Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy (22 page)

But there is more! During the Sit-Down scene, the actor playing Norm says “Las Vegas” instead of “Nevada” in one of his lines; a very small mistake, but enough to throw off the rhythm. Frankie seems to forget his next line, and Gyp DeCarlo comes in with, “Best I could do!” Then, Frankie remembers his line, so Gyp comes in again with, “Best I could do!” Gyp is a broken record, “Best I could do!” Though everyone remains serious and in the moment, it lightens the mood of a very stressful week for us all.

I am quite sure that having a new lead actor in such a tightly established show is hard on everyone here. While it is a dream come true for me, it has made a lot more work for everyone else. And the other lead guys in the show have lost a good friend in Jeremy. I am forever the new guy. And I am the new guy who is completely by himself. Though, Cara, Rachel, and Mark will be up here in a couple weeks, I have been away from their daily lives since April. This is not something I can do forever. And I am ok with that.

No matter what I do with the rest of my life, I will always be able to say that I played a lead role in a blockbuster Broadway musical.

And so, I have two final details to record before I close my journal and begin going to work every day at that glorious place. First, the Toronto Company of
Jersey Boys
has a capacity audience tonight, having sold out the entire theatre for the first time in the building’s sixteen-year history. Second, Shelley has assured me that I have done a sufficiently good job, good enough that I am in absolutely no danger of being fired.

So I’m sticking around. For now. This is going to be a wild ride.

ACT III

RUNNING THE SHOW

ENTOURAGE, BATHROOM RENOVATIONS, & COWBOYS

11th Show

It’s one of those thick and muggy summer nights, the kind of night that keeps people milling about the theatre grounds long after the show has finished. We had another sold-out crowd and almost two thousand people just spilled onto the streets of Toronto, moving slowly as they hit the wall of hot air outside. They are moving so slowly, in fact, that I run off stage after my bow, change out of my costume, and take a shower all before the last few audience members leave the building. Cara and Rachel, both finally in Toronto for the entire summer, meet me in my dressing room after the show and we get ready to leave.

“Daniel?” Rachel tugs at my shirt as we begin to walk down the hallway. “Daniel?”

“Yes, Rach?”

“Come here.” She pulls me down to her seven-year-old height and whispers in my ear.

“Can you tell them I’m your daughter?” She leaves out the “step” and has made the word just daughter.

“Tell who that you’re my daughter?”

“The people outside.” We haven’t been outside yet.

“What people are you talking about?”

“The people who want to take pictures with you.”

And now I understand. Rachel figured out there is a bit of mini-celebrity status in coming out the stage door of a show like
Jersey Boys
; there are always people out there waiting for an autograph, a picture, or a few words. The way my wife puts it, it is their way of “prolonging the experience; making the good feelings last longer.” And on hot summer nights, as Rachel also figured out, there are bound to be a lot of people waiting out there.

Rachel wants to be my entourage. While it is possible that she has preemptively asked me to eliminate the “step” in her introduction because of some deep psychological distaste for the word, I’m pretty sure her request is just a way of being a little closer to mini-celebrity status herself. She wants to be cool. And don’t we all?

So we exit the theatre and sure enough there are:

• large groups of pre-teen girls who squeal (even if they are squealing at the younger, cuter actor exiting behind me),
  
• middle-aged women out for a night on the town who have clearly had some (and some more) wine,
  
• theatre students who look like they could be in the cast of Glee (and probably will be someday),
  
• and even a few husband-wife pairs in which the husband looks just as enthusiastic as the wife.
  

I stop at the group nearest the stage door to thank them for coming and sign their programs when they request. But I take too long. It has been about twenty seconds and I have not yet introduced Rachel as my daughter like she requested. She is feeling left out. She wants to be noticed, too. And so Rachel begins pulling on my shirt again, this time speaking at the top of her voice, “Daddy! Daaaadddy!”

She has never called me that. And she probably never will again. But it feels pretty good to hear it right now.

15th Show

Performing in a big musical is a job. Let us make no mistake about that. It is a joyous, creative, and thrilling job, but a job nonetheless.

It is a job that needs to be kept in order to pay the bills.

It is a job represented by a union with definite rules and regulations that must be followed. Late for work three times? I can be charged. Ignore a piece of direction I have been given? I can be charged. Exit stage left instead of stage right just because I feel like it? I can be charged. (And something will probably hit me in the head.)

It is a job that absolutely requires an actor’s presence. Yes, I have an understudy. Usually I have two. But what if one of them is sick? That leaves only two of us. And train/highway delays happen with regularity. Family emergencies happen, too. But one of us needs to be here or the show will have to be cancelled and two thousand people will be sent home. Has this ever happened? Hmm. Not that I’ve heard of. That’s because in the professional world of theatre, it is an actor’s job to be present and ready to perform no matter what. Actors who drive the highway leave an hour early, just in case. Actors who take the train still make sure to have money for a cab, just in case. And actors who have family emergencies sometimes have to ignore that family emergency. That’s just the way it is.

Performing in a big musical is also a job that needs to be improved and tweaked as time goes by. Notes are given constantly, and it is part of my job to adjust my performance accordingly. In my first weeks running
Jersey Boys
, the cumulative amount of notes I am receiving from the dance captain, fight captain, production stage manager, and musical director is overwhelming. By week two, I have fourteen handwritten pages of things I need to fix. One particularly piercing example comes right before a Saturday matinee.

“Dan?” There is a knock on my dressing room door. It is our production stage manager. “You have a minute?”

“Sure!” I yell as I put down my gallon jug of hair gel and open the door.

“Listen,” she says quietly, “I don’t really know how to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it. Some of the other guys are feeling disconnected from you onstage, like they don’t feel they understand what is going on during certain scenes with you.”

Well, ok. (I’m a little hurt now.) Do you think that could be because I only rehearsed with them twice before opening? (I’m a little bitter now.) Do you think that could be because we have never had a chance to actually work on the scenes together? (I’m a little angry now.) It is great that we all want honesty in our scene work, but the way to get that honesty is to rehearse, not to give me notes that the other guys don’t feel connected to what I’m doing. (I’m a lot angry now.)

But, “Ok, thanks for the note,” is all I can actually say out loud.

I am working very hard to create the best performance I am capable of doing, and it hurts very much to get this kind of note about my scene work, especially when I have always felt scene work is my strong point. The guitar playing, dancing, and singing are all things I have worked to death on so that I am up to par, but they have never been my strongest selling points. But the scene work… I’m not naturally tough, of course, but I can act these scenes. This note I got feels contrary to what I believe about myself. I cannot be acting badly; it has to be that I am just acting differently from what they’re used to. It has to be.

21st Show

Enough time passes that I feel comfortable enough in Tommy DeVito’s skin to let my parents come see the show. The past few weeks have tortured my mother like a little kid who missed the party because she is sent to time-out. My mom wanted to be here on my opening night, but I wouldn’t let her. I wanted to get better first.

My parents saw me rise through the ranks. They watched when I sang a solo for the first time in
The Fantasticks
in 10th grade. They attended my first big leading role in a regional theatre, driving all the way to Virginia to see it. They watched me on the big screen when I sang in Spielberg’s
Amistad
, a five-second appearance that they talked about for five years after. And they are here at
Jersey Boys
for today’s matinee.

My stepfather is proud of me. He worked extremely hard for his own position in life, and appreciates the idea of setting your mind to a career goal and sticking to it. He appreciates my struggle almost more than my accomplishment. (Although he appreciates my accomplishment too, as proven by his frequent visits to the 
Jersey Boys
Blog
.) He gives me a huge hug after the performance and smiles a larger smile than I’ve seen on him in a long time.

My mother is proud of me too. And crying. I hope she thinks she has done a good job with me, because she has. She never let me forget about my dream. She would ask, “Are you sure this day job is going to give you time to audition?” Not many parents of small-time actors would say something like that.

And in a clear demonstration of their personality, my parents do not rush to me at the stage door. They wait behind the crowd because they don’t want to interfere with any fans waiting to have programs signed or pictures taken. I have to pull them in to me to receive their hugs and tears. They still don’t seem to realize that theirs is the approval I seek, because they are the ones who have been with me every step of the way.

They buy another pair of tickets for tonight’s show. And another pair for tomorrow’s show. And I make them ask me to autograph their programs, just for kicks.

33rd Show

A month goes by. We perform the show eight times every week, and living in the role for so many hours a day lets me flesh it out, adding nuances and becoming more and more truthful with my portrayal. The creative team begins visiting our company. Director Des McAnuff, Production Supervisor Richard Hester, Associate Director West Hyler, Music Supervisor Ron Melrose, Choreographer Sergio Trujillo, Associate Choreographer Danny Austin, and many others with slightly lower carvings on the totem pole attend performances. Their response to my work can truly make or break my career. Being fired would be embarrassing and tough to explain to future casting directors, and being lauded could offer me a long future with
Jersey Boys
or any of the other hits these artists work with each season. So I try to bribe them all.

When bribery doesn’t work (I have nothing really to offer except my old baseball cards, but I’m saving them until retirement), I have to live with the creative team’s genuine response. And their response means everything.

From one: “You were very good.”

From another: “You are doing a truly great job.”

From my favorite: “Yours was one of the most enjoyable performances I’ve seen. Ever.”

And now I love my job even more. With these compliments come pages and pages of new notes, but the notes are encouraging and offer me clear direction on where to go. I’m not perfect, but I have found a joy in performing this material that seems to be showing through. Joy is infectious. And it seems to have infected those in charge.

41st Show

The New York Times once said I have the “seductive magnetism of a snake-oil salesman.” I have always loved that quote. (Cara says the same thing about me when I unbutton my shirt further than usual. Ok, no she doesn’t.)

I will receive no such endorsement from Canadian publications, for I am “merely” a replacement actor and there have been no major reviews of my work in this show. There is, however, plenty of less official commentary finding its way to me:

On YouTube: “Daniel Robert Sullivan has been absolutely phenomenal and brings even more of an edge to and a different take on the character. His quirky facial expressions and nuances are worth seeing alone.” Written by silver6342.

On a local entertainment site: “Daniel Robert Sullivan is pure magic as Tommy DeVito. Truly, he is New Jersey incarnate in this role, with an incredible accent and this unmistakably American command of not only himself, but of the three other boys…It is fascinating to watch this character evolve and how brilliantly Sullivan is able to convey such subtlety, and even traces of vulnerability, in a character with such a larger than life intensity that is so reliant on a reputation for toughness to survive.” Written by Amanda Campbell.

In fan mail: “You are sexy and awesome.” Written by Candace.

On the
Jersey Boys
Fan Forum: “Daniel was fantastic!” Written by my Aunt Jude.

And on some blog written by a guy I’ve never heard of: “If I had to pick a weakest link in the show, it would definitely be Daniel Robert Sullivan.”

This is why some actors don’t read reviews. Even though the professional response I’ve received is positive, the presence of this one blog comment in my Google Alert this morning has ruined my confidence for the day. I don’t need to be the best, but I certainly don’t want to be the worst!

Perhaps I should take refuge in one of my favorite theatre stories: Harvey Fierstein was performing in the smash-hit play
Torch Song Trilogy
, a play he also authored, when Ethel Merman came to visit him backstage. When Harvey asked her what she thought of the play, Ms. Merman replied, “I thought it was a piece of shit, but the rest of the audience laughed and cried, so what the fuck do I know?”