Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy (27 page)

Immediately following the ceremony, we walk through a very unglamorous hallway and cross a very unglamorous back road to attend the official Governor’s Ball. Cara’s hopes were high, but she takes the disappointment well. We have a nice glass of wine while listening to an incredible big band. We have dinner and move to the dance floor where the guys from
Mythbusters
seem to be having a good time. Then, an announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for tonight’s featured entertainment: The Valli Boys!” Four guys in red jackets take the stage and launch into a medley of “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and “Walk Like A Man.” They are a Four Seasons tribute group. I’m not even joking.

After a few hours at the ball, it is time for me to grab a cab (I choose the one that seems the least accident-prone) and get to the airport for my red-eye flight back to Toronto. I looked nice in this suit earlier today, but now I am disheveled, sweating, and perhaps a bit bloated. (Belts always make me bloated. Women are so lucky they don’t have to wear belts. Spanx, maybe. But not belts.) After a full night at the 62nd Primetime Emmy® Awards, and on my way to finish my starring role in the biggest musical hit of the decade, I squeeze into the middle seat of Delta’s Row 34 next to a man already snoring and a woman chomping through a foot long salami sandwich.

478th Show

I arrive back in Toronto with only an hour to spare before our first show of the day. The last day. I have not slept well, of course, but I expect some excitement to kick in and rev me up.

The excitement never kicks in. While I convince myself that tonight’s show will provide that excitement because of the many die-hard fans in attendance, this matinee actually feels quite somber. This performance is the long goodbye. Tonight may be raucous, so this afternoon we live in each moment a breath longer to be certain we remember it. In just a few hours, we close a story that has inspired us all. In just a few hours, we dismantle a company of artists that will perform this story for the last time together.

479th Show

At 5:30 p.m., “Hey guys, we don’t mean to interrupt, but we just wanted to say good luck to you. We drove up from New Jersey to see you tonight!”

It is dinnertime and the four of us Seasons are having a last meal together.

At 5:32 p.m., “Pardon me, gentlemen. Would you mind signing this for us?”

It is dinnertime and the four of us Seasons are trying to process the end of a dream fulfilled.

At 5:35 p.m., “Dan, Michael, Jeff, and Quinn all at one table! OMG, will you please come and say hi to our group at the back?!”

It is dinnertime and the four of us Seasons are having the last conversation we will ever have alone together. Ever.

At 5:39 p.m., “Hi, guys. I don’t know if you remember me, but I met you at the stage door last year. I don’t mean to interrupt, but I just wanted to thank you for a great run. I’ve seen you almost thirty times now.”

At 5:41 p.m., “Excuse me, are you the Four Seasons?”

At 5:44 p.m., “Holy crap! You’re all here! Hey, we have a group of eight over there. Can we get you all to sign these tickets? Do you have a pen?”

At 5:47 p.m., “Hello, gentlemen. We came up from California to see you again tonight. Good luck to you.”

At 5:50 p.m., “Boys! We got these balloons for you! Have fun tonight! Can we get a picture?”

At 5:51 p.m., “Hello. I know we haven’t met, but I just needed to tell you that we’ve seen your show forty times now and wanted to give you these stuffed animals. You guys are amazing.”

At 5:53 p.m., “Here, I made this collage for each of you. I hope you don’t mind carrying it back to the theatre. Mind posing for a picture?”

At 5:56 p.m., “Excuse me, may I get in a picture with you?”

At 5:57 p.m., “Oh, I just had to say something. You all are the best. May I get in a picture with you?”

At 5:58 p.m., “Hey, as long as you’re doing pictures, can I get in one, too?”

It is dinnertime, and the four of us Seasons should have just gotten food delivered!

This is an experience like I have never had. I am able to eat only half of my meal before so much time has gone by that I must return to the theatre. The four of us have not been able to have a private conversation. We have not had a single moment alone together to process what this experience has meant for us. We have not even had time to order a second iced tea. What we have had is the smallest (ever so tiny) taste of what Brad and Angelina must go through every time they go out. And I hereby vow never to chase Angelina for a picture again.

On my walk back to the theatre, while on the phone with my mother, I am stopped three times and asked for pictures and given gifts. Three times. While on the phone. This is getting ridiculous. Don’t these people know that I am just a small-time actor from New York, one of thousands? Don’t they know that next week I will probably be ordering off the dollar menu at McDonald’s and wondering if I’ll ever work again? And don’t they know that I am on the phone?

I sign in at the theatre for the last time and try to analyze my thoughts a bit. I am grateful for the attention. It is flattering. But it is also unbelievably overwhelming. I would love to spend a few minutes meeting each fan and thanking them for being so kind, but that takes at least three minutes to do. I have encountered about fifty such fans in the past hour, and an hour is all the dinner break I have. Simple math will tell you that I should just be hiding in my dressing room.

I go through my usual routine preparing for the show and finish earlier than usual. The other three guys finish early too, perhaps sensing that we didn’t really have the moment we wanted to have back at dinner. We gather now in Michael’s dressing room for a hug. A couple gifts. A few words. Hmm. This is not as dramatic as I imagined.

A life in the theatre is a life of goodbyes. I came to that realization a long time ago. And you know something? Those goodbyes harden you. I care about these guys and I know that this show has changed each of our lives in dramatic ways, but the goodbye is easier than I expected. For all of us.

Is that what professionalism brings about? A hardening of the heart when a job comes to a close?

We take our places for the beginning of the show.

The standard pre-show announcement brings silence to the crowd. I give thumbs-up to the guys I can see from my vantage upstage in the dark. The first chords of music begin and there is a roar. A loud roar. But I expected that; the fans are out in full-force. The intro song plays stronger than ever, then it fades out as I snap and slide downstage for my first speech. And then my world stops.

The cheers are so loud that I cannot hear the band. I can see our sound engineer fiddling with his computers to make the band even louder, but his system is maxed out already. The cheers are so loud that I cannot hear the guys next to me who are singing “ah, ah, doo-doo” practically in my ear. What can I do but wait? I stand there, staring down the stream of spotlight now blinding my eyes, and I wait. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty, forty, fifty. The cheers continue, louder than before. Finally, I hold up a finger. Just one finger. And they stop.

We continue the show with equal energy on both sides of the footlights. The performance is not technically any different than any other we’ve done all year, but it does have a certain boost of power behind it. If there were another ten medleys in the first act, I’m sure I would have the energy to do them tonight. If there were even higher notes written in Frankie Valli’s songs, I’m sure Jeff Madden would be able to hit them tonight. We receive a standing ovation after “Sherry.” Another after “Walk Like A Man.” Another at the intermission. Another after “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.” And a raucous one after “Who Loves You.” I have been a part of countless standing ovations in my life, but they’ve always come at the end of a performance; never have I experienced them during a show. Some members of the audience are Tweeting during the performance:

• “Standing ovations throughout the show, applause at random intervals, autographs, tears, and thong-throwing. Bye-bye
  Jersey Boys
  , it’s been fun!” (@shelbygilmore)
  
• “Intermission now…the crowd is insane and I’m a part of it! Ha-ha.” (@celineolivia)
  
• “THAT WAS THE BEST TOILET SCENE YET! I love me some
  Jersey Boys
  !” (@jensmiith)
  
• “The audience just lost their shit!” (@elenajuatco)
  

At the final curtain call, I wave goodbye to the crowd, give a nod to the band, and wrap arms with the three other Seasons as we run offstage. But we don’t leave the wings just yet. It is still loud out there; the audience is still on their feet. We stick around to listen to the band’s final playoff and the energy is palpable. We played our final show with an extra kick of stamina, but the band plays it with an extra kick of skill.

Full Company

©Joan Marcus

They were a cohesive group already, but never have they sounded so together and so full of heart. The audience feels this, I think, because they are dancing with abandon out there in the dark.

When the band finishes, they exit the stage and we all congratulate each other. The house lights come up, the stage lights go down, and the backstage lights rise a bit to let us all see each other on our way out. A few minutes of goodbyes. A walk to the back hallway. Another few minutes of shared amazement. A walk to my dressing room. Another few minutes removing my microphone and washing my face. Then a knock on the door.

“Dan, they are still out there.” A stagehand has made his way to our wing of dressing rooms. He calls for the other three Seasons. “Seriously, they aren’t stopping.”

What is he referring to?

The four of us follow this stagehand back to the wings and can now see that, ten minutes after the band has left the stage, fifteen minutes after we have taken our final bow, the audience is still on their feet and not one of them has budged. The ushers have opened the doors, the chain-link fence curtain has been lowered, the lights onstage have been completely shut off…and still the audience remains.

We are not sure what to do. A concert performer receiving such an ovation would surely come back onstage for an encore. But we are not concert performers. And we don’t even have microphones anymore, never mind an encore prepared. And because
Jersey Boys
staging is so particular, so specific, we are not even sure if we would be allowed to step onstage again. And yet the audience does not leave.

After too much time decision-making, it is the stagehand (thank you, Brent) who finally tells us we had better just get out there…now. So we do. With arms around each other again, Jeff, Michael, Quinn, and I walk out to the middle of the stage to an eruption that tops everything we’ve already felt. There are handmade signs out there. There are flowers being thrown onto the stage. There are people crying in the front row. And wait, there are people crying onstage, too. Four of us, I think.

Final curtain call on closing night. Jeff Madden, me, Michael Lomenda, Quinn VanAntwerp.

©Aubrey Dan

We can do nothing but stand there and take it in. No one would hear us if we were to speak, and what would we say anyway? This reaction is not, could never possibly be, for us. This reaction is for the story that resonates so deeply for everyone in the room. Each seat out there is filled with someone who has some kind of dream, and some kind of obstacle standing in its way. The story of the Four Seasons proves that those obstacles can be overcome if you set your sights dead-ahead. I don’t mean to sound preachy or New Age or something, but I really do believe that is what connects people to
Jersey Boys
. Jeff, Michael, Quinn, and I are good performers, but let us call a spade a spade: we are not the ones inspiring such a reaction! I want to cheer right along with the audience tonight. I want to yell and scream and jump up and down and shout, “I know! I know why you love this thing so much! I know why you come back time and time again! I know it is because we all need to be reminded constantly that we can do what we have dreamed about! We need to be reminded constantly never ever to give up!”