Read Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy for Free Online Page A

parts?”
    “Yup.”
    “Over and over?”
    “Yup.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “Neither do I.” And we both stand there with Godot-like stillness.
    The callback, with all the same Tommy material, is with Merri and Richard Hester, the production supervisor. He knows this show inside and out, and tells me precisely what Des McAnuff wants to see. I am still pretty much doing an impersonation of Christian Hoff, but Richard shakes me of that when he gives me notes that are different from what Christian does. I think Richard is trying to shape a Tommy that lives truthfully in me, and I guess I should start doing the same.
    The audition ends with them telling me that they will be bring me in to see Des again the next time he is in town. This, too, seems to be part of the Jersey Boys thing. In order to be hired, you need approval from Des, but Des only comes in to town once in a while. So the casting team preps me (and many others) early so that when Des gets in to town we are ready to go.
    *         *         *
    And…another month. A lot more life goes by. I suppose everybody knows that actors often have day jobs. I am no exception. When I was in college at the University of Rhode Island, I knew that my chosen life was probably going to need a backup plan. So I had a triple major and received degrees not only in Acting (BFA), but in Secondary Education (BS) and English (BA). I later went on to receive my MFA in Acting and Directing at the University of Missouri/Kansas City with the thought that one day I may want to teach at a college; and one needs a Master’s degree to do that legitimately, right? But being a regular teacher while looking for acting work wasn’t a possibility, for it made attending any auditions impossible. So when I moved to New York for the first time in 1998, I tried a number of day jobs; jobs that were flexible, so I could wait in line for an audition in the morning and attend it in the afternoon:
    Substitute Teacher: I took my teaching certification down to the Board of Education, was fingerprinted, and received the paperwork required to be a sub. But in order to get work, I needed to visit specific principals and ask to be put on the school’s roster. After visiting a number of these principals, and having most claim they had enough subs already, I received calls for work from only one. And the work was unreliable. As you probably realize, a sub gets a call early in the morning to come in that day. These calls were sporadic on days I had free and could not be accepted on days when I attended auditions.
    Subway Musician: This remains the most lucrative hourly wage I’ve ever made. I started taking my guitar down into the subway to sing and play music for money. It was perfect in that I could set my own hours and work only as much as I wanted or needed to. I became aware that a certain structure exists in the underground music world. For example, I learned that people who play in the subway stations have to audition and register with the city if they want to play in certain key locations or if they want to play with amplification. I did not want to be terribly official, so I found a nice, unregulated, high-traffic area in the tunnel between 7th and 8th Avenues along 42nd Street, a tunnel that resonated enough that I didn’t need amplification. There was a reggae player there who usually stopped playing around 2:00 p.m., and I would try to take over after him each day. He was a big stoner, lived in Harlem, and loved to tell me about his many girlfriends. He also played the same song (“Redemption Song”) for an hour or more, asserting, “It’s the song that makes me the most money, bro.” So I stole this technique; my guitar rendition of “Piano Man” (with a harmonica strapped around my neck) could be heard every day for way, way too long. After me, there was a clarinet player who paid rent on his West Village apartment by playing down in the tunnels, and was always trying to