Quarterback for a Night

Sorry it's been a while since my last post everyone. I've been battling a cold and laryngitis...missed a few shows.

Anyway, as you probably know by now, a replacement for Kelli has been cast. Her name is Katie Clark and she's moving her life from college in Texas to starring on Broadway this week!!! I met Katie last week the day of her final callback. She seems GREAT! And she seemed really calm about the whole thing. It's gonna be a crazy few months for her...wow! Congrats Katie and welcome!

OK, so I'm a big football fan (Go EAGLES!) and as I was watching my team play this Sunday (the only good thing about being home sick), I really started to like our new quarterback--the third stringer turned starter Mike McMahon. He hadn't started an NFL game since 2002 and here he was with the weight of our team's season on his shoulders, leading our offense in a crucial NFC east rivalry game againt the Giants.

As the game progressed, so did McMahon's level of play. At first he got his ass kicked. He didn't appear to have any control of the offense, seeing the field, reading defenses, finding the open receiver, managing the clock--rather he appeared to be completely out of his league. But over time, he improved. He even gave our team a real chance to win this game (which is more than anyone could have expected).

Throughout the game the announcers compared McMahon to Eli Manning the QB of the Giants. They discussed how difficult it is for young quarterbacks to step into the NFL and adjust to the speed of the game. Apparently it's just a zillion times faster than the college game and infinitely more complex. Manning, in his second season commanding the Giants offense, had adjusted, and adjusted well. McMahon was adjusting right before our eyes. The game had slowed down for him.

So I'm on stage tonight and from the moment i set foot on the deck backstage before my first entrance, things felt calm. Then I'm out there in the first scene and things feel calm. Flash forward to 'Passegiatta' and despite the quicker than normal tempo Kim conducted, things felt calm. And then it hit me! I'm standing on stage looking at Kelli thinking, "Man this is what those NFL announcers were talking about! The game has slowed down for me. I can see everything happening and I'm in complete control." It was crazy!

Now there's good calm on stage and bad calm. Bad calm is when you feel bored, or detached, or too relaxed; cues aren't picked up fast enough and the show drags. Good calm is what i felt tonight. I've NEVER felt it before.

I thought I had. I've had plenty of shows where I've felt relaxed and at my best. But never like this. I talked briefly with Michael B. about it who thinks maybe because I was taking extra care of my voice tonight (I'm still sick and just clear of steroids from the weekend...until I actually got through Il Mondo I wasn't sure if I would)...that as such, I was breathing more. Could breathing have calmed me? Sure. But I'm trying to breathe on stage and keep centered and check in with myself constantly...I've done so in every one of the 90 performances I've done as Fabrizio. Why tonight?

I think it's a combination of things. 1) Breathing 2) Missing 2 shows this weekend, I got an extra day of rest. Not much extra rest considering my time was split between nursing my cold/auditioning for the reading of Dr. Zhivago and Encores Kismet (auditioning when sick is a topic i'll have to devote a whole post to). But really, since I got the job in Piazza back in August, things have not slowed down at all! I haven't felt 100%, I've lost weight, I'm constantly tired...it's been a battle. So maybe 3 days off instead of 2 made a difference. I do remember stretching and doing my physical warm up tonight in my dressing room and thinking, "This can't be. This is too easy. I'm loose, I'm not sore, I'm not tight, I'm not exhausted...what's wrong?!" 3) Maybe after 90 shows, I've adjusted? Mark Harelik told me before he left, "Aaron, give it time. It took me three months before I felt calm about things." Well, it's my three month Piazza anniversary next week.

Who knows? I may never experiene that same blissful calm onstage again. But it was so cool! To be out there and know that I wasn't pushing, I wasn't overworking my body or my voice, but I was still fully in it! 150% Fabrizio living this story...what a gift. And I always wanted to be quarterback...

The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste...

...on criticizing yourself during a performance.

It's tough not to though right? I mean there you are--out there on stage in front of an audience performing a scene and things are NOT going the way you'd like them to. Maybe you're not feeling your best, or a line didn't get a laugh like it normally does, or your scene partner isn't giving you what you want/expected, or you don't "feel" it like you did in yesterday's performance, etc;

And so in comes the critic. That little voice in your head that whispers something like, "this isn't good work," or, "you're not doing well," and like a flash of lightning you're not listening to your partner, you're in your head, beating yourself up for something you just did, missing the moment that's happening in the now. I think Peter Brook called this "death to an actor".

It's amazing how powerful this critic can be too. I mean there you are--in a scene in front of an audience but now in your head battling the critic in your mind, doing everything you can to make it go away, to get back to the moment, to get back to just 'playing in the sandbox'. And before you know it, you're exiting the stage cursing yourself, carrying this negativity with you, sinking into what a director friend of mine once called a 'spiral of shame'.

It's a waste guys and girls. Acting is about living in the moment, playing in the sandbox, whatever you want to call it. And as David Mamet said, if you're in your head cursing yourself or congratulating yourself for not feeling/feeling things in a moment gone by, you're missing the NOW! You're missing the moment that's happening.

Whether on stage or in life, try and calm your critic. Try and be a little easier on yourself. Try and enjoy life moment to moment. Don't worry about the past or the future, trust me--one's gone and the other is coming regardless.

Now if only I could take my own advice :)

Vocal Health

To go into vocal health in a bit more detail...

In one of the comments on a previous post, someone asked about drinking olive oil to relieve a scratchy throat. I must say in the 10 years I've been singing I've never heard of that! But hey, if you try it and it works, EVOO is one of the best things you can put in your body so enjoy (and let us know!)

I stick to pretty standard stuff: hot tea with honey and lemon (make sure the tea is a light non-caffeinated tea); I keep a humidifier in my bedroom and my dressing room (we all can't be Celine Dion and have a major Las Vegas hotel afford to have our 15,000sq.ft. dressing room and the stage regulated to an ideal 55% humidity--but we can try); I have a personal steam unit (any drug store) and do what's called 'retro-nasal' breathing for a few minutes a few times a day (mostly only when I'm really dried out, tired, or it's winter time and people are sick everywhere--retro-nasal breathing is in through the mouth/out through the nose); I go on vocal rest between shows or whenever I'm feeling tired; I don't drink anything other than water/vitamin water EVER, and I avoid eating (silent reflux) late at night or within 2 hrs. of a performance. Also, avoid stressing the voice in any way before a performance (i.e. cell phone conversations outside, etc;)

Wow, that's a lot more than I even realized, but once it becomes habit, it's not so bad.

Then of course a proper warm-up and possibly a warm-down should be part of any singers routine in an 8 show a week run. Find a warm up that works for you and start slowly.

In Piazza I start with some light humming in the middle/lower end of my range then slowly work that into warming up the higher end of the middle. Then I do some scales, again not touching the high notes unles they feel ready. At this point it's been 5-10min. and I'm ready to start the show. After my first scene I have another 5 minutes before my first big number and this is when I work into my high notes a bit as my body and voice are warm now (thanks to adrenalin). But again, I don't push it. I stretch the chords to the notes I have to sing in the following number and then leave it alone.

Then, throughout the show, I'll warm up the notes I need during appropriate breaks whenever possible (i.e. my final song "Love To Me" is a totally different piece than my others, requiring a very gentle/lighter approach and ending on a pure falsetto high note...I literally sing this song through once or twice in the 12min break I have before going on to perform this number).

Again, whatever works for you based on the demands of what you're singing.

8 shows a week

On the train home tonight, someone who had just seen our show approached me, "I'm a singer and was thinking throughout the performance tonight, 'My g-d i can't imagine having to sing the Piazza score 8 times a week!' How do you get through it?" ...Good question.

First off, let me say, every actor in every musical on Broadway confronts the same demand of performing 8 times a week. Depending on the material, however, the challenges of meeting that demand vary.

Piazza, vocally, is the most challenging score I've ever sung. It's difficult for me to remember hearing the score with some objectivity, but I do agree with many people who've seen the show and have commented that, at times, Piazza feels like an opera. And a difficult opera at that.

Not only are there many songs (as Fabrizio I sing in 7/8 songs, 2 of which are solos, 1 a duet, and 1 a group number that I lead), but the songs are difficult. Difficult how? Well, range wise they cover the full spectrum of my baritone/tenor range; length wise--some of the songs are quite long; melodically--many of my songs are quite chromatic, harmonically very rich and textured, and anything but the simple, slow ballads audiences are used to tuning in to when they hear classical musical theater; and of course at times I'm singing in another language :)

The end result is a full night of singing to complement what is also a challenging show to get through physically and emotionally for all of the actors in our play.

So how do we do it 8 times a week? Well, like training for a marathon, you start slow and build up the muscles to get through it. Many of us have formal vocal training in opera, and many of us have been building up these muscles for years in other shows 8 times/week throughout our careers. Regarding Piazza's unique vocal challenges: practice, practice, practice...eventually, the vocal chords catch on. That, plus the fact that Adam's score has the rare ability to penetrate your soul...so for a while I just listened and tried to let the music seep into my bones.

Of course, every show in an 8 show week is different. The weather affects our voices, the humidity, what we eat, how much sleep we've gotten, how much we've used our voice that day before the show...so before and during each show i have a warm up I do to get me ready (both physically and vocally). It's like popping the hood on your race car to check out the engine before taking it to compete in the Daytona. You feel out what you've got and work with it. Some days you compete well, some days not so well. But you go out and give it 150% regardless. And whoo-whee it's always a helluva ride!