Then one day, like a magical rope that dropped into my self-indulgent pit of despair, I saw a notice for an audition in Backstage that I was certain would fix all my problems. It contained two phrases that filled me with incredible hope: “Grease—The Musical” and “Dinner Theater.” This was perfect! I had just played Doody in summer stock to great acclaim—one Berkshire newspaper had called me “tall and blonde”—and most of my acting experience was in dinner theater. (Please recall my run in On Golden Pond at thirteen years old.) I didn’t even know New York had dinner theaters; they seemed like such a Midwestern thing. This one was called the Westchester Broadway Theatre. The name was a little paradoxical. How could it be both Broadway and dinner theater? I told myself I’d worry about that later.
The day of the audition I called in sick to both of my jobs and spent all day waiting in line to grab what was mine. As desperate as I was, I also felt extremely confident. I finally got in the room and sang my song and read my scenes, and was asked to stay and dance. Normally this would have made me nervous because I was never a great dancer, no matter how hard I tried. But in this case I already knew the hand jive from being in Grease in the Berkshires, so I was feeling real good. I left that day certain of my fate at the Westchester Broadway Theatre. Soon I would be back singing and dancing in front of crowds slurping down Grasshoppers and Beef Stroganoff, just like they did in Omaha.
Sure enough, two days later I got the call that I had booked the role of Doody. I would receive $400 a week for fourteen weeks of employment, and the best news was that at the end of the contract, I would receive my Actors’ Equity card. This meant better jobs, insurance, a pension, and unlimited use of the bathrooms in the Times Square offices. It was way better than I could have imagined!
But now I was faced with a difficult choice: I couldn’t do this show and stay in school full-time, nor could I keep my work schedule up, particularly while in rehearsals. What was I going to do? Play it safe or follow my heart back to the dinner theater buffet line? I consulted with no one, I made no list of pros and cons, I didn’t even flip a coin. I just impulsively decided to blow up my life and take the show. I dropped out of Marymount, quit both my jobs, and moved out of my dorm and into a small apartment near Columbia University with Zuzanna. I threw caution and all rational judgment to the wind! Moving in with Zuzanna was the start of a whole new adventure. I was a real, struggling actor now. No safety net. The benefit of having my parents not help me pay for college was that this was solely my decision to make. I didn’t feel like I owed them an explanation or an apology for dropping out. This new adventure would be funded and designed by me.
Rehearsals quickly started and I was in heaven. The cast featured many young people, but I was one of the youngest. There were people who had worked all over the country in national tours, and they seemed so much cooler and wiser. I tried to soak it all in, including the stories of auditions and jobs nearly booked. One of the girls in the show had met Bernadette Peters, for Christ’s sake.
And then there was my Danny Zuko. His name was Todd. He was six-foot-four and looked like Lorenzo Lamas and Adrian Zmed had had a sexy man baby. He had just come from the national tour of Grease, where he had also played Danny Zuko. He wore tight rehearsal shorts and had long fifties-style black hair. I immediately fell in love with him, but my heart was instantly broken when he told us at lunch one day that he was recently divorced…FROM A WOMAN. I was devastated, but I still loved him from afar. I always managed to get myself staged right next to him in scenes and dance numbers, and I successfully worked in a bit of choreography where Danny put Doody in a headlock for no reason. I could feel his washboard abs through his T-shirt. I could have stayed in that headlock forever.
Unrequited romances aside, I was living my best life thanks to the guidance of Oprah and her friend Gary Zukav. I didn’t miss Marymount at all, and I was so happy to be getting paid to do what I had always dreamed of doing. There was one big catch, however. As an actor, my math skills were not exactly what they could have been, and $400 a week after taxes in New York City didn’t exactly stretch as far as I would have liked. I was often faced with difficult decisions: Lunch or two more vodka sodas after the show? Pay my rent on time or go grocery shopping? Go to the doctor or just take some echinacea and pray? I was often late with my bills and I was always stressed about money, but I was very thin. That had to count for something.
Once the show was up and running, I settled into a comfortable schedule. I’d take a van to Westchester every day, do the show at night, and take that same van back into the city, where I’d party with my cast, sleep off a hangover, and start all over again. I felt like I was part of something, a community of people who had the same goals and dreams that I did. There is an energy, an urgency, to being around people like that. I was motivated to do more and want more. And they were fun. We would go to dive bars in Hell’s Kitchen and dance and laugh and gossip about people. We used to play a game at the end of the night where, before last call, we would shout out how much money we had in our checking accounts and whoever had the least would get a free drink. It was usually me, but I remember being genuinely happy anyway.
And then, just as my first taste of contentment settled in, I was reminded of just how far Westchester was from Broadway. My friend Jenn from the Theater Barn booked a Broadway show. She was the first of my friends to do it, and while I was happy for her, I was also suddenly embarrassed. The job I had been so proud of now seemed not good enough. She was going to join the chorus of Footloose. The show had gotten terrible reviews, but who cared? She was going to be on Broadway.
It all seemed to move so quickly, and before I knew it, she was out of rehearsals and on stage. I had one night off a week from Grease when I could see her perform. Tickets were expensive, but Jenn was able to get me a cheap seat in the front row. It was not a great way to take in the emotionally layered story of Footloose, but it was the perfect way to see my dream up close. I really couldn’t tell you much about that show; I was too busy tracking Jenn through her every move. I felt a strange combination of pride and jealousy, a mixture of emotions that I would become accustomed to over the next several years. I started looking at other men my age in the chorus. They were all so talented. Could that ever be me? Was I Broadway good or just Westchester Broadway good? By the end of the show I was thrilled for Jenn and depressed for me.
I waited for her at the stage door afterward, and she eventually exited with some of her new Broadway cast friends. There were hugs and handshakes, and then we all went to a diner to grab something to eat. I could only afford to order a Coke, but I sat with them and listened as they talked about the backstage drama at Footloose. It was terribly exciting. As I walked Jenn home, she told me she had something important to ask me. Was there an opening in Footloose for me? I wondered. Would she be able to lift me out of the Westchester Broadway Theatre? “You made quite an impression at the show tonight,” she said. “Two different guys asked me who you were and if you were single.” I was not expecting this development, but suddenly it seemed like a great distraction from my professional angst.
“Which guys?” I asked.
“Willard and Lyle.”
Willard was the comic relief character played by Chris Penn in the movie, and Lyle was a chorus member who made a very memorable entrance at one point in the first act in a wrestling singlet. I was torn. Do I go for the featured actor or the guy with the impressive package?
“Which one is nicer?” I asked.
“Well, they both are nice, but Willard had crabs last week. I think you should go for Lyle.”
Decision made! I would go on a date with Lyle, whose real name was Jim. I couldn’t remember what his face looked like, only the singlet, but how bad could it be? Jenn hatched a plan for me to meet him after our shows one night.
We met up at a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen where the casts of many Broadway shows would hang out. I brought a
couple friends from Grease as backup in case something went awry. We were immediately overwhelmed by the number of Broadway chorus kids living it up at this bar. It was a whole new level of post-show partying. Jim/Lyle and I hit it off, and by that I mean we almost immediately started making out. (Dear reader, please keep track of these bar make-outs. This became a real trend for me.) Surrounded by Broadway show folk, kissing a featured chorus member, my head twirled into a new level of consciousness. Maybe I could get closer to my dream by simply hanging out with other people who were doing what I wanted to be doing. I could just fake it until I actually make it.
After that first night, Jim/Lyle and I had a whirlwind romance that would carry me through the rest of my run of Grease. I was hanging out with his cast all the time, meeting other Broadway actors, going to parties and events, all while singing my heart out as Doody every night at the dinner theater. My part in this professional world was so tiny I was practically invisible, but I also felt like I was finally in the right line. It might be long and winding, and I couldn’t really see the end of it, but I knew I was in it.
My second-to-last week of Grease I received my Equity card and my weekly salary went from $400 a week to $405, the Equity minimum for that contract. I was going out with a bang! Just when I didn’t think things could get better, Rent called, this time with an audition for Mark. That was a MUCH better part for me than Angel. I felt like everything was falling into place. All my journaling about my future and my daily affirmations were paying off.
As the last week of my Grease contract approached, I went back in for Rent. I wore my Calvin Klein carpenter jeans again, this time with a tight Henley and Converse sneakers. I sang BOTH of the given songs this time, and as I left I felt certain that this was going to be my Broadway break. That night after my show, I met up with Jim/Lyle, who looked a little tense.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’m leaving Footloose, Andrew.”
This came as a shock. Who would ever want to leave Footloose?
“I’m doing a European tour of West Side Story. I’m playing Riff!”
I tried to rally some supportive enthusiasm. “Congratulations, Lyle! I mean, Jim! That’s so exciting. How long will you be gone?”
Jim/Lyle made an exaggerated sad face. “A year.”
My heart sank a bit. I really liked Jim/Lyle. “Oh, okay.”
“And there’s something else, too…I really like you, Andrew. Spending this time with you has made me realize how much I miss my ex-boyfriend. He’s going to be playing Baby John on the same tour, so I feel like the universe is telling me to give it another shot with him.”
I felt my face get hot. It wasn’t that I was about to burst into tears; it was more like I was going to vomit with rage and embarrassment. Jim/Lyle sensed my mood shift.
“I’m really sorry. I think you are really great.”
“Thank you. I’m happy for you, Jim,” I lied. “When do you leave?”
“Next week.”
He really waited until the last minute to spring this on me. I tried to comfort myself by imagining that I would be in Rent rehearsals by then anyway. I didn’t have time for a Jim or a Lyle; I was going to be learning how to be Mark. Jim took my hand. “Do you still want to have sex tonight, though?”
I was outraged, then aroused, then sad, then lonely, then aroused again, and finally resolved. “Sure,” I said. So we did, and that would be the last time I saw Jim/Lyle for a long time.
The final weekend of Grease performances began, and while I was sad about Jim/Lyle, I brushed it off and tried to focus on having fun with my cast while awaiting a life-changing call from Rent. Grease closed on a Sunday night and we all got drunk as usual. I got recently divorced, straight Danny Zuko to hug me more times than I’m sure he would have liked. I think he could tell I was feeling needy and sentimental. And I might have been imagining it, but he seemed to really hug me back tightly. At least that’s what I convinced myself. The next morning I woke up in my tiny bedroom, and Zuzanna was already at class for the day, so I was all alone. I made some coffee, ate a newly expired yogurt that I had gotten on sale, and checked my service to see if I had any messages. I had one. My heart raced.
“Hey Andrew, this is Tiffany from Rent casting. Thank you for coming in last week. We are NOT going to need to see you again, we are going in a different direction this time, but you are definitely on the list for next time. Thanks, doll!”
That was it. I sat down on the sloppy daybed we used for a couch in our dirty living room. It was Monday morning, and all of a sudden I had no boyfriend, no job, and a filthy apartment. How had this all gone away so quickly? Couldn’t I just have lost ONE of those things? Maybe two?
I got back into bed. I couldn’t believe it, but I actually was having a moment of missing school, missing that schedule, and the safety of knowing I had someplace to be every day. I missed my friends from Grease. I missed Jim/Lyle and his stupid face and his tight singlet. I even missed the Westchester and its free buffet food. I was also feeling something else: anger at myself. I had let myself get distracted.
Yes, I was working as an actor, which was great, but I could have figured out a part-time job that would have alleviated a lot of my stress. Sure, Jim/Lyle was fun, but having sex with someone on Broadway is not the same as being on Broadway yourself. And worst of all, I had come to New York to learn how to be a better actor and I had dropped out of school with little thought. Money was a factor, but so was my ego. I had thought I was better than I was, that I somehow magically knew better than all my professors. I was not only angry with myself, but disappointed in myself. I had been living in New York City for two and a half years and I thought I knew my way around. Instead I found out I had just gotten myself lost.
Imaginary Omaha Andy
There were certainly several moments in my first years in New York, weak moments, moments like the one at the end of the last chapter, when I wondered if I had made the right choice in moving there. Yes, it is where my soul felt most at home, but there were plenty of times when I wondered if my soul was a liar.
After leaving Marymount and moving in with Zuzanna, I really had to hustle to keep my head above water. I was mostly living on canned pineapple and tuna, my thought being that I could stave off scurvy and still get some protein. At twenty-one years old, I felt like I was too old to ask my parents for help. I had occasional acting jobs that would buoy my resolve, but there were many, many mornings when I would wake up on my twin mattress that did not have a frame and stare at the ceiling above me in my eight-by-ten-foot room. Hungry from skipping dinner the night before, with no auditions that day and no serious love life to speak of, I would torture/comfort myself by dreaming about what my life could have been like if I were still in Omaha…
I would have enrolled in UNO, the University of Nebraska in Omaha. It is a school that is sort of infamous for its high enrollment but low graduation rates. At a minimum it takes most people six or seven years to graduate. (This is an informal statistic that I have personally found to be true, not a state-issued fact.) I would have enrolled there, and I would have chosen “Communications” as my major. I wouldn’t have known what “Communications” involved, but I think as a freshman I would have been intrigued enough to commit. I would have stayed at home, living with my parents for the first year to save more money. I would be going to class, learning how to communicate, and moonlighting as Omaha’s Next Top Model, before coming home and watching Home Improvement or Veronica’s Closet with my parents until I fell asleep.
The tricky piece of this puzzle would be my love life. I liked to think that I would have had the wherewithal to call it off for good with the forty-year-old, but I knew that at that age and in that headspace, I would have let it drag out for even longer. I for sure would have felt compelled to come out to my parents, and they would have had to deal with the fact that not only was I gay but I was also in a rela
tionship with a forty-year-old man. This news would have created a bit of a rift between me and my parents, and I imagine the strain would have caused me to look for other housing. The obvious choice would have been to move in with the forty-year-old, which would have thrilled him and made me feel even more trapped. But I would have done it under the false pretense of independence.
Now living without my parents, but with another kind of parent, I would be at the mercy of panicked coupledom. Pieces of my life would start to slide into his, and I would start to lose focus at school. He would convince me to star in a local community theater production. I would acquiesce because I love to perform, but it would mean late nights out after rehearsals and skipping classes the next day. I would also start skipping class because of my local TV commercial career, since it was actually making me money. Before long I would stop going to my Communications classes altogether.
One community theater production would turn into three, and before too long I would be fully entrenched in the Omaha theater scene. My commercial career would be too erratic to count on, so I would have to get a day job, but something flexible. I would become a bartender at some popular Omaha restaurant, where I would run into high school classmates who were home for the holidays or summer break. They would ask, “Weren’t you going to go to New York?”—and I would stammer and say, “I’m going next year. I’m just saving up some money first.” We would both smile and know that was a lie, and then I would make them their Jack and Ginger.
I would go home to the forty-year-old’s house and I would hate myself a little. I would hate him more. I would feel trapped and want to go to my parents’, but because I was too proud, I would stay there and just twist myself into knots. There would be some good times though. I would enjoy performing in these local productions, even though there would be a nagging what-if pulling at my heart every time I took a bow. I would comfort myself by saying I was a big fish in this small pond and that was good enough for me. I would also get to play many great roles. Probably most of them I would be too young for, but I would still get cast because I was the hungriest. I would play a sprightly Bobby in Company, opposite costars who were all into their forties. I would play Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but I would play it for laughs because I felt like it needed a lighter touch. I would play the most Gentile-looking Motel ever cast in Fiddler on the Roof. My performance calendar would be booked months in advance. I wouldn’t be paid for any of these triumphs because it was community theater, so I would have to keep my bartending job, eventually getting angrier and angrier that I was the star of the show one night and cutting up cocktail fruit the next. I would be drinking a lot. I would be eating a lot. I would for sure have my tips frosted and be going to a tanning bed on a regular basis.
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