Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy (25 page)

I’m going to sleep well tonight. I’m “wanted” after all.

My cowboy hat. In my dressing room.

©Daniel Robert Sullivan

368th Show

I am often asked if I get sick of doing the same thing every day. I have done the show hundreds of times now, and I suppose it is a fair question. The answer is simple. First, I could never get sick of doing this show. And second, it is not at all the same thing every day.

To the first part of my response,
Jersey Boys
is one of the most well-crafted musicals ever written. It never fails to engage an audience, and it is full of characters that are enjoyable to play and have a fully fleshed-out journey. It’s way better than
Cats
. And I love
Cats
. My new goal (here it comes) is to be in this same show in New York. That would be the perfect life for me—artistically satisfied and close to home. (I guess that would be the perfect life for anybody.) I would stay in this show in New York until they kicked me out, and even then I would be happy to play it again in some community theatre in Brooklyn. I love it that much.

To the second part of my response, the show never quite plays out the same because of the million variables that go into it. The audience can change the show, for they can energize us with their laughter or make us work harder with their silence. A different keyboard player can change the show, for a song can drive harder or softer depending on which substitute is playing. The two sound mixers can change the show, for they never set levels the exact same way as the day before. An understudy filling in for a principal actor can change the show, for the actor can have a very different take on a character (permissible as long as it is in the same ballpark). Alternate drummers, conductors, stage managers, ensemble members, and spotlight operators all impact the overall feel of the performance, and there is rarely a show with the full “regular” cast and crew. In fact, there have probably been only two or three shows this month where everyone was running their regular track. The people change, and so a show is never quite the same as the next.

371st Show

Actors in big shows like
Jersey Boys
are allowed to take a handful of vacation days, during which the actor’s understudy will perform the role. I have never been in such a long run of a show before and I have not missed a show due to illness a single time in my life, so “giving up” performances to take a vacation still seems foreign to me. But it is a privilege I have earned, so I take it.

A year ago, I desperately wanted to attend the
Saturday Night Live
wrap party with my wife, but couldn’t because of my rehearsals for
Jersey Boys
. I take some vacation days to be her date to this season’s party, and have another brush with small-scale celebrity.

The party is held on the grounds of the Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink. Seven hundred people attend, many of them recognizable celebrities. We dance, we mingle, we drink, and we eat. I am alone at the bar with Lorne Michaels and all I can say is, “Hey.” Then we end up in a large circle of chattering NBC employees, only a few of whom Cara knows. From across this circle comes a loud call to me, “Tommy DeVito! Didn’t I see you in
Jersey Boys
in Toronto a few months ago?!”

I am used to being recognized at the Starbucks across from the theatre in Toronto. But being recognized at 3:00 a.m. in the middle of Rockefeller Center is a much cooler thing.

379th Show

The Tony Awards are coming up this Sunday, and I am obsessive about them as always. We
Jersey Boys
give an interview that will be played during the Canadian broadcast of the awards, and I have already entered five separate Tony gambling pools. (I didn’t enter so many to give different guesses in each pool, I entered because I am totally confident my guesses are correct and I want to win five separate prizes.) And we find out a glorious piece of information while at work today: a two-minute video of the Toronto Company of
Jersey Boys
will be shown on a giant screen during the Tony Awards presentation at Radio City Music Hall in New York! It will not be shown on television, but will fill one of the commercial breaks for the almost six thousand people watching the Tonys in person. So, I am (sort of) performing at the Tony Awards this year. Another dream can (sort of) be checked off my list.

383rd Show

It has been more than a year now since I had my final audition for
Jersey Boys
, and the trembling hands are still with me. They are with me when I hold onto the chain-link fence for my first entrance. They are with me when I reveal the car keys to Frankie in the scene I auditioned with long ago. And they remain with me now as I try to come to terms with the decision Cara and I have to make.

“They want me to stay just a little bit longer.” My agent has called with another offer from the producers to extend my contract.

“Are you quoting a song right now?” Cara is with me again for the summer and she and Rachel have watched the show three more times this week alone. She recognizes every song lyric in real-life conversation, just like I do.

“No. They actually want me to stay a little bit longer. Until January.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I’m not sure,” I tell her. But I might be lying.

“Ok.”

“Should I stay just so we can actually start saving some money? The new contract will come with a raise.”

“You should do what you want to do,” she says. I have already been away from home for fifteen months, so she can’t really mean I should do what I want to do. She has to have an opinion.

“What do you think I should do?” I ask.

“I think you should do what you want.” This conversation is going nowhere unless one of us actually says what is really on our mind.

“I think…” I hesitate to make sure that what I’m saying is actually true. “I think I want to go home. I think I need to go home. To be with you.”

A pause.

Then her response. “Oh, thank God!” And she kisses me. It’s been a long ride.

384th Show

I am very lucky to have been given the gift of
Jersey Boys
. It has changed me. I am more confident about my ability to create a character that many (including myself) thought was not really right for me. I learned how to physically and mentally work in a long run of a show, and found that I love it. I found relative security in a job for the first time in my life (after I realized I was not going to be fired) and am able to understand how it feels not to worry where the next paycheck will come from. I gained an incredible amount of respect from my peers in New York; they know my drive but never witnessed me have such a gigantic payoff.

And I hope it has changed the way I look for jobs. Prior to
Jersey Boys
, my audition conversations would usually go something like, “Hello! I’m Daniel Robert Sullivan. – No, I’m not working on anything right now. – Well, I finished a run of a new play last month. – No, it doesn’t look like the play will ever be produced again…”

Now, my audition conversations will go, “Hello! I’m Daniel Robert Sullivan. – Yes, I was with
Jersey Boys
for a year-and-a-half. – Yes, I will accept your offer of a great role in a Broadway show, thank you!”

At least I hope that is how the conversations will go.

I figure I have about ten months to legitimately claim I have “just finished” my run in
Jersey Boys
. This show is a resume-builder like no other. I am hoping my career will be pushed onward and upward by its status. Well, onward at least. I don’t need to go upward.

This experience will stay with me forever. How could it not? Each time the audience stands up (still, every single night) to cheer us on, they are cheering for the underdogs who came out on top. They are cheering for boys from the neighborhood who rocked until their fingers bled and their throats were sore, and were rewarded for it. But they are also cheering for four guys, four Seasons, who struggled with their family lives while they were on the road living their dream. These struggles cannot be discounted.

I’ve been living my dream on the road this year, too. But I don’t want to struggle with my family life anymore. So I’m going to go home. Maybe I’ll redo our second bathroom.

Going home is a decision wrought with conflict. While, it is clearly the correct decision for my personal life, I worked for two years just to get this job, so it seems strange to give it up after only a year-and-a-half. Many actors think I’m crazy. I just think my dreams are shifting around a little bit. I give my notice for September 5th, the end of this summer.

I’ll tell you, though, I am going to go home with a damn good pile of memories. Four seasons worth of memories, actually.

425th Show

Our dressing rooms each have a monitor through which we can listen to both the show and any announcements made by our stage managers. It is traditional for a stage manager to make a brief announcement immediately following each performance, an announcement that thanks us, perhaps comments on the night’s audience (“They seemed hesitant at first, but boy we got ’em at the end!”), and reminds us of the call time for our next show. Most often, this announcement happens while I am in the shower removing the gallons of gel from my hair. Tonight, I decide to watch the band’s final playoff from the wings after my curtain call, so I arrive to my dressing room later than usual.

I am removing my tie when the announcement begins. “Hey guys, listen up. The producers are here and they have called a meeting. Please change and meet in the theatre. Full cast and crew, please.”

It is almost 11:00 at night and a meeting at this time is very strange. In fact, a last-minute meeting in the theatre is strange anytime because it puts the crew, the ushers, and stage management behind in their schedules.

I’ve heard about this kind of meeting. This kind of late-night meeting only happens if producers want to get the word out about something before an early-morning press release. And there is only one piece of news that would warrant an early-morning press release two years into a show’s run.

I undress, shower, and change very quickly now. A sense of foreboding has begun. I don’t know for sure what is about to be announced, but I have a good guess.

Walking into the theatre, I am instinctually drawn to Jeff Madden and Michael Lomenda, two Seasons who actually live in Toronto. I am a guest here in this city. They make their living here; it is their home. They are sure to be hit hardest by whatever comes of this announcement. And the forlorn look on each producer’s face tells me my guess is correct.

The theatre is quiet. Introspective. (I’m not the only one to have figured out what this meeting is about.) The producers stand at the foot of the stage. The entire company gathers close together: actors, musicians, stagehands, dressers, hair stylists. I don’t think I have ever actually seen all of these people in the same room before.

“Hello, everyone.” Aubrey Dan, president and founder of the Dancap Productions producing team, begins speaking. “For the past two months, we have been promoting
Jersey Boys
with vigor unlike anything Toronto has seen before. This summer is well-sold, but we were hoping for a big push into the fall and winter season. This push never materialized. Now that we have sold more than a million tickets, and now that
Jersey Boys
has become the longest running show in the history of this theatre, I am sorry to say that our two-year anniversary performance will also be our last.
Jersey Boys
:
Toronto
will close on August 22nd.”

Silence.

A few tears. Not overly dramatic tears, but the kind of tears you shed when you must say goodbye to something you love.

Some more silence.

This theatre, this show, became a second home to most of us. The fulfillment of a dream that most of us have had since we were young. And, unlike me, most of these people are living their dream right here in their home city. That’s the thing that makes it completely fulfilling for them. I’ve had a dream job in the wrong city; they’ve had it in the right one.

There’s not much talk. Everyone leaves to deal with the news in their own way. There is budgeting to be considered, auditions to be prepared, and maybe even day jobs to look for. I put a hand on the shoulders of both Jeff and Michael. I feel they are losing the most.

Coming back to the apartment, I share the news with Cara. She is dumbstruck, for the show has been selling very well and seems 100% successful. But Toronto is different from New York. In New York, there are many mega-musicals that play for years and years. In Toronto, there has been only three:
The Phantom of the Opera
,
Mamma Mia
, and
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
. Behind these obvious successes lies an elite group of two- or three-year runs:
Cats
,
Miss Saigon
,
The Lion King
, etc.
Jersey Boys
is in this elite group. It is an enormous success in a city that doesn’t often support long-running hits; a city that has eight or nine new musicals come through every year, but only a handful that have ever found an audience for more than a couple months.