Daniel Robert Sullivan - Oh, what a night! : being one of the Jersey Boys

Everyones heard of Jersey Boys. Thirteen million people have seen the show, totaling more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. The cast members have performed on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, Dancing with the Stars, and at the Emmy Awards. Their recording has gone Platinum, selling more than a million copies in the United States alone. There are six companies performing it around the world right now: New York, Las Vegas, London, Australiathe boys are everywhere.

My first experience with the production of Jersey Boys came via my then soon-to-be wife. Knowing my love for anything new on Broadway, Cara gave me tickets to the show for my birthday in March of 2007. We had lived together in New York for less than a year and, although we were both working, our budget still dictated we sit in the very back row of the August Wilson Theatre.

The performance of Jersey Boys that night was mind-bogglingly fast and endlessly passionate. The show just drives; taking the audience on a ride that culminates in a raucous standing ovation. (Ive checked the show reportsevery company of Jersey Boys around the world has received a standing ovation every single night since they opened.)

Jersey Boys tells the story of the Four Seasons: Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi. Each member of the Seasons narrates a fourth of the show, offering their own version of the events that led this band to fifteen Top Ten hits and a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As they step on stage, the four actors playing the Seasons transform into rock stars. They sing, dance, play instruments, and live through two-and-a-half hours of the true-life events (mafia connections, robberies, gambling debts, drug overdoses, etc.) that brought the band together and, eventually, tore them apart.

That night in March, I was blown away by the show, and by the ensemble of actors and musicians backing the performers playing the Four Seasons. One of them, it turned out, is friend of mine. Colin is younger than me, a fresh face in New York, and an amazing performer. Reading the playbill, I realized that he was fairly new in the show and doing a smash-up job playing Hank Majewski, a member of the ensemble.

At the end of this performance I jumped to my feet with everyone else. I knew that there was a role in it for me. I just had a deep-inside-my-gut feeling that one day I would play Hank Majewski

Every actor has their audition protocol. Some actors will only go to auditions their agents have set up for them, while others will line up early to attend any audition at all, even if the audition is a required call. See, thats the thing about theatre auditions: shows are required to hold them even if they are not actually casting anything right then. This benefits the average actor, for it is often the only way they will be seen by the casting director of a given show.

Actors Equity Association worked hard for this rule and I am grateful because I definitely fall into the latter category of auditioning. I will audition for anything. I have stood in line on 46th Street at 6:00 a.m. for days in a row during summer stock audition season. I have spent countless days in stairwells and hallways waiting three hours at a time to sign up for an audition, then two hours preparing for that audition later in the afternoon. It is routine to spend five hours in an audition room hoping for a slot while on the alternate list all because you spent the morning waiting for another audition ten blocks away.

And I am not alone. For these required auditionsthe ones where the casting directors are not necessarily looking to actually cast the showit is usual to have two hundred actors per day wanting to be seen. A moderate week may have eight of these auditions taking place. So that means there are sixteen hundred songs being sung for jobs that may not even exist.

There are two types of these required calls: Equity Principal Auditions (EPAs), which audition for principal roles, and chorus calls, which audition for ensemble roles. Chorus calls will typically allow an actor enough time for a mere sixteen bars of music. (Every actor knows sixteen bars of a hundred songs, but probably only knows the second verse to a handful.)

Its December, 2007. There is a required chorus call for Jersey Boys happening, and I know this is the perfect time to be seen for the role of Hank Majewski. There seem to be productions of the show sprouting up everywhere, leaving quite a few guitar-playing actor slots to be filled.

The chorus call has two unique properties that play into my Jersey Boys beginnings. First, in addition to someone from the casting office attending, a musical director from the show is required to be present at all chorus calls. This doubles the chance of having someone actually pick you out of the crowd, and doubles the legitimacy of the experience. Second, chorus call slots may be claimed one week prior to the audition. This can guarantee that you will not have to wait around all day to sing, and helps me greatly because I teach workshops for a theatre company and have to find time to work these in. One week before the audition, I have one of these workshops I need to teach (gotta pay the bills), so I send Cara to the 2nd floor of the Actors Equity building to sign me up.

Cara is the most creative and supportive fianc a guy could ask for. Having both been married before, neither of us was looking for the relationship that eventually just kind of snuck up on us. We met at a theatre out west, and then worked through a long-distance relationship for about a year. One day during that year I realized that not only was I in love, but I had come to absolutely rely on her calming voice and unending belief in me. So we moved in together. We each came to the relationship with emotional baggage (who doesnt come to a relationship with emotional baggage?), but I am lucky to have found someone willing to work on us with fervor and commitment. Shes my best friend.

I suppose I can locate my adoration for her in the events of our life together: She once drove ten hours to see me for my birthday when her flight was cancelled. She made me sleep outside at the edge of the Grand Canyon after a midnight arrival so that I would see it for the first time when the sun woke me at dawn. She cried in the moving van on the day we moved to New York City, not because of the lifestyle change, but because she saw a particularly destitute homeless man on the street. She told me very seriously how much she admired the effort I put in to an earlier book that never found its way to publication, and in doing so inspired my efforts on this one. And she even tells me that I am hotter than her celebrity crush, Duane The Rock Johnson.

Its funny that, given the opportunity to put in print exactly how I feel about Cara, I find her hard to describe. She is beautiful, surelymedium height, blond hair, great figure. But I suppose more specifics would be needed to pick her out of a lineup. (Thus far, no one has had to pick her out of a lineup.) Her hair is probably her most prominent featurecountless shades of blond and very thick, becoming even thicker as six or seven products are applied each day. Her blue eyes often seem to change color with her outfits, coordinating to their environment like a Bob Ross sky. She has long, thin, perfect eyebrows; made more perfect every three weeks by the Korean lady on 32nd Street. She also has a wide jaw that she doesnt care for, but I find to be strong and confident. And her collarbone is pronounced and sophisticated like a 1920s flapper.

I have never taken advantage of Caras willingness to help me get an audition before this. (Sure she runs lines with me; but I must be frank and say that running lines is not quite in her skill set. She likes to read every word on the scripts page, whether or not it is a line of dialogue. She reads aloud things like Pause and Entering the Living Room and Juliet Picks Up the Dagger.) Cara works very late nights at