Too Much Is Not Enough

by Andrew Rannells

  We had several conversations that first week and learned that we were different from each other in a lot of ways. She was an only child; I came from a big family. She had traveled the world; I had never left the country. She was incredibly smart and applying to only Ivy League schools; I was barely passing my high school classes. But there was so much we had in common. We both loved and despised where we were coming from. We both knew we wanted more out of life than our current friends were expecting for themselves. And we were also both able to be freely excited with each other about the prospects that awaited us in New York. It was exciting to get to talk with someone who was about to do the same thing I was. Someone who didn’t think it was “scary” or “brave.” That it was just the natural thing to do. The thing we had to do.

  Zuzanna also bore witness to my brief yet meaningful relationship with Craig, the dancer with whom I had my tumultuous two-day affair in Miami. Zuzanna was rooming with our new friend Celestina, and Craig and I went to pick them up for a party. While the girls finished getting ready, Craig and I were holding hands on their balcony, feeling feelings and falling in something: Love? Like? I turned around and saw Zuzanna and Celestina peeking out of the bathroom, one head on top of the other, a position I had only seen on Scooby-Doo and, I believe, The Beverly Hillbillies. Their faces were pure joy and acceptance, and I was so touched that we were all exactly where we wanted to be in that moment.

  This trip to Miami, away from our families, was just a little glimpse into what our futures would hold. We were on the cusp of adulthood, moments away from being free of our parents and families and whoever we were in high school. Zuzanna was the first person I ever met who fully understood, without explanation, the beauty and seductiveness of reinvention. I told her that when I got to New York, I was no longer going to be “Andy Rannells,” I was going to be “Andrew Rannells.” Andy was an unsure kid who got himself into trouble. Andrew was going to be more confident and decisive. She told me that when she was growing up in Fort Wayne, her parents insisted that everyone call her “Susan” instead of “Zuzanna” so that she seemed more American. When she got to Barnard in the fall, she was going to be “Zuzanna” full-time. She didn’t need to pretend she was born here. There was no shame in being an immigrant. We were both emigrating to New York and being set on the path to being who we wanted to truly be—new names, new city, new lives. We were going to find ourselves in New York, damn it. Whether it was ready for us or not. We also decided that she was going to wear darker lipstick and I was going to socially smoke. We had a lot of plans.

  Zuzanna and I moved to New York a week apart. I was at Marymount and she was at Barnard. I felt a little embarrassed by my school choice, but I was so proud of Zuzanna and her fancy Ivy League university. I know she was proud of herself, too, but we both wished we were at NYU. We wanted to be in a more prestigious acting program. I couldn’t afford it, and her parents had insisted that she get a more well-rounded education. (In the years that would follow, anytime we walked by an NYU building or one of the many purple NYU flags that dotted the city, Zuzanna and I would flip them off. If we couldn’t have what we wanted, fuck them. It was a very mature approach.)

  The first night we hung out in the city took a lot of coordinating. This was pre–cell phones, kids, so we chatted on our landlines and decided to meet in a location that seemed easy enough to find for two people who had just moved to the city: Union Square. I guess we didn’t realize just how large Union Square was. Once I arrived, I was waiting on the west side of the park, while Zuzanna was waiting on the east side. Then I walked to the east while she walked to the west. We did this multiple times, missing each other with each pass. It was like the platonic, teen version of Sleepless in Seattle. I don’t know why we both had the same instinct, but at a certain point, we both made our way toward Washington Square Park. Maybe it was the gravitational pull of NYU in our hearts. And there, near the arch, blocks away from where we’d intended to meet, we found each other. It was our version of the top of the Empire State Building, I guess.

  At this point, we were nineteen and couldn’t really get into any bars, particularly in Greenwich Village, where establishments were used to underage college students trying to talk their way inside. There were several humiliating attempts and the inevitable rejections when we didn’t have proper ID. We played so many versions of that scene. Sometimes we would “discover” in front of the bouncer that we had forgotten our IDs. “My ID must be in my other purse!” Or “Wait, I thought YOU said you would carry our IDs. Women! Am I right, man?” Sometimes we would be belligerent. “You’re joking, right? I’m twenty-two, sir.” Or “I come here all the time! We’re friends with the owner!” And sometimes we would just try to walk in with authority and pretend we didn’t speak English. Nothing worked.

  We wandered all over the Village that night, and then, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, we walked by a tiny bar that had loud piano music pouring out of it. Not just music, but show tunes. It was called “Rose’s Turn,” a charming tribute to the finale of one of the greatest musicals of all time, Gypsy. We took it as a sign. Zuzanna had played a Hollywood Blonde in a community theater production in Fort Wayne and I, well, I’m gay and just love Gypsy. As we crept in, an older man was singing “Anthem” from Chess. The bar was located in a basement with a low ceiling, even lower lighting, and a smattering of patrons all in or around their fifties. We took our seats at a small table near the door. A waitress absentmindedly asked us what we wanted to drink. Success! I ordered what I considered to be the most sophisticated drink I could think of, “A Tanqueray and tonic, please.” Zuzanna got a whiskey sour. We tucked in with our drinks and tried to be invisible.

  It didn’t last long. The piano player spotted us and asked if we were going to sing something. I was immediately thrilled and petrified. Me? Sing in a New York bar? I started thinking of songs that I could fire off without much effort. Maybe the Tanqueray hit me faster than I thought, but my mind landed on a rather odd choice, especially considering that I had devoted nearly all of my teen years to obsessing over musical theater. I walked up to that piano player and said, “Do you know ‘Copacabana’ by Barry Manilow?” He looked a little surprised and then said, “Yes, I do.” Before I knew it, I was belting out “Her name was Lola! She was a showgirl!” in a West Village bar. Zuzanna’s face worked its way through horror and amazement before finally settling on joy.

  I felt a real rush singing that night. I was standing in front of about ten people total, but they were all listening to me, watching me perform. And they liked it! It is this rush of fear mixed with pride that makes performing so addictive, and it was the first time I had felt it since I had arrived in New York. Yes, this was a small stage, but in many ways, it was my New York debut.

  After my song, a round of drinks was sent over to us by a man at the bar. “Great song choice!” he shouted. We waved a thank-you and guzzled our drinks. The piano player asked if Zuzanna wanted to sing something. She had done several musicals in high school but didn’t consider herself to be a singer. She politely declined. Our waitress got up to sing a few songs. She was clearly working through some emotional upheaval, and we were moved by her renditions of “As Long as He Needs Me” and a song we had never heard, “Fifty Percent” from the musical Ballroom. There was a lot of angst in that bar. I was starting to see why “Copacabana” had played so well.

  After our cocktail waitress’s gloomy set, I decided to take another go at it. I requested to sing another classic, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” Most people know this song as the huge hit by Frankie Valli. I, however, only knew it as the encore of the Vikki Carr: Live at the Greek Theatre album my parents owned. I had no idea anyone else had ever sung it. Needless to say, my rendition was a little different from Frankie Valli’s. It just reeked of Vikki and a late-sixties lounge act. More drinks were sent over, and Zuzanna and I continued to consider ourselves extremely lucky that we had found thi
s magical Brigadoon of a bar.

  In between songs and chatter, Zuzanna and I drank and laughed and talked about the various anxieties of moving to New York fresh out of high school. Hours passed. In my gin haze I was struck by how comfortable this all was with her. We didn’t really know each other well, but sitting together, having this evening, this talk, these laughs, it was just easy. I had friends back in Omaha whom I felt a certain kinship with, but none of them were doing what I was doing. None of them had uprooted themselves to take a running leap at a dream they’d had since childhood. Zuzanna was doing it, and she understood why I was doing it, too. We both had big dreams and were prepared to take big swings.

  I went to the bathroom while another waitress started to sing “Alone Again (Naturally).” (I’m telling you, the staff should have been on suicide watch.) From the bathroom I heard the song end and the applause that followed. Then I heard silence. A long silence. I wasn’t sure what was happening out there. I feared the bar was being held up by robbers or maybe one of the waitresses was finally ending her public breakdown. Then I heard low talking through the microphone. I slowly opened the door to the bathroom, slightly concerned about what I was returning to. I recognized the sound. It was Zuzanna doing her college scholarship audition monologue. It was a very moving, somewhat strange piece from Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day. In it a woman is talking about being in a production of Faust. She fears that if the devil actually appeared before her to offer her everything she had ever wanted in exchange for her soul, the devil wouldn’t bother because she wasn’t worth it. It’s a wonderful monologue, but looking back it seems both jarring and yet incredibly moving coming from a nineteen-year-old girl. My monologue had been from George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman. I’d never really known what I was talking about when I performed it.

  Zuzanna was standing next to that piano in a pink spotlight, fully committed to this performance. The entire bar sat silently watching this young woman completely lose herself in these words. I doubt there had ever been, or would ever be again, a monologue performed at Rose’s Turn. She crushed it. The patrons were moved, the waitresses both related to the piece with a little too much enthusiasm, and I was floored by my new friend’s talent and confidence. During her well-earned applause, we went back to our table and more free drinks were sent our way. Zuzanna was immediately horrified by what she had done, but I think also proud of the fact that she had won the crowd over with her unexpected performance.

  At that age, there was no verbal outpouring of affection for each other. No showering of praise for individuality. We were buzzed on free liquor and the acceptance of strangers. We were hundreds and hundreds of miles away from home and our families, and yet we had started to take the first steps toward making a new life in New York. And even more important, we were falling in love with each other as friends, and with our new chosen home.

  Over the next couple years, before we could legally drink, we visited Rose’s Turn often. Sometimes we brought friends with us, guys we were dating, guys we wanted to date. But many times it was just Zuzanna and me, laughing and catching up, enabling each other for better or worse.

  “Don’t go to work tomorrow!”

  “You can skip class!”

  “You should definitely audition for that part.”

  “Don’t call him back. He’s not worth it.”

  Rose’s Turn was not young or hip or sexy; in fact, it was a little busted, but it was friendly and it suited us perfectly. And it gave us a chance to perform, a place to act like we were real actors and not just students. No matter how insecure you were in an acting class, or how demoralizing an audition was, you could always depend on being able to take the stage at Rose’s Turn and get a warm “Hello!” and some applause. They always remembered what we drank, but they never asked too many questions. They accepted us as whoever we presented when we walked in the door. If we were two veteran actors who needed a drink to shake off the day, then that’s who we were. It was our very own Cheers, if Cheers had been about a piano bar with older New Yorkers belting Sondheim in it.

  We went back to visit our friends at Rose’s Turn close to a decade after we had first discovered it. The staff was mostly the same. That first waitress we’d had was still there, and she was singing when we arrived. She greeted us over the microphone and then said to the rest of the bar, “These kids have been coming in since they were too young to drink!” It’s silly, but it felt nice to be remembered. Today, Rose’s Turn is closed, like so many of the places Zuzanna and I used to visit when we first moved to New York. I feel like maybe one day we will open our own piano bar, catering to newcomers and lost souls in New York. You can sing whatever you’d like, and monologues are more than welcomed.

  Summer Stock

  (or Things You Can Learn in a Barn)

  During my first year in New York, every Thursday, without question, I would stop at the newsstand on my way to Marymount and pick up a copy of what I considered to be a sure ticket to getting me the career of my dreams: Backstage. Backstage is a trade paper that lists every audition happening in the city, whether for Broadway chorus lines, smaller regional theaters, or “student films” that may or may not involve you taking your clothes off. It’s a cornucopia of possibility, and I happily paid the two dollars it cost every week to get it.

  Honestly, most weeks there was really nothing to get excited about. At nineteen, I was not in the actors union and still in school, so my options were limited. Then, one week, in the spring of my freshman year, I picked up a particularly thick edition of Backstage. It felt fuller than usual, like there was more hope inside. I sat alone in the strangely dim cafeteria at Marymount and slowly turned the pages, ready to circle as many auditions as possible with the executive-style red Swiss Army pen my dad had given me as a graduation gift. I used this pen exclusively for journaling and Backstage circling. It was meant only for serious business.

  There were so many auditions in this issue, and nearly all of them met my requirements: non-union, summertime only, and in the New York tristate area. I couldn’t believe my luck. I started noticing the names of the theaters. Oddly, almost all of them seemed to contain the words “Barn” or “Summer.” And how was it possible that each of these theaters would be casting six shows in a three-month period? Then it hit me and I felt like such a fool for not thinking of it sooner; these were SUMMER STOCK theaters.

  For those of you who don’t know, summer stock is an age-old tradition that young actors have been participating in for generations. You are paid very little to work very hard, all in the name of professional experience and fun, with a potential side of offstage romance and extracurricular drama. There were at least five theaters having auditions that week that included shows I was right for. I started hatching my plan. I couldn’t go to every audition, because some were happening on the same day at the same time, and each involved spending the better part of my day lining up and waiting for my turn to sing my sixteen bars of music and hope for the best. (It’s worth pointing out here that sixteen bars is about thirty seconds of a song. It is your job as the auditionee to pack as much excitement into those thirty seconds as possible. Translation: Sing as high and loud as you can. It turns out my mother’s advice was right once again. Thanks, Charlotte!)

  I started comparing the theaters, but I hadn’t heard of any of them, so I didn’t have much to go off of. I decided I would rank them by the shows they were doing that season and their proximity to New York City. One immediately jumped out at me: the Theater Barn. It was in New Lebanon, New York, located in the “heart of the Berkshires.” Wherever that was. Their season included The Fantasticks, Forever Plaid, The Mousetrap, Grease, and Promises, Promises. I was not familiar with The Mousetrap or Promises, Promises, but there were definitely roles in those other shows for me, and good ones. I asked one of my acting teachers how close the Berkshires were to the city.

  “About three hours.
Are you looking for summer stock work? It’s great experience. Some of the best training you can get as a young actor.”

  I was in.

  The day of my Theater Barn audition I had to skip class to go. Fortunately, I didn’t have any classes I considered important that day—just core classes like Literature and Ecology and a remedial math class. You know? Nothing practical. I showed up at Shetler Studios, which at the time was on Eighth Avenue and 55th Street. It was a rickety building with one terrifying elevator that carried groups of ten nervous young hopefuls up to the eighth floor to have their talent judged and their egos potentially bruised. The hallways were packed with people. The whole space smelled like hairspray and anxiety B.O. covered with CK One. I had never been to an audition like this before. It was a zoo. My Rent experience seemed so civilized now. There hadn’t been many people there, and they’d been expecting me, welcomed me even. This was like musical Gladiator. I had to push my way to the sign-up sheet, which was guarded by a woman sitting behind a folding table with a clipboard and a pen. It was a little after 9 a.m., but she already had a look on her face that said, “I will happily commit domestic terrorism in this audition space if provoked.” I nervously told her my name, and she informed me that I would be number 156. 156?! I thought. How was that even possible? How early did these people get here? I thought I was on time!

  “How long will that take?” I asked.

  She looked at me like she might snap my neck without a second thought.

  “After lunch. Maybe sooner. I don’t know. Stay close!” she barked back.

  I found a little spot on the floor and took a seat. In my backpack I had my audition music and a collection of essays and poems called The Beat Reader. (I was very much into Jack Kerouac and his pals at the time. What can I say? At nineteen I was a serious actor, a serious person, and I only read “serious” things. If I’d owned a monocle, I probably would have been wearing it.) What I had not packed was water or a snack. Now, a normal person might figure that since he had 155 people auditioning ahead of him, it was probably safe to run to the corner store for some Poland Springs and a Snickers. But not this kid! Nope! I was certain that the second I left, they would call my name. So I stayed and sat and read, and sat some more and pretended to read some more, eavesdropped on conversations, and waited for my turn. Close to four hours passed. I was parched and dizzy from hunger, but I refused to leave.