Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy (20 page)

Oh my, I am exhausted. My joints hurt. My bones hurt. I even think my bone marrow hurts. Good night, Cara. I miss you. But even if you were here, I would still be going to bed right this second.

June 12th, 2009

Well, this is it! The day of my put-in rehearsal. The infamous day that every replacement actor prepares for. (Oh, what am I talking about? I have never been a replacement actor. I just feel like I have because “the new guy” seems to be my full identity these days.)

A put-in rehearsal is the only time a new actor gets to do a complete version of the show before performing it in front of an audience. It’s the only time when everyone is in costume with me, all the lights are on, and we are not supposed to stop to fix any mistakes. It’s a rehearsal that is supposed to mimic a real performance exactly.

The cast is warmed up and ready to go. There is a photographer present taking pictures for press releases and the like. And I do pretty well, infinitely better than yesterday. Shelley gave me so many notes yesterday on toughening up my Tommy that I come in ready to be a cocky jerk. (Well, to play a cocky jerk, not to be a cocky jerk. If I decided to be a cocky jerk I might get fired, and being fired is still very much a fear I am trying to deal with.) I maintain my sarcastic smile and jokester attitude, but I add a layer of “confident braggart.” I think it works.

I try to speak to the audience with confidence and authority, but the only audience present is Shelley, Caitlin, the photographer, and a couple of cleaning ladies who are clearly judging me.

My big technical issue of the day is what to do with my many guitar picks. Sometimes I need them in my pocket, sometimes attached to the guitar, sometimes they need to just go away, and I have to figure out how to make all that happen. I am currently playing “Apple Of My Eye,” “I Go Ape,” and “My Mother’s Eyes” with the guitar turned on, and “Cry For Me,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like A Man,” “Dawn,” “Big Man In Town,” and “Beggin” with the guitar turned off. I am completely faking “I Can’t Give You Anything For Love,” “I’m In The Mood For Love,” and “Sherry.” I look forward to shifting those categories a bit in the next month.

After the rehearsal, Shelley says, “Daniel, you were a total ass.” So I think I succeeded. But my hands were still shaking at the beginning.

June 13th, 2009

Time is running out. I begin my morning with an hour of vocal rehearsal with our musical director. I usually try to sing with a fuller sound, but this rehearsal is all about trying to get the sound brighter by putting it forward in my nose. A good vocal blend happens not necessarily when singers have individually terrific voices, but when they have good voices that sound similar. For this reason an oboe and a trumpet will never blend as well as an oboe and a clarinet. Similarly, my brother (who is a firefighter and will be mad at me for putting this in print) sounded amazing harmonizing “The First Noel” in the car with me while we were growing up, even though he is not really a singer. But it sounded good because his voice is similar to mine. The singers in this show have a more forward sound, so I need to have a more forward sound.

Later, when checking in with stage management about where I should be, they suggest I take the night off. Really? Do I look like I need a break or something?

For the first time I have no real obligation here in Toronto. I feel like I know the show as well as I am going to, so I jump on the subway and go down to the waterfront. The waterfront is Toronto’s place of beauty. A mid-city meditation. Away from the trash that has piled up in the city parks, and the bad apartments I have seen up by the theatre, the lake is calm and refreshing. I take a long walk just to relax, vow to get on a boat as soon as possible, and then come back here to my apartment to sit on the couch and cement myself for the night. I Facebook everyone in the cast. It was Cara’s idea to wait until tonight to do this.

“Daniel, you don’t want to seem desperate by friending everyone on Facebook the first day you get to Canada. You don’t even know them yet.”

“But how am I going to get to know them if I don’t friend them on Facebook?”

“Well, you could talk to them.”

“Cara, talking to somebody is just not the same as friending them on Facebook. When I talk to them, they don’t show me their pictures, tell me their status updates, say who they are in a relationship with, or what their political views are…”

Such is our modern world.

June 14th, 2009

There is a lot of excitement at the theatre today because Jeremy will perform as Tommy for the last time. Before it begins, I have an hour of choreography work with Caitlin, although I mostly just run things without much commentary from her. I choose to view her lack of notes as a good sign, a sign that I am exactly where I should be with only two days before opening. (Oh my. Two days before opening. It is getting hard to be cool about all of this. I want to shout, “TWO DAYS! HOLY COW! TWO DAYS UNTIL I GET TO STAR IN THIS FREAKIN’ HOT SHOW!” But instead I have to remain calm and say things like, “I have truly enjoyed this rehearsal process very much, thank you.”)

Later, I go to a costume fitting to see how my pants are shaping up. Not too well, since they continue to take them in. I ask if it would be helpful if I ate more doughnuts.

I go into the theatre to watch Jeremy’s final moments onstage. And what moments they are! He plays the show with the same solid focus as always, but at the curtain call there is a full five-minute standing ovation just for him. Although he works a lot in New York, he is actually Canadian by birth and this is a fitting goodbye. He tears up, and so do some of the other guys up there with him. Girlie men, all of them.

PAUSE FOR COMEDIC EFFECT

Just kidding. I was tearing up, too.

Following the show, we attend a going-away party for Jeremy at a restaurant across the street. Our guitar player, Levon, screens a video for Jeremy in which many, many people say some kind of goodbye. Even I am in the video, my goodbye (scripted by Levon) is something like, “Hey, you’ve been doing this show for two years now. It’s about time you fucking left and let somebody else get a job.” I am getting more used to saying the f-word.
Jersey Boys
will do that to you. I never used to swear before, but now I swear at least five times a day and am 100% certain that number will be increasing in the coming weeks. (Mom, please ignore this last paragraph.)

One of the stagehands was videotaped telling Jeremy to “teach the new guy how to swing a golf club before you leave.” There is a point in the show where Tommy swings a club and I guess this stagehand thinks I am not doing it well. I have to be honest here and say this really embarrasses me in front of the large group. I know he was acting in good fun, but the awkward silence that follows his line shows me that everyone feels weird about it. And now everyone will be checking out my golf swing on opening night.

Jeff Madden’s wife and kids are here, so I meet them for the first time. Beautiful, all of them. And Grant Tilly invites me into his building near the theatre to look at the bulletin board of vacancy listings. I love this building! I call one of the owners and am able to see an apartment right away. It is a two bedroom apartment on the 37th floor with floor-to-ceiling windows in every room looking all the way down to the lake. Incredible. I want this place. I take pictures and, assuming Cara thinks it’s a good choice (how could she not?) I will put money down on it tomorrow.

And you know what I’m going to do now? I’m going to watch YouTube videos on how to properly swing a nine-iron.

June 15th, 2009

Today is a day off, but a day off before opening night is kind of like a scenic plane ride before skydiving.

I sleep as long as I can force myself to, but the sun streaming in and a pile of nervous energy makes it difficult. I go for a run and get hopelessly lost. Toronto is full of ravines; ravines that are wooded and filled with great paths. The only problem is the paths are not in straight lines and when you come up out of the ravine you can appear in a completely unrecognizable part of the city. My intended half-hour run turns into two hours. (I hope my pants still fit.)

I go to the drugstore and buy lots of Gatorade. Let’s get personal for a second; I’ve been feeling dehydrated during rehearsals and I’m looking for an alternative to slurping tons of water. The quantities of water I feel I need are filling my bladder far too quickly, and there is only one quick chance to use the restroom in the first act (just after “Oh, What A Night”). One pair of pants I wear in the show is not so high-waisted and sits just below my belly button, right on my bladder. My bladder was so full the other day that these pants popped open just as I entered the stage. There is a bit too much subtext happening when Tommy makes an entrance buttoning up his pants…

While at the store, I buy a fun Canada mug for Rachel. Tomorrow will be her first time in a new country.

After cleaning the apartment a little, I go out to buy some small thank-you gifts for the cast and crew. I thought it might be fun to get bottles of sherry at the liquor store, so I buy five cases of them. The clerk asks what on earth I am going to do with five cases of such a random drink, so I tell him my reason for choosing sherry. He is super excited to hear I am a new cast member. He says, “I’m just a big theatre queen, but [he whispers now] I have to tell you that
Mamma Mia
is my favorite show of that type. No offense.”

None taken.

Upon returning to my apartment, I run through the show in my living room. It gets a little more natural every time, but the thousands of faces out there tomorrow night will probably change that. I’m feeling a little under the weather, actually, but it’s probably just nerves and adrenaline messing with my system. Cara would be a calming presence to me right now. Thank God she arrives tomorrow. I don’t feel right when we’re apart. (As if that isn’t obvious by now.)

OPENING NIGHT

WARM-UP SINGING, DRESSING ROOM GIFTS, & CHILDHOOD ODORS

June 16th, 2009

Time ticks away. The sun is bright and pierces through my window. It’s difficult to sleep. There’s no need to dream anymore.

8:30 a.m.— The alarm buzzes and I rise this morning to a day that I have been thinking about since the fifth grade. It has been a long journey, an exhausting journey, and sometimes a sad journey. But today, I am exhilarated. Today, I open in a leading role in a mega Broadway musical, and my wife and stepdaughter will be here to see it. I am feeling very grateful.

9:45 a.m.—After an early-morning run-through in my apartment, I get cleaned up and ready for the girls’ arrival. I am so incredibly happy to see them pull up in the cab; I have spent no more than two days with them in the past six weeks. After five minutes, I feel calmer than I have in days. Rachel loves the indoor goldfish pond, as I expected, and Cara loves the size and cleanliness of our temporary digs. She makes fun of me for not having any food (coffee and cereal is all I need) and I give her directions to the theatre, as she and Rachel will be traveling without me.

12:00 p.m.—I have to leave the girls to go to my “warm-up” rehearsals. Because the opening speeches have been such a challenge for me along the way, Shelley thinks it smart to visit these speeches today in the rehearsal room, before doing them in front of an audience. This is a good rehearsal to have. It psyches me up. Shelley gives me no notes whatsoever, she just allows me to go through everything one time to get it all fresh in my brain.

3:00 p.m.—The three other Seasons come in so we can sing together. Although “Cry For Me” will probably always sound incredible to me onstage because we stand so close together while singing it, I have been told that the hundreds of bodies absorbing sound will make it hard to hear each other during many of the other songs. Singing together as a warm-up, therefore, is good for both the muscle memory and the emotional contentment…we are a vocal group, we are together, we are individuals that sing as one. That’s powerful stuff. The guys sound awesome and I am a bit overcome, just like I was the first time I sang with the tour guys.

4:00 p.m.—After these rehearsals, I find myself getting really wound up. I go to my dressing room and begin running lines by myself as I decorate the room and calm myself. I have received many gifts already: a gorgeous pocket watch from my parents, flowers from my agent (with the word “finally” in the note), a large basket of dressing room goodies from Cara (a tradition she started the year we met), a picture from Rachel, and gift certificates, cards,
Jersey Boys
shot glasses, wine, and scotch from my castmates (drunks, all of them). All of this is overwhelming, just like opening nights I have dreamed about. I just wish I wasn’t so nervous. I can’t even read one of my cards without it quivering in my hands.

6:00 p.m.—I have a little butterfly making an appearance in my stomach.

6:03 p.m.—The butterfly flits around, tickling the inside of me so I get a bit queasy.

6:05 p.m.—The butterfly is joined by his friend.

6:17 p.m.—The butterflies are attacked by a fluttering mob from the other side of town.

6:26 p.m.—The defending butterflies sprout razor-sharp wings.

6:30 p.m.—The gang from across the tracks pull their knives, hacking away at the defenders and destroying the lining of my stomach in the process.

6:40 p.m.—The butterflies leave the scene, but announce that they will return during my first song.

7:00 p.m.—I strap on the microphone pack, grease up my hair, and pencil in my eyebrows (to match my hair color). While there is usually not a make-up department at a theatre, there is most definitely a hair room that handles all the wigs and any real hair that an actor can’t handle on their own. I had a ton of practice with hair gel in high school, so I feel confident in my ability to handle the styling on my own.

7:20 p.m.—I put on my first suit. I look good.