Moth Meet Career

              There is a time in one's career when you stop caring about the journey so much as the actual results. Fuck the journey in twenty-ten I say! You come to an age as a thirty-something chorus boy and you start to wonder why you haven’t died on the barricade yet or danced wildly as an office worker with a staple gun while partnering a swirling coat rack in a Promises Promises office scene? And let’s not forget my triannual cut from Wicked shall we? Part of my year is getting cut over and over by the same people. There are several iron clad centuries standing guard, forming an impenetrable wall between me and the great Broadway stage. I’m thinking of one fierce frugging girl in particular! To her,  I'm a Chinese divider to the people she’s looking at and casting. She is the grimmest reaper, personally choosing who may and may not pass through the golden gates of the Emerald paradise. May this diva one day see me as fiercely as I have been seeing her all these years. My mouth to the Wizard's ears!  Part of me wants to work my ass off for the next five years and risk seeing what unfolds. While the other part of me wants to wave a white flag and immediately shoot an emergency flare of ensemble-surrender and become a massage therapist on the west coast (where I'd spend all my time smoking pot and hugging trees in the Red Wood forest and doing Bikram Yoga.)  I secretly want to remove myself from the possibility of any future failure in this business of show.

        A couple of weeks ago I ran into a guy I had worked with several years ago in a regional production of Cinderella at the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey. The last visual I have of this kid was him bustling through the prologue opening scene as a happy villager dressed in some crystal meth inspired ensemble outfit of nightmares (not that I wasn’t wearing one myself!) He was, of course, playing a child. We were standing upstairs at the Ripley Grier audition studios warming up for a Chorus Line audition and he said something that knocked the breath out of me. He said “David Tankersley you look so much.................wiser.” It was like taking a bullet point blank in the stomach. My ego instantly bled out and I died on the scene! Resuscitation was futile. Who was this little twink-bottom from Hell to tell me I looked anything but fantastic, much less fucking wiser?! I’ll kill you sir with your own dance belt and throw your skinny little body to the hungry ballet dancers in the Juilliard cafeteria! Wiser? He is actually a really sweet guy and he meant it somehow as a compliment I’m sure but holy Christ.  I don’t know if my little “friend” here has that necessary filter between his brain and the tip of his tongue that's going to let him walk away from this little compliment session alive. This boy hasn’t aged a single day since our show closed all those years ago and it was pissing me off royally. In fact he seemed to be aging in reverse. It was so unfair. He’s the kind of guy that will probably be playing a high school kid in Hairspray until he’s forty-five years old. Does this little inappropriate Dove commercial fully understand the seriousness of his obviously undiagnosed theatre turrets? Casual verbal slayings are the norm in a competitive environment like this but Jesus Christ who’s got the time? I, on the other hand, have a Rockette kick line of crow’s feet pounded and etched into my face like little footprint waterfalls falling away from my outer eyes. I’ve accepted it and tell myself that guys get better with age. Salt n’ pepper hair and masculine smile lines are charming and very sexy in my opinion. Women I fear have a much harder time aging gracefully. They fight time tooth and nail with creams and Botox and expensive lady things, trying to deny the inevitable falling of all of our faces. Wear your tight dresses Now bitches!

       All these years I’ve been planting little theatre seeds in every casting office, with every Broadway bound choreographer, and with anyone casting a dancer who sings his face off. Fuck, I would sleep my way to the middle at this point if I could! I would bring my own casting couch in the form of a blow-up mattress into the room and blow it up nude if they asked me to. And as my hilarious room mate Danny always says “Tank, a hand job is still a job!” How right you are sir...so true. I need a safety net in this expensive city. Once I was approached by a guy who offered to represent me in the porn industry. I was so flattered but not ready to sacrifice my soul to the XXX gods of video and internet porn. That's for later.  It’s a public sex adventure that results in fast and furious instant cash. Despite my near brushes with financial disaster throughout the years I have somehow threaded together more than a decade of shows that I’m really proud of. Twenty seven shows in twelve years are what I consider a personal success. Just like I think surviving this long is a success in itself. But my D-list dancing career leaves me disenchanted with the close calls and what ifs of the biz. What if the first Broadway show I was cast in wasn’t closed right before rehearsals started? It was called Masada and was going to be choreographed by my idol David Parsons the infamous modern dance bad ass! But even though the show was canceled I ended skating the world premier of a duet that he choreographed on me and a fierce Olympic French girl named Line Hehhad.  She and I had teamed up for several years doing different pieces for the Ice Theatre of New York at Chelsea Piers and Rockefeller Center. And from the ashes rises a phoenix ice queen!

        I was working some spoiled Jewish boy’s bar mitzvah in New Jersey when I got the call. That night was a particularly humbling night for me because I was hired as an enthusiastic crowd dancer, who’s job it was to get awkward teenagers up on the floor to dance. Excuse me, but I need a moment to unsuppress this memory and my stomach contents. It makes me feel like throwing up all over this screen right now! Half the time I was a cracked out dance promoter. The rest of the time I was fully covered and painted like a space alien. Kill me! It was the kind of party you wish you'd had a loaded pistol in your backpack, cocked and ready for that one guest that puts you over the edge. But more likely I would’ve been the one eating the bullet. Parties like this are humbling beyond rescue. I was at one point instructed to stick my head through a hole in the middle of the greeting table (as an alien head!) and scare people as they walked up to pick up their seating arrangements and name tags. I would break from my extraterrestrial freeze and say “Wel...come....to...Marzzzz...please prrrroceeeeed...to the table correspon...ding to the galaxy... onn yourr card.” With no ego in sight I finally got the dreamed of 212 call! Broadway had finally called while I was kneeling under a card table with my head poking through a drilled out hole. Oh god the shame of having ten pubescent Jewish boys with curly dark brown and black Hassidic tendrils, throwing gum and hard candy at my face and poking me to see if I was real. Nothing is worse my friends, nothing I can recall. God save the failed actor! It would be a hilarious commercial in my opinion; an alien on the clock at a barmitzvah...working a double shift and horribly hung over from a night of drinking. And Poof.....in comes a truck load of Excedrin to save the day! The universe had mercy on this rollerblading gay space creature that day and I finally got the call. Under the suspended planes of the New Jersey Aeronautics Museum this chorus boy had just booked his first Broadway show and nothing could stop the tsunami of tears upon hearing the missed voicemail! And wild horses couldn’t stop the tears from exploding from my eyes when it was unexpectedly “canceled indefinitely.” That night as I did hip hop to Brittney Spears for all those Jews (while wearing glow in the dark paint-splashed overalls and a bandanna) I thought my life was a'changin. And as bad as it sounds the most painful situation for me in parties like this was just walking around and mingling as some awkward slow moving statue or a 40’s keystone copper. Or worst of all.....a mime!

        There is no god when you are catering and handing out wine and hors d'oeuvres to gentlemen you’ve dated and slept with. They pretend to not be shocked to see you standing there with a silver trey of mushroom truffles or salmon and goat cheese lollipops. Times is hard and it’s transparent for all the world to see when you’re passing out plastic cups of warm chardonnay and shame. “So what are You doing here Mr.?” they say awkwardly, knowing the answer already which is....nothing! What the fuck do you think I’m up to? I’m standing here in khaki pants and an unfitted Bloomberg tee shirt on gay pride/shame day. The soundtrack for my career would be a field of Tennessee country crickets singing a chorus of just kidding.

         I feel like my crystal ball is broken when it comes to my post audition psychic abilities. I used to be able to predict if I was going to book something and when I definitely was not. I had a sixth sense that was pretty spot on. I would walk out of an audition and my gut would tell me that I was going to get it.........then I would! Or I could detect a lack of fierceness in myself and know that the entire morning was a graveyard. Nowadays I’ll be sure that I'm going to book a particular job and Monday comes rolling around and it’s just more crickets. It’s hard for me not to check my phone in vein for a call that’s just not coming. Sometimes I’ll book a show that I didn’t even remember auditioning for in the first place. Or I’ll forget and screw up the steps of a combination and totally bomb the dance call and a few days later somebody will drop out and my name happens to be at the top of the pile. It’s all a jumbled up circus of chaotic phone calls between agents and interns and agent interns. It’s soooo in your face when you’re not successful here in New York, very much like I imaging it would be for a struggling TV actor in Hollywood. Oprah says that success happens when preparation meets opportunity. And she’s right of course. But we all know how many talented and prepared people there are in the city not working! Broadway is a lottery that a select few ever get to taste consistently.

          Over the last decade I’ve been preparing an elaborate smorgasbord of workshops, classes, and endless auditions. This professional pot roast of sorts has been simmering and cooking for twelve years and is now charred and crusted black from waiting for the dinner guests that never arrived! Must I be forced to strip at a Broadway Bares event? Is it the only way to join the club officially? How does one ever stand out in a world of gym-bunny Pecs and pin me down and fuck me arms(PMDAFMA as by bestie Michael calls it)?! There are guys that look like me, sing higher than me, kick higher than me, and are 21 years old, straight off the most recent Greyhound bus from Iowa. Go home you little Billy Elliots...I know you are here to take over the world!

           My second shot at the great white way was when I was in the final running to be cast in the Pirate Queen. I incorrectly assumed that I’d be divinely plucked out of the pack of hard working workshop dancers that had invested weeks and weeks into it for free. I took any Broadway choreographer’s class anywhere I could and did countless free rehearsals and non paying gigs in the name of hope. Then came the ultimate dream. I was called in as an emergency replacement in Xanadu, a show I’d been involved with since it’s beginning down on Mott st. in the west village reading years ago. Being the skate coach and dance captain, I somehow missed the casting boat that sailed on without me. That show was a dream come true for me but always came with a little cigarette burn. There was always a twist. I ended up teaching my own replacement auditions about four or five times! And that took some serious digging and spiritual effort to scrape up enough divine inner peace in order for me to recast myself. It all came down to the fact that I’m a medium to terrible tapper. Tapping and tumbling beyond a cheese mat (with a spotter) elude me.

         Soon, after getting my Broadway ink on that resume, I made an appointment at the Dragon tattoo parlor in the Chelsea Hotel to get Grecian wings on my feet and ankles to celebrate the long-long journey that led up to my debut. After the Du's security escorted me out of the building, I took a tour. Soon after Playbill announced that the My Fair Lady tour that I was on was coming to New York. It was too good to be true of course and it resulted in more fucking crickets! At least I got to roller skate over my first theatre district stage and finally got my credit. Why do you have to be the 29th runner up on American Idol just to play Mark in some regional production of Rent for $300 dollars a week? And why are the Tony winners this year hugely famous movie stars that couldn’t even be bothered to know who to thank....Denzel? Where is the justice there? When Katherine Zeta Jones sang “Bring in the Clowns” like a dying baritone homeless cat watching a tennis match I threw my hands up. It seemed she was being startled by ghosts during her performance and it left me underwhelmed and very uncomfortable. Theatre’s gone to Hollywood and TV stars. Please, like Scarlet Johansson needs a Tony award sitting on her mantle....really? Give it to the girl whose career would skyrocket instead of someone who will barely even notice they were blessed with such a huge honor. And where’s the best dancer in a musical category I want to know?

         I am a man that has been branded the “Swing King” and I seem to have fallen into the dangerous trap of what is known as ye ol' understudy rut! But it aint no rut if you're the universal swing of that little show based on the Dorothy and her dog....I cant remember the name of it?? I dream of being first cast again and not having to take on the painstaking task of writing down dance and tracking up to fourteen people on paper. Multi tasking at this level makes me want to vomit. This offstage-cover bubble is leaving me cut off from the joys of rehearsing and putting something on its feet. After a while there is a performance anxiety that starts to build up after too many years standing in the wings mouthing other peoples’ lines. I want to swim freely in the pool from which these dancer boys are being picked, just a tad pole in the pond of a thousand bottoms. I am championing the American tragedy of a chorus boy interrupted.

photo of Roberta Spegne's Hamlet