Life Is Like a Musical

by Tim Federle

  And yet! Despite pointing my whiskers hard toward the direction of Broadway, and in spite of my “I want” becoming an “OK, I’ve got it now,” it took me far too long to recognize that on the other side of a Broadway dream stood the reality of actually getting there… and then what?

  The big secret is: You’re supposed to write yourself a new want, every now and then.

  Right before I turned thirty, about twenty years after I’d first seen those damn dancing kitties, I realized I’d rather write the next Cats than actually be one. So I changed my tune. This time, I’d be a writer—one way or another. One page at a time.

  Please, never forget you’re the leading character in your own life. Read that sentence again: You aren’t the supporting cast. You’re it, baby. Too many of us relegate ourselves quite willingly to the sidelines of somebody else’s story, for any number of reasons. Starting today, own the fact that on the grand musical that is your own journey, you’re the only person who’s taking the final bow. You’re the whole show: the dialogue, the inner monologues, the crew, and the cast. So start composing a life that’s a joy to actually sing about.

  What’s your signature tune going to be? How hard will you belt it out till you get the thing you want? Not what your folks or your teachers or your former you wants. You’ve outgrown her. And thank goodness for that.

  What’s the big “I want” of the person reading this book, right now? Go get it. Sing that song. Sing it till you know it by heart.

  14 THE REAL WORK HAPPENS AFTER OPENING NIGHT

  Anybody can be good once. Any guy can nail a single audition. And yet, we fall in love with Big Story moments—the gold medal ceremony. The number one best seller. The opening night flowers. The real work happens after opening night, when the flowers wilt, along with the enthusiasm.

  The trick to keeping your gig (and your relationships!) fresh is to get in the “first time ever” mind-set. To approach your day-to-day life with curiosity. Think that sounds impossible or hokey? The dancer Marlene Danielle was in the cast of the original Broadway Cats—and then stayed there for its entire run, claiming to never get bored. Folks, we’re talking eighteen years of kitty litter. “Acting is reacting,” she said in an interview, once, and I never forgot it. If you amble through life on automatic, you miss all the interesting cues and signals that are around you every day.

  We each have elements of monotony in our lives, sure. But now imagine being Yul Brynner, who played the title role in The King and I over the course of thirty years and 4,500 performances. The songs never changed, gang. It was the same show for three decades, and he found a way to keep it real—long after the metaphorical red carpet, way back from opening night, had been rolled up.

  Your own signature role is you, so how are you going to keep it vital and alive? By staying in the moment, as present as possible, and open to the cosmic ironies of each new day.

  When you find yourself in a position of making a difficult decision—like, say, possibly breaking up with your longtime girlfriend because of a cute new coworker—don’t ask yourself what that hypothetical new relationship is going to feel like on the exciting days. Those days are only occasional. Instead, try picturing what the actual day-in, day-out might be. Relationships are ongoing projects; they are not your beach destination wedding and they’re certainly not the swim-up bar on your honeymoon. The real grit is required only once the champagne has gone flat, and you’re stuck with a dog to walk and a floor to mop. Who do you wanna be stuck with then? (And who would you like your partner to be stuck with—which is all you can really influence.)

  Same goes for your career. The real efforts occur when the cameras go away and the D.J. turns off the music. Opening nights happen once. True stripes are earned on all those days that follow, when you’d rather stay in bed during a matinee; when you’re fighting a cold but so is your understudy; when the audiences have stopped coming and you’ve got to use the last ounce of gas in the tank. A body of work and a reputation to accompany it are made up over the long haul. When you’re evaluating a substantial change, remember this. All of your heroes—not the unlikely overnight successes but the true workhorses, the folks who have gone the distance one rejection at a time—know that days are made of hours, and that hours are spent on repetition and practice in order to make a performance look effortless.

  If you want glory, don’t play the lottery. Pay your dues. You’ll be a winner the old-fashioned way, not by chance but on purpose.

  15 BUY SOMETHING PHYSICAL TO REMEMBER A BIG WIN

  I used to have a tradition when I initially began crashing auditions for shows in New York City. The tradition was this: If the tryout went terribly, I’d buy myself something. As in: If, after I’d gotten to the audition location—and warmed up in the waiting room, and then stood in an epic line, and gotten myself inside the actual room, and then the choreographer’s assistant spent twenty minutes teaching us a complex dance combination, and I’d danced my Midwestern heart out—but despite my most earnest efforts, I’d been eliminated in the first round: I would march myself ten blocks to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, head out to New Jersey, and pay a visit to IKEA to buy myself a little something Swedish.

  This is not a joke, or some kind of symbolism. The bus to IKEA leaves five times a day, and it is always packed.

  Why IKEA? I was on a budget, for one thing. And for a single dollar you can get, like, two lamps and a cheese grater. But my trips to IKEA were really a method of medicating, I suppose, that didn’t involve nicotine or tequila.

  I carried on like this for months, until I started regularly booking gigs. Then the trips to IKEA stopped. And, ironically, it felt as if something was missing, now that luck had found me. It turns out I’d underestimated the value of physically marking the good moments, too, and not just the disappointments.

  Confession: I long ago got rid of a lot of the in-retrospect junk I picked up along the way. (One only needs so many $3 can openers.) These days, I save the souvenirs for the big stuff; whenever I turn in the final draft of a new musical or hit any kind of major life milestone (a new apartment! a successful seventh date!), I mark the moment with a significant memento. Why? Because every time I walk across my Persian carpet in my entryway, I get to remember where it came from, and why; the first Broadway musical I wrote bought it, both literally and metaphorically. Every time my feet touch those fibers, I get to say: I did that.

  If you don’t plant flags along the vast terrain that is your life, you run the risk of looking back and seeing a landscape that looks pretty flat.

  One of the great benefits of being a full-time show-person is that I can peek back at almost any given year, past the age of twelve, and remember exactly where I was—especially when I was thoughtful enough to keep an object from the show. I was born in 1980, but in many ways, my life began in 1992. That’s when I was cast in a local, professional production of Oliver! at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. And even though one of the other workhouse boys stole my cute costume hat during the run, and tried flushing it down the toilet because he was jealous that I had a solo line in “Food Glorious Food” and he didn’t (true story!), it was still the most life-changing summer of my youth. I’ve got the opening night T-shirt to prove it—not to mention a framed show poster, and a signed bookmark given to me by the leading lady. These things make up a collage of my life, in living 3-D.

  The older you get, the more the shows run together, and the more the years do, too—but the mementos and tokens help jog the memory. Don’t populate your home with generic tchotchkes that looked good in some decor magazine. Instead, furnish your life with authentic souvenirs and one-off keepsakes that make you grin, make you remember, and make you thankful.

  The one thing that both good times and bad times have in common is that they’re yours. Experiment with giving those highlights and lowlights a physical manifestation. At the end of a bad day, there are worse things than finding yourself in the beautiful, slightly melancholy museum known as your past
.

  16 FIGURE OUT WHAT KIND OF NO IT IS

  Rejection is a day-in, day-out reality not just in a life of the theater, but in any life, period—especially for anyone brave enough to put himself out there. So how do we break down all those slammed doors—and how can we tell which doors aren’t locked, but are only temporarily closed?

  One of the biggest mistakes I made through my twenties was thinking there was only one kind of no. When it came to auditions, if I heard the word no, I thought it meant: no, forever. As in: No, you’re a terrible person, and you’re never gonna get cast in our show. (Once a drama kid, always a drama kid.)

  But there are actually three kinds of nos in the world. There is, admittedly, plenty of no, never. (This one occurs on the majority of first dates, generally within the initial thirty seconds.) But there’s also, No, not right now—as in, No, I just got out of a relationship and you’re super swell but I’m not in a place to be with you right this second. And there’s also, No, you asked the wrong way, go away and go back with a different approach. Your job, anytime you’re rejected for something you truly desire, is to become a detective, and figure out what kind of no it is.*

  When I was twenty-four years old, I attended an open cattle call audition for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a show that starred a “flying” car. Chitty was moving to New York City from the West End of London, but the producers were looking for an all-new American cast, and the audition notice claimed to be seeking dancers who fit my exact description: old-fashioned jazz-and-ballet-trained hoofers, between the ages of twenty and forty. I had this one made. I showed up early, kicked my way through the dance combination, and swore I’d nailed it—before being promptly cut by the choreographer’s assistant, who was running the audition that day (and seemed to relish the power). It was a bummer. I needed that job. There were bills to be paid, and I was tired of leaving New York to dance out of town; houseplants need someone around to water them. As I gathered my dance bag and pride that day, to take off from the audition and pick up some emergency ice cream on the way home, I wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang off as a lost cause. (And then ate half a pint of Cherry Garcia for dinner, before ordering Thai food for two, even though I lived alone.)

  This would be a crappy morality tale if it ended on Thai food, right? A few months after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang opened on Broadway, a guy in the cast left the production to join the tour of Jersey Boys. That meant they needed an immediate replacement. I got a phone call from the casting director—who’d kept my headshot on file from previous auditions—saying, “Hey, we just lost a guy who’s exactly your height, you wanna come in to audition for his replacement?”

  Sure, I did. Those plants still needed watering.

  At the follow up audition I saw fifty other boys who fit my exact bill; we were all 5-foot-7, in order to fit the costumes of the guy who was leaving. We were also all “audition buddies” in the way that says: I hope you do a kick-butt job today, but I also hope I get this gig. Anyway, I did what I always do: I took a deep breath and I danced my heart out and I left the rest of it up to the fates—but this time, after they “cut” the room in half, and had us sing our sixteen bars of music (which is about thirty frantic seconds of song), I actually got hired.

  I was back on Broadway, baby!

  Fast-forward two weeks; yes, that’s how brief a time I had to learn the entire show, and have my own mini opening night. The choreographer herself, Gillian Lynne, celebrated for her work on Phantom and Cats (now and mostly forever), happened to be in New York on my first night in the show. As the lone new guy, I was surrounded by original cast members who had, by this point, been performing the show for about three months. After the curtain call, Gillian tracked me down backstage to say, “What a shame you didn’t audition originally. You were terrific and would have been great in the original cast.”

  And while I wish I could have mustered more decorum, I couldn’t help but blurt out: “Yeah, it’s a shame your assistant cut me last year, when I first auditioned!”

  Luckily, she laughed, once she realized I actually had auditioned.

  I guess the kind of no I heard on the day of the original tryout for Chitty was: No, not now—try again later. But if I’d harbored any bitterness, or refused to go back to the drawing board and put myself on the line for them again, I would have missed out on so much. Chitty led to new relationships of every stripe, and I’m genuinely grateful I joined the show when I did, as a replacement. The entire situation turned into one big yes—it didn’t just get me back on Broadway, it led to the very friendships that hastened my becoming a published author. All because I’d been cut initially, and said yes when they called me back in.

  Your job in life is to find the yes that is buried in the many nos you’ll hear along the way. Are you being told no because your boss actually has an agenda—or because she really wants what’s best for you? Think of all the times your parents no’d you—to keep you out of traffic, out of the way of a boiling pot, or off any number of wrong paths. Are you getting other kinds of no, like when you’ve cold-called somebody and asked for a favor on the wrong day? Don’t disregard him just yet—he may have a point. Try a different way. See it from his perspective. Ask again.

  To beat the odds, fine-tune your savvy about when it’s time to give up, as opposed to when it’s the right day to dig back in. Sometimes no is the exact inspiration you need to get to a yes.

  * Disclaimer, and I’m gonna say it loud so the whole class can hear me: When in doubt, no means no when it comes to anything PG-13 or R-rated on the romance spectrum. Take people at their word, period.

  17 FORGET YOUR RÉSUMÉ. POLISH YOUR REPUTATION

  Look, you might have a mantel full of awards (congrats!), or simply be regarded as an expert (that’s cool, too!), but what other people will end up caring about is the energy you actually bring into the room. Or don’t, for that matter. This isn’t a dig at qualifications; by all means, work your tail off to become the best of the best, with exemplary credentials and knowledge to match. But whether you’re a doctor or a dancer, what the majority of folks will value most is how you make them feel. That starts, and ends, with how you act.

  I learned this lesson when I assisted the Broadway choreographer Randy Skinner on the original company of White Christmas. Randy had been a young assistant himself on the original company of 42nd Street; if anyone had experience evaluating thousands of tap dancers for only a few prime spots, it was Randy. I remember well the audition day for White Christmas, with dancer after dancer strutting into the room with tap shoes slung over their shoulders. From the first moment you can’t help but observe how would-be hires interact: not only when it’s their turn to step up and shine, but as they stand off to the sides, and figure nobody’s watching them. Either Randy’s other assistant or I would teach a group of about fifty dancers a forty-five-second tap combination. Roughly twenty minutes later (it all moves fast!), four people at a time would be called out into the center of the dance floor to perform the mini routine they’d just learned. But even before they began dancing, I’d already developed an impression of nearly everyone; it’s human nature to begin figuring out who seems cool and who seems, well, more complicated.

  What stays with me to this day is the way Randy regarded each of their résumés, laid out on the floor before him. As in, he didn’t. At all. He basically never looked at their well-polished CVs, unless he’d forgotten a dancer’s name, and wanted to give him or her a correction. Only then would Randy take a glance at her credentials, just to grab her name. Otherwise, he would simply watch the people dance, and, on gut instinct alone, make his decision as to who got kept around to sing, and eventually get cast.

  I marveled at this. And at the time, thought it was nuts, too. The hours I’d spent as a young dancer choosing the right fonts and spacing on my own résumé! I remember pulling Randy aside to ask why he wasn’t considering the wealth of experience these folks had; we were cutting people who’d been in Crazy for You, and a host of other
tap-heavy shows, and it felt wasteful to me. But Randy explained himself, and how he doesn’t particularly make note of whether five or ten years ago someone had a gig somewhere. It’s all about today in the theater, which can be brutal. Do you still look as if you belong in a chorus line? Are you still willing to take corrections? More than anything, Randy seeks sturdy performers who learn fast and don’t get flustered when a new routine is thrown at them. So, he basically disregards résumés completely.

  This mind-set isn’t just about evaluating skills. This is also, largely, about attitude. All the impressive credits in the world get thrown out when you bring a storm of negativity along with you.

  Again and again, people hire the person they want to be semi-trapped in a room with, for hours on end. Folks who can maintain some humor and humanity during dark, difficult times. (If you’ve never been out of town with a bumpy new musical, you can’t imagine just how dark it gets, like being in a jail where all the inmates are wearing glitter and panicked grins.)

  No matter what the industry, every gig has those days where you don’t know how you’ll figure your way out. Reputation beats résumé nearly every time.

  18 LET SOMEONE ELSE TAKE A BOW

  Life is not a one-man show. Sometimes it would be easier if it were, but, alas. Nope. Your world is populated with all sorts of side characters, miscast and otherwise. But if you do the graceful thing every now and then, and allow your vast supporting cast to take the final bow, they’ll consider you a star. A friend. A mensch, as they say in Yiddish and showbiz.

  If there’s an overwhelming takeaway from being on the creative team of a new Broadway musical, it’s that one person’s good idea is the whole group’s win. The scenery can’t sparkle if the lighting designer doesn’t flip on a switch. You can’t admire the leggy chorus girls if the costume designer puts them in head-to-toe tunics. And if the scriptwriter comes up with a particularly pithy turn of phrase that the lyricist then grabs to use in a song, it’s a compliment—even if you have to cut the line to accommodate its status as the title of a new ballad. Did the songwriter “steal” your good idea? Maybe. But isn’t so much of art, and being a thoughtful person, about consciously borrowing from the best? Didn’t somebody once teach you how to tie your shoes, and look both ways? We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, whether we know their names or not.