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The whole time I was
directing at the high
school, I was also auditioning
in New York, but not getting
anything. I was wasting a lot of
time emulating the performers
that I admired, because I hadn’t
figured out who I was. And I
very distinctly remember the
moment I went in to an audition
for a musical that had just won
the Tony Award—Avenue Q. I
went to an open call, and there
were 500 people there, and I
was getting ready to sing my
purpose-ish pop-song, which
is what I thought they wanted.
(I was trying to sound like John
Tartaglia.) I was setting up, and
had my book ready, when Cindy T, the casting director, opens the
door and says, “I don’t know if the rest of you have seen Avenue
Q, but it’s a comedy,” and she slams the door.
Everyone that day had been singing the pop-iest, riff-iest
thing they could find to try and sound like Johnny. Well now
I panicked, and thought what do I have that’s funny. I started
flipping through my music and found “It’s Delovely,” the old
Cole Porter tune from Anything Goes, the first show I ever did
in high school. In that moment, I listened to the voice of that
six-year-old on the porch pretending to be Rick Moranis, and
thought, “I’m gonna do ‘Delovely’ as a duet between Ernie and
Cookie Monster.” When they called my name, I walked in the
room, and I went, “[Ernie] ”The night is young, the skies are
clear, and if you want to go walking dear,” [Cookie Monster]
“It’s delightful, it’s delicious….” They all looked at me like I was
insane. Or so I thought at the time, because that audition got me
a part in a huge Tony award-winning smash hit that I’d go on to
do for three years.
By this time, I’d learned there’s something about embracing
your sense of play, because my six-year-old me didn’t have a filter
clogged with expectation. But as you get older, the filter in your
brain is clogged with untruths about what, and how, and who
you are supposed to be. At that moment, I not only cleaned out
the filter, I took it out and burned it.
I had learned that you get to decide what makes you happy.
Where and when and how. Your life is yours. It’s about chasing
joy.
I then had another little dry spell after Avenue Q, and then I
got a call that the La Jolla Playhouse was doing a show about the
life of Charlie Chaplin, and they thought my headshot kind of
looked like Chaplin. I didn’t know much about Charlie Chaplin;
when I was growing up, my aunt Marion said I looked like him,
and that was about it. I knew the silhouette.
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September/October 2021
AACT Spotlight
17