. I am so nervous to step on that floor that I spend most of the time just sort of tapping it with my foot to make sure it is sturdy. It is sturdy enough for the five-year-old tap-dancing on it, but not for me.)

The waterfront apartments are all beautiful buildings with lake views and bowling alleys in the basement. New York hardly has bowling alleys in the city, never mind in an apartment building’s basement. The commute down here takes about forty-five minutes from the theatre, and I am not sure I want to live that far away. Although, having people recognize me on the subway ride after a show would be very good for my ego. But that shouldn’t be a deciding factor in choosing an apartment, should it? (Should it?) So I travel back up north to the theatre and look at a few apartments in the surrounding block. They are cheaper here, but the neighborhood is not nearly as interesting. But if I am going to have the family here with me for the summer, I want them to be a presence at the theatre. They will not be a presence at the theatre if they have to travel forty-five minutes from the waterfront just to get here.

I visit with Lindsay’s boyfriend and see her apartment next door to the theatre. Her balcony overlooks the stage door from many stories in the air. It is a beautiful place, but I think too small for my family.

Later, Cara calls after some small argument with Mark, needing some consolation. “I feel like a single parent again,” she says.

“But you are not a single parent, hon. I am here with my phone on, just like always. I can talk to you anytime you need me.”

“It’s not the same.”

And she’s right. It’s not the same.

June 9th, 2009

A two-hour choreography rehearsal with Caitlin Carter leaves me sweating through my shirt. She arrived earlier today, and I realize I hadn’t seen her since she taught me the first four or five numbers back in New York. She leaves little room for error, and little room for breathing! She will be here in Toronto for at least a week, maybe more. And her job is…um…me.

I follow that sweaty dance extravaganza with an hour with Shelley. The work goes well, but I really need other guys in the room to act with. (Haven’t I said this before?) I act these scenes just fine with imaginary partners, because imaginary partners do exactly what I want them to do. Real actors tend to be less predictable.

“Daniel, I know things will change when you get other guys in these scenes with you.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure of it,” I tell her. “I just wish it could happen now.”

“Well, that’s just a money thing. They can only afford to pay for so much overtime. Think of it as a compliment! We don’t think you need the extra rehearsal.”

I watch the evening show with Shelley and Caitlin and get an earful of commentary about what people are doing. They have seen this show, and its many variations, countless times. They laugh at choices that are different than expected, and then decide whether “different” is bad or just different. Usually, it seems, different is just different, although there are definitely places where they expect certain things to remain identical in all the companies. (I take mental note of these places so I can squelch any future inspirations.)

After the show, at about 11:00 p.m., I go to see another apartment in the theatre’s neighborhood. The guy showing me the place flips out when I tell him I am in
Jersey Boys
, and offers me $100 less rent per month because of it. This is the tiniest taste of celebrity, and I like it. I hope this is a trend. Too bad the apartment smells like feet, and a tiny celebrity can’t live in an apartment that smells like feet.

June 10th, 2009

Another two-show day for the cast means another light rehearsal day for me. I watch the first show, rehearsing it only in my head. This proves equally as effective as exercising only in my head.

I go to see two more apartments, both of which are awful. I decided to live up here by the theatre, but every place I see is unlivable.

Then, I come back to the theatre for a quick-change rehearsal. The eight-person quick-change into the Big Three is something easily handled, but the change into “I’m In The Mood For Love” requires practice. So we practice. It isn’t perfect, but we make it in time because the two dressers helping me are so good. On a typical night, here is how this change breaks down:

• At 8:33:04, I exit Stage Right in a run, removing my tie clip and placing it my pocket as I approach the two dressers waiting for me.
  
• At 8:33:11, I remove my tie and slip off my shoes, throwing the tie on the ground and leaving the shoes for the dresser in front of me to line up in front of my feet again.
  
• At 8:33:14, I unbutton my pants and shirt.
  
• At 8:33:18, the dresser behind me pulls off my shirt.
  
• At 8:33:21, I pull off my pants.
  
• At 8:33:24, the dresser behind me holds up a new shirt for me to slide my arms into.
  
• At 8:33:29, the dresser in front of me holds up a new pair of pants for me to slide into.
  
• At 8:33:33, I button my pants as the dresser in front of me uses a shoehorn to guide my feet into my shoes again.
  
• At 8:33:37, I reach to my right for a drink of water, while both dressers button up my shirt, one starting at the top and one at the bottom.
  
• At 8:33:42, I leave the dressing area and jog over to where the actor playing Nick is holding my guitar for me, the strap open so I can slide it right over my head.
  
• At 8:34:02, after a few seconds to catch my breath, Nick and I enter the scene and accompany Frankie as he sings, “I’m In The Mood For Love.”
  

The whole process has taken fifty-eight seconds.

After this amazing quick-change work, I run some choreography in an area of the Performing Arts Centre that is above an open kitchen and dining room. It is a bit awkward to be dancing with my guitar while people eat shrimp and asparagus twenty feet below me. I really have rehearsed this show in many settings, haven’t I? I’ve rehearsed at the Dodger’s rehearsal space, Adam Ben-David’s apartment on the Upper West Side, my bedroom in Midtown, the exercise room in my apartment building, my hotel room in Florida, the stilt-walker’s studio, my makeshift wardrobe room rehearsal space in Florida, the stage of the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre, the rehearsal studio here in Toronto, the Studio Theatre here in Toronto, the stage of the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts, my apartment here in Toronto, and today, this space above the kitchen. Whew!

After rehearsal, six people work on various parts of my costumes. My suits have arrived. They need more adjusting.

June 11th, 2009

Today is my dress rehearsal.It is my first time in costume, my first time with a microphone (we wear two, actually, in case one breaks), and my first time with the band. What a ride it is.

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

©Joan Marcus

I learn, and re-learn, many things. For example, I learn that Tommy needs an attack right out of the gate, but that this attack needs to be calm, cool, and collected. Today, I am not at all calm, not at all cool, and not at all collected. I am high on adrenaline, and attack out of the gate too harshly. How do I fix that? I guess onstage repetition is the way, because the rehearsal room just cannot duplicate the adrenaline rush of hearing the band kick in and seeing the spotlights turn on as I slide downstage for my first entrance. The more I experience that moment, the more calm, cool, and collected I will become.

The sound mix differs greatly from what I’m used to hearing in the audience. Onstage, I hear more voices than music, so I can tune to other people but not to the band. That said, hearing more voices really lets me dig into the harmony, and “Cry For Me” is thrilling as always.

The eight-person costume change leading into “Sherry” doesn’t go so well. This is supposed to be the easy quick-change, the one that didn’t require any rehearsal, but I get caught up in the Velcro and don’t make the change in time. I run onstage with my guitar around my neck, but my pants around my knees.

Throughout the first half of the show, my microphone cord keeps getting caught in my waist and pulling down on my hair. We wear two microphones threaded through our hair and running down to two transmitters strapped in a belt around our chest. This is standard and I have worn such a rig countless times in my life. But I have never worn pants that were so high-waisted! Seriously, the pants in this show make me feel like Grandpa Joe from
Willy Wonka
. So the cord drifts down, gets caught in the high waist of my pants, and pulls my head back. If you ever see a Jersey Boy not moving his head, you now know why. Blame it on his old-fashioned pants.

Between shows, with no rest for the weary, I go to visit three lousy apartments, then return to receive notes from Shelley and Caitlin. My choreography notes are simple and don’t disappointment me too much (because I didn’t disappoint Caitlin too much). But my acting notes are not too positive with regards to the opening speeches. Tommy sets the tone for the show; if I am too frantic, then the entire show will seem frantic. I have always been good at sensing an audience and talking to them directly in a settled tone, but the spotlights won’t even let me see the audience in this show. How can I talk to them if I can’t see them?