The Other Mr. T

Brighton Beach Beginnings

The spring play for my sophomore year of high school was Brighton Beach Memoirs. We had just done How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, in which I played the role of Wally Womper. After a lot of ribbing and nudging from Burgin and Steve, I auditioned for the part of Eugene in Brighton Beach. I didn't get the part. Blanton Hamrick, one of my friends in the department, was cast as Eugene. I was disappointed, but not overly upset. A day or so later, I was at lunch with some friends, some of which had been cast, when Burgin came up and asked if she could speak with me after school. After she left, Adam Kaul, who was cast as Eugene's brother, Stanley, said to me, "Welcome to the cast." He was right. Blanton had been grounded and wouldn't be able to do the play. It turns out the decision had been between him and me for the part. I had just had a major part in How to Succeed..., so Eugene had gone to Blanton. Now the part came to me. It was the best news I had ever received in my two years of high school. In light of what was to come, it was some of the best news I have ever received. From my perspective then, it was also some of the most terrifying news I had received. I had never had a part that big, and Eugene isn't just a part in that play. It is the part in that play.

Rehearsals began, and we soon discovered that the cast of seven had something special. We were all friends outside the world of the play, so creating a cast unity and the unity of the Jerome household was just the next step. Even so, the seven of us had a chemistry that just worked. We did trust exercises and slowly built a great show. We knew for sure that the cast was unique after one particular rehearsal. It was the craziest rehearsal I have ever taken part in. Period. It started when someone forgot to put the mustard out for the dinner scene. Pop, played by Stephen Causby, lit into me about not getting mustard at the grocery like I was supposed to. He was covering for the absent prop, so I went with it. I said, "Fine, you want me to get the mustard? I'll get the mustard," got up and walked offstage. From there on, the rehearsal was free form. There was a lot of improvisation and vulgar joking, but we kept the basic storyline going. We even had crew members coming on stage and playing in certain scenes. There was talk about sex, cursing and general trampling of the script. What made the rehearsal special and not just a waste of time was the fact that we managed to keep the core of the story, the basic idea and feeling of the play, intact. It was amazing. Burgin and Steve told us that what we had done had only been done once before while they had been there. The only cast I have felt anywhere near that strong a connection with was the cast of what Stephen later dubbed Brighton Beach Memoirs - Revisited. Even that connection paled in comparison to that of the original cast. It is a feeling an actor only experiences a couple of times in his career, or so I am told. I experienced it sophomore year of high school.

Murphy's Law - anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. In other words, just when things are going well, a big monkey wrench is going to be thrown in the works. This proved true for us as well. About a week or two before the show went up, Erika Wood, who played Kate Jerome (Ma), the other foundation character* of the play, lost her grandmother and had to leave town and miss through the first two of three performances. We had to re-cast at the last minute. Enter Jenny Turpish. She was a senior who came in and learned the part cold in about a week and a half. The rest of the cast accepted her and adapted to what she brought to the part. The play went up and was an immense success. One of my good friends, Theresa Barker, came up to me after one of the performances and told me she didn't know who that had been on that stage, but it wasn't me. I was told later by Steve that few compliments are better than that one for an actor to receive. Thus ended the run of the best play I'd done at Shelby High School. At least, that was what I thought.

*Foundation Character - this is a character in a play that carries the production. A foundation character decides the pace, energy, and overall balance of a production. If the actor has a good night, the play will be balanced. If the actor is off and the timing or energy isn't there, it can throw the entire play completely off balance. There can be more than one foundation character in a play. In the case of BBM, Kate and Eugene are the foundation characters. When Erika or Jenny and I were on and in the moment of the play together, we were all unstoppable and the show was great. If one of us was off, the show suffered and potentially sucked.