I’ve come to realize that none of us are able to make our dreams come true all on our own. (If you’ve found a way, please spill the beans. I’d love to hear how you performed such a miracle.) We need each other in so many ways. If you searched the archives of your life story, you’ll likely find a host of people without whom you would not be where you are today. Sometimes it seems they were purposefully planted to keep you on the right track. Who knows where I’d be if not for my pushy pal Jenny, as you”ll read about below? As Barbra Streisand sang so beautifully in the movie Funny Girl, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” You need ’em. So do I. Let’s get lucky.
Please enjoy your next excerpt from
by Kristi Lynn Davis
Final Scene: New York City, August 9, 2002
The sound of a key in the door lock awakened me from my slumber. Jenny and I greeted each other like long-lost sisters, squealing and hugging. “J-Dancer!” “K-Dancer!” We picked up as if no time had passed. Jenny poured two generous glasses of chardonnay. “I’m so excited to have you here! Do you want to come to my show tomorrow night after your Rockette thingy? You can sit backstage with me and watch me call the show if you’d like.” I was overjoyed at the opportunity to see a top-notch stage manager in action. Plus, a behind-the-scenes peek at Broadway actors was sure to be highly entertaining.
“Cheers, Jen,” I toasted, raising my glass. “If it weren’t for you I would have never become a professional dancer.” It was true. Not only had she talked me into moving to New York, but even after I left town, she kept getting me gigs. She was like the Pied Piper, and I followed her wherever she led me, even to Indiana. This woman believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She got me dance jobs when I didn’t have a clue what to do or where to go with my life. As far as I was concerned, she was my guardian angel and divine guide, disguised as a dancing, feminist, Bohemian, hippie, New Yorker. We stayed up far too late laughing, sipping vino, and recalling moments from our crazy, musical theatre days together.
Act 1, Scene 3: Beef and Boards
When out of the blue, after more than three and a half years, I received a phone call from Jenny, I nearly fell to the floor. “I’m in Indianapolis doing Funny Girl,” she said. “One of the chorus girls is breaking her contract to do a cruise ship gig, and they need a replacement. I want you to come and do the show!”
Serendipity or destiny? “You’re just about her size and will fit the costumes. I told the stage manager about you. You need to fax him your headshot and resume, and mail a vocal demo tape right away,” Jenny insisted. “I don’t have a demo tape,” I wailed. “Just throw something together quickly, before they find someone else. It would be so much fun! You have to do it!” She begged me, but it was unnecessary. I wholeheartedly agreed.
In haste, I bought a karaoke tape of James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” taped myself singing the vocals atop the canned background music, and threw it in the mail. “It’s not the best, but at least they’ll know I’m not tone deaf and can carry a tune,” I rationalized. You’d have thought I’d been smoking some bad Tijuana marijuana when I made this decision, as this song wasn’t even remotely appropriate for the gig I was trying to land. But, sometimes you get the job simply because “you’ve got a friend.” Jenny laid her credibility on the line, begged, pleaded, and promised her first born to the stage manager to get him to consider hiring me. In the end, he did, mainly because I was immediately available, likely to fit the costumes, and saved him from having to spend time auditioning people. Jenny can be very persuasive.
“Your room and board are free, and we can pay you $275 a week,” the stage manager informed me over the phone. I didn’t care if I got paid $75 a week. I was going to do a professional musical! This was living! He didn’t want to pay to fly me out there but gave in at the last minute. Here I was in Del Mar, California, population 4,000-ish, plugging away at the art gallery and going nowhere with my entertainment career when unexpectedly, no audition necessary, a dance job comes my way. I thanked my lucky stars. I thanked my tall angel, Jenny. That’s how I landed my first professional musical theater job: It was handed to me like a gift.
The next thing I knew, I was on a plane bound for the Midwest. “Goodbye Hollywood. Hello Hoosierville!” I settled in for a long day of travel, with multiple layovers and an overload of peanuts and Diet Coke. They had obviously scored the cheapest flight option available, but at least I wasn’t footing the bill. The travel time across country gave me plenty of opportunity to think about Funny Girl. As a kid, I had seen the movie version starring Barbra Streisand as Ziegfield Follies star comedienne, Fanny Brice, and Omar Sharif as her gambling husband, Nicky Arnstein. I recalled that Fanny and Nicky had a tumultuous relationship that ended sadly, and Barbra sang renditions of “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade” that gave me goosebumps. But that’s about all I could remember. “Wonder what I’ll be doing in the show?”
It was fall when I arrived in Indianapolis, but the leaves had already fallen off the trees. So mainly it was cold, brisk, and gray—the familiar look, smell, and feel of football season in the Midwest. “Ahhhhhh….home sweet home.” Made me want to put on a sweatshirt and make a big pot of chili. The theater was located just off Indiana interstate 465, exit 27, among hotels and office buildings, and, oddly enough, just down the road from my college sorority national headquarters. That was a good sign. If I needed support from my sisters-in-the-bond, they were only a secret handshake away.
The name of the venue, “Beef and Boards Dinner Theatre,” should have alerted me that I’d be in for a unique experience. “Beef” stood for the dinner they served and “Boards” for the stage. The most unique facet of the “gig”—a show biz term meaning “job” that I started throwing around casually—was that I lived at the theater in a second floor room that I shared with Jenny, who served as my tour guide. Our bedroom, which doubled as our dressing room during the show, was full of costumes and wigs resting on white Styrofoam heads. A young chorus guy named Brent and an older character actor named Belinda lived down the hall from Jenny and me; everyone else lived in apartments a short drive from the theatre.
The rest of our home for the next few months was downstairs at stage level. It consisted of two smallish, no-frills rooms adjacent to each other (and conveniently located next to the stage left entrance) that served as our kitchen and the green room. (The “green room,” I learned, is a room backstage that provides a place for the actors to hang out before, after, or during a show. There are many opinions on the origin of the term, but suffice it to say that the room is rarely actually green.) She then led me into the theater, which could hold up to 450 patrons sitting tableside, surrounding centrally located, portable buffet carts that were covered in sneeze glass. “We get first stabs at the dinner buffet before the audience descends upon it, but we have to fend for ourselves for breakfast and lunch,” Jenny informed me. “Bonus! Free chow!” I applauded. I would soon tire of seeing the same salad bar, beef, chicken, and baked potatoes night after night, but it certainly saved on the food bill. The lobby was adorned with posters of the previous shows that were performed there. The next poster would be for a musical that featured me. And people were going to pay to see me!
After the tour, it was time to stop dilly-dallying and get down to business. We had a lot to do, and quickly, as I had only a week to learn how to fill the shoes of the girl I was replacing. First order of business: try on costumes. Luckily, nothing needed alterations except for the shoes, which I filled and then some, as they were two sizes too small. Being young and naïve, I stuffed my tootsies into them anyway, like the ugly stepsister pretending to fit into Cinderella’s glass slipper. My feet could have been permanently damaged, and my career permanently ruined, but I was afraid to ask for new shoes. Not wanting to lose my first job, I grinned and beared it.
Second order of business: placate (pay-off) the union. “This is an Equity theater,” the stage manager announced, “so you have to pay $100 to the Actors’ Equity Association. This allows you to become a candidate for Equity eligibility.” I didn’t know what he was talking about, but if I didn’t do it, I wasn’t going to be working there, so I wrote out the check. (So far this job had cost me money.) He explained that “Equity” was the nickname for Actors’ Equity Association, the labor union representing live theatre actors and stage managers in America.
Kristi (right) and friends, “Funny Girl” pre-show
Third, fourth, and fifth order of business: The stage manager handed me a pile of sheet music and said, “You will rehearse during the day with Sandi, the dance captain, to learn your track. At night, you need to watch the show to get a better idea of what you will be doing on stage. Oh, and here’s your music for the pre-show with Brent and Jenny.” My eyes widened. “Jenny didn’t say anything about a pre-show!”
As directed, I watched the performance that night, terrified about the pre-show. “Can I sing well enough to pull this off?” I would have to don a blond wig and black sequin gown, hold a microphone, and sing a Broadway medley for the geriatrics as they filled their bellies before the main production. I was simultaneously thrilled about using a mic for the first time and petrified with fear that I would have everyone wondering who I slept with to get this part. “Most of the audience probably can’t hear too well,” I reasoned, “and maybe no one will recognize me in disguise.” Funny Girl, on the other hand, was totally within my realm of capabilities. Not willing to let a little pre-show rain on my parade, I encouraged myself that I might actually be good. Being a part of this show made me feel like one of the luckiest people in the world.
You are not in this adventure alone, you lucky devil. Thank your lucky stars for all your sidekicks assisting you on this epic journey. Thanks for reading.
Kick on,
Kristi
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