Even after making it on Broadway, few actors can sustain a successful career by only working in New York City. Life on the road has become an unavoidable necessity for many Broadway performers. For some, performing on a Broadway national tour is preferable to performing on Broadway. There’s more money to be made, in every town you’re treated like a rock star, you get to see the country, and you’re free from the everyday responsibilities and challenges that come with living in New York City. However, the road also places strain on an actor’s personal life and romantic relationships. Many performers simply lose their grip on reality. To avoid you losing your grip, I’ve collected this set of stories (some of which are excerpted from Making It on Broadway: Actors’ Tales of Climbing to the Top, by Jodie Langel and David Wienir) from so-called “road warriors,” along with practical advice about what to pack, how to cope with situations that arise on the road, what to do with your money, and more!
Glossary
Let’s open the floor with some quick definitions. I’ll explain what constitutes a tour in my book, and also cover some common tour terms. Some of these will be no-brainers to veterans, and that’s fine; this is for the newbies. My definitions may not necessarily agree with other, more general, definitions of the same terms. Again, that’s fine; this is tour- (and me-) specific.
- National tour: A professional touring company of a show (a play, a musical, or a performance by an established act – be it musical or non, union or not), requiring performers to travel to many locations and “bring their thing to the people,” so to speak.
- International tour: See above, but you get to go to various exotic locales while doing your thing.
- Union: In this context, for actors and stage managers, this is the Actors’ Equity Association in North America and simply Equity, formerly the British Actors’ Equity Association, in the UK. If you’re not in North America or the United Kingdom, you’ll probably have to do a bit of work to find out your constituency. For a list of the benefits Equity provides, I suggest North American performers check out this page and UK performers check out this page. (TL;DR: It’s staggering what the union provides.)
- Union tours (also known as Equity tours): The tour you dream of landing once you’re in the union. How does this affect tours? Well, aside from all those benefits, it affects your scheduling. Generally, you play mainly major cities on a union tour, and the minimum stay in town is one or two days per city, maximum is a week. Aside from short bus trips within a state or region, you spend most of your time traveling from city to city by airplane.
- Non-union tours (also known as non-Equity tours): The shit you slog through to earn performance credits toward your Equity card, and experience for your résumé, to say nothing of that little paper with pictures of dead Presidents on it that you exchange for stuff like food and lodging; a show which (frequently) features a reduced physical production to accommodate smaller venues and tighter schedules, and unless you’ve got a terrific agent, in the words of Huey Lewis, you’re “takin’ what they’re givin’ ‘cause you’re workin’ for a livin’.” You’ll probably see smaller cities in parts of the country that have heretofore only been on a map, and you’ll largely be playing “split weeks” and “one-nighters,” with few exceptions. These shows used to be (sometimes still are) known as bus-and-truck tours because, instead of by air (with some exceptions), the cast and (a skeleton) crew (supplemented by local hired hands at various stops, which is also true on union tours) travel by bus and the sets and equipment by truck.
- Split weeks: Half a week in one town, half a week in another.
- One-nighters: To quote Dreamgirls, “one night only.” During a full slate of one-nighters, you close the show in one city and have another performance the next night somewhere else, plus or minus one day to “load in” or “load out” depending on gaps in the schedule. Don’t even bother unpacking anything more than street clothes to wear before and after the show.
Life on the Road in General
Stephen Sondheim gently sent up the touring world with the number “The Glamorous Life” in A Little Night Music. Many performers can attest that touring is no less frantic and exciting than the number it inspired. As Christiane Noll put it, “Your world becomes an encapsulated microcosm that bounces from city to city.” Jessica Snow Wilson said, “On tour, you just get swept away into a fantasy life.” Jeff Gurner concurs, painting a very rosy picture: “Tour life is fantasy-land. You have nothing to do all day. Life is fun. You see sights. You golf. You party. […] We’d smoke and then go to an underground club. We would drink our asses off. That is what life is like on the road. It’s like being a rock star. All you have to do is walk into a bar with your show jacket, and you get attention. You stay at beautiful hotels, and then you do the show at night.”
But the glamour runs thin. Marc Kudisch said, “I hate tour life. It’s like being in high school. Life isn’t real. I mean, it’s great in some ways and horrible in others. You’re making a lot of money, and you have no responsibilities. It’s a breeding ground for trouble.” Jodie Langel adds, “As wonderful as road life can be, you sometimes turn into the worst version of yourself.” To quote Betsy Joslyn: “I was on tour with Into the Woods. Because I was one of the stars, I had to do a lot of press. We did split weeks and one-nighters. Sometimes, we performed in three different cities in one week. I remember one day in particular. I don’t know where the hell we were. I had only five minutes before a phone interview. I literally had five minutes before the phone was going to ring. When I got to the room, it was disgusting. Someone had been smoking. The room hadn’t been cleaned. Nevertheless, I had to stay in the room because of the call. So there I was, sitting off a parking lot in a flea-pit motel in Podunk, Iowa, with the doors open to get some air, when this woman calls and starts talking about how glamorous my life must be. And, while I was thinking, ‘If you could only see the cigarette butts,’ a stray cat wandered in. That’s the reality.” Dave Clemmons concurs, especially about the effect of touring on one’s career: “Tour life is not reality. When I played Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, I was a huge star. In every city, my face was on the front page of the newspaper. Life-size posters of me were in the front of the theaters. I received great reviews. Everyone wanted to know me. When I moved back to New York, no one knew who the hell I was. What I did on the road didn’t mean jack to anyone in New York.”
Still, on the line between fantasy and reality, there’s making a living. “As an actor, you have to always be aware that you could go on tour at any moment,” says Jessica Snow Wilson. If all of the above doesn’t discourage you, then you’re ready for show business. As John Rubinstein put it, “A dedication to a life [in the theater] requires you to overlook so many impediments, obstacles, and discouragements. There is always a statistical avalanche rolling against you as you try to walk up the hill. […] The only way to walk up that hill, with the avalanche pouring down on you, is if it’s the only direction you can possibly go.” As hard as it can be, if you’re serious about this, then I want to help you prepare for life on the road. And so, the better for you to be ready, here are some tips to that end.
Loading, Luggage, and Laundry
And by loading, of course, I mean packing. In short: pack the essentials (in other words, what you may need routinely for one-and-a-half to two weeks max).
- Clothing-wise, go with what’s comfortable and pack shoes that go with anything you wear. That’s a good general rule, actually: the more you can mix and match, the better, so make sure everything you pack goes with everything else (i.e. if you can only wear that one top with a certain pair of pants, leave both the top and the pants at home). And don’t forget to bring a jacket or coat for the cooler climates. (I recommend one with a zip-out lining so you can adjust as necessary to the weather. Thinsulate liners are light and warm.)
- Keep a plastic garbage bag for your dirty stuff; you’ll undoubtedly have no choice but to pack dirty stinky clothing along the way and it helps to have some separation of clean from dirty.
- Unless you have very specific skin or hair needs, avoid packing your favorite “products.” Shampoo/conditioner and soap are heavy, take up space, and liquids can leak or explode at the most unfortunate of times. Besides, they’re all supplied for free at the hotels which will become your temporary home.
- In the event you’re going to be on a bus, remember to pack a cheap pillow. You will learn the best way to sleep on a bus.
The inevitable after-birth of packing is luggage, so it’s important to add a few tips in that direction. Before I do, though, fair warning: these mainly apply to being on a union tour, dealing as they do with weight limits on trains and airplanes. For a bus-and-truck or non-union where you’re most likely, as I said above, figuring out how to sleep on a bus seat, just try to aim for one large suitcase, with the knowledge you can fill another bag, maybe two, with extras. Alright, union people, let’s go!
- Buy a lot of space-saver bags, and not just the ones you can vacuum, ’cause you won’t always find a vacuum (especially one with a hose) on tour; I recommend the ones you can vacuum and/or roll. It’ll make your bags heavier, but you can pay the airline a fee to accept overweight baggage. Additional luggage is also covered by extra fees, but if you have enough luggage that you’d be paying on the regular, use the space-saver bags and don’t exceed the limit.
- On an airline, you can have two pieces of baggage, a carry-on, plus a “personal item.” Choose wisely. If you’re particularly attached to your technology, I suggest a messenger bag with such accouterments inside as a “personal item,” and another piece of luggage with clothes as your carry-on.
- On trains, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is, you don’t have to pay a fee for overweight luggage. The bad news is, the weight limit is less than the airlines, and you don’t have to pay a fee because trains don’t accept overweight luggage period. Plan carefully.
To circle back to what’s in the luggage for a second, you’re probably wondering: “I’m on the move with no time to waste and I have street clothes to pack, sometimes so quickly that I have no choice but to stuff dirty ones in a garbage bag. Am I ever gonna have time to wash my clothes? Should I even bother?” First of all, yes, you grotty bastard, you should be washing them. Frequently. Especially if you’re keeping to the standard rule of packing what you’d need for one-and-a-half to two weeks max.
So when and how do you wash them? Well, there are two ways to handle it. The first — and most obvious — is to take advantage of the fact that most hotels have laundry machines on site. Most also have a laundry service if you’re not the type to go down to the machine and do it yourself, especially after a draining performance.
Then again, some hotels don’t have laundry machines, or, if they do, there’s no laundry service and consequently, it’s “survival of the fittest” between you and the other guests. What do you do in that situation? This advice is less obvious, but useful in a pinch: befriend the wardrobe department on your show. If you get to be really good friends with them, and they like you, one of the perks of being friendly with them is knowing when they’re not using the washing machines at the venue for costumes. This will frequently fall during understudy rehearsals when the rest of the cast isn’t needed, so feed two birds with one hand – get in your rehearsal (if you’re an understudy) and get a clean load of clothes done while you work! (If you’re not an understudy, nip into the theater during downtime and pray no one else had the same idea.)
Bills and Boredom
According to John Kander and Fred Ebb in the film (and various stage revivals) of Cabaret, “Money makes the world go round.” Indeed there’s more dough to be made on a national tour (provided, of course, you’re union) than there is on Broadway, without living expenses, among other responsibilities, to worry about. But sometimes on the road, it’s hard to remember you’re doing this tour for a finite amount of time and not for the rest of your life. When you lose your grip on reality, it’s the difference between “Hey, Big Spender” and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”
First, a word about how salary (and, as a result, accommodations) works. On an Equity tour (and some non-Equity tours as well), you make a per diem every week in addition to your paycheck. The per diem goes — theoretically, anyway — toward hotels, meals, and any other daily expenses. It’s also worth noting that there are three types of Equity contracts especially prevalent in the touring market at the moment (a Production contract, a Tiered contract, and a SETA contract), and each affects the options you get for arranging accommodations covered by your per diem.
On Production and Tiered contracts, the actors pay for their hotels. The producer books two to three options that the actors can choose from (one tends to be higher priced, the other lower, and sometimes a third option in between “nice” and “economy” is available as well), or they can cut out the middleman, go off on their own, and still receive the same per diem. On a Tiered contract, if an actor consistently chooses the lower-priced option, they can be reimbursed if they spend more than a certain percentage over a certain period. On SETA, the per diem is lower, but the producers are booking and paying for the hotel, and the hotel they book has to meet certain quality standards. The per diem rate varies on the SETA contract; it’s higher if the actor chooses to room with another performer and higher still if the actor elects to find their housing themselves.
With that out of the way, you’re making a shit-ton of money on tour, earning per diem on top of salary, so naturally, there’s a temptation to spend. Cue cautionary tales from actors!
…a lot of your money goes, especially if you are young and immature and don’t realize that money doesn’t come so easily. I would buy full-length leather coats. Christmas was extremely good for my family that year. I had money for the first time. It wasn’t that much, but it was $1500 per week instead of the $100 that I was used to. I’d go to The Body Shop and drop $100 without even thinking about it. It was absurd.
Marsh Hanson
You’ve got all this money, because you aren’t paying rent and because you are earning a per diem. You think, ‘Oh, look at that really cool leather coat. I’m going to buy that. Give me that three-hundred-dollar pair of sunglasses.’ A three-hundred-dollar pair of sunglasses? You buy it because you’re in fantasy-land.
Jeff Gurner
If you are smart, you will save your money. If you’re not, you will spend it all. I was on the road at twenty-four years old. I went from having no money to making thousands a week. I only saved a little bit. I mean, a little bit. I had bought more crap than you can possibly imagine. I had to buy an extra duffel bag for all of my boots. I had fourteen pairs of boots. When we were in Boston, I brought my boot bag home. I had to choose just a couple pairs to travel with because they were getting too heavy and clunky. I put them in the basement of my old apartment. They were stolen. My point – fourteen pairs of boots. That’s about $4,000, and it was stolen. You know what? Good. It taught me a lesson. Don’t spend your money on shit. That was just stupid.
Marc Kudisch
Never mind the world’s longest-ever “Treat Yo Self Day”… absurdly expensive gifts for friends suddenly become a snap:
On the Les Misérables tour, I bought six hundred dollars’ worth of Christmas presents for the girl I was messing around with behind my girlfriend’s back. Also, I remember buying a three-hundred-dollar leather jacket for a girl I was ‘hanging out’ with.
David Josefsberg
(Ah yes, the dreaded “showmance”… we’ll return to this phenomenon shortly.)
So how does one avoid the temptation to spend? How does one limit their ability to buy stupid crap? Well, Marc Kudisch’s earlier quote about being smart by saving your money is as simple as it gets. Another performer agrees:
Because I had to work so hard to get through college, I knew I needed to save because I wanted to be free to audition when I was not performing. So, when I went on the road, I sent my entire paycheck every week to a savings account and made investments. I never touched my paycheck. I lived only off the per diem. That allowed me, later on, to make choices which helped me move into new roles. I am a child of immigrants. My parents are both from Cuba, and they have always drummed into my head the importance of saving. I had a great time on tour, but I chose to put my money away. I had something else in mind.
Ana Maria Andricain
It’s a bit of a hand-to-mouth existence, but it is the most intelligent move. And if you can save some of that per diem and pocket it, you never know when having a little cash might be helpful, as this story illustrates:
I was on the road with Les Misérables, and we were playing West Point. For a couple of months, I had been performing the lead role of Jean Valjean, the convict who broke parole and was running from the law. We had a couple of days off before we were to perform in West Point. I got sick. I went to the doctor in New York City and he prescribed antibiotics. On the way back to West Point, I rented a car with three other guys from the cast. We left at 4:00 P.M. to beat the traffic. I was driving the car down the Palisades Parkway and we were about forty-five minutes from West Point. I was in the left lane. The next thing I noticed was a cop car. It came up from behind and zoomed out in front of us. I saw him pull over in the distance. I slowed down as I passed. Suddenly, I heard a siren. The cop pulled us over and began asking us a lot of strange questions. He kept mentioning drugs. Suddenly, I looked around the car and I realized that we were four long-haired and bearded guys in a brand-new rental car. The cop individually pulled everyone out of the car. He asked my friends how long they had known me and what we were doing. He searched the trunk, and said something about trafficking weapons. I had gotten a ticket a year earlier, but the state of Tennessee, my home state, never received record that the ticket had been paid. Once the cop saw the outstanding ticket on my record, he put me in the back of the squad car and took me to jail. It was now 5:30 P.M. and we had a sound check at 6:30 P.M. In jail, he told me that there was a warrant out for my arrest. He said that unless I could come up with $500 in cash, immediately, I was going to sit in the jail cell all night. Meanwhile, we were in the middle of rural New Jersey. This was before there were cash machines on every street corner. It was now 6:00 P.M. My fellow cast members said, “We have to go.” I said, “You are not leaving me here!” Luckily, one of the guys in the car had cashed his paycheck before we left New York City. He gave $500 to the cop, and they released me from jail.
Dave Clemmons
To summarize, direct deposit the salary, live off the per diem because it might save your ass, and check yourself before you wreck yourself when it comes to impulse buys. Having said that, however, I do recognize that no one wants to spend their night at the hotel making a sandwich; you’ll want to treat yourself once in a while. Further, if the food has to be cheap, then it should at least be tasty. So here are the top tips for the compulsive shoppers and food lovers in the group:
- Despite the saving, you’ll want cool souvenirs from the places you go. It’s understandable. But you don’t want to create an ongoing packing problem. (Witness Marc Kudisch’s boot bag above.) To avoid this, mail your purchases back home, or, in the event, you don’t maintain a home while on the road, send them to a family member or good friend to hold until you get back. You ideally don’t want to come off tour with more luggage than you started with, and the more stuff you try to take with you, the more it makes traveling a hassle.
- Each town will be in part about where food is after the performance. And, not looking to blow through your money quickly, you can’t expect to eat like a gourmet. You can ask around for the best local places to eat and drink, but if you want something more comfortable and consistent, and familiar, Denny’s will become your best friend. (Chick-Fil-A is also amazing, but not a lot of cities have it, and besides, fuck their politics.) And of course, if you finally get “home” for the night and everything is closed, there’s always room service or preparing your meal yourself.
Sometimes, however, it’s not spending per se that’s the problem. Sometimes it’s monotony. Time on the road is made longer by having nothing to do. After a while, everything becomes routine. Five terms describe the theaters: new, old, restored, clean, and dirty. (No more than three will ever apply.) You’ll learn how to adapt to different performing spaces, how to do a good show when you’re dead tired, and how to simply explain any quick changes to new dressers (sometimes six times a week in six different towns). If you’re smart, savvy, and play your cards right, you’ll come off the tour a pro. But once all the growing pains are out of the way, it does get kinda dull:
On tour, you get up very late because you go to bed at two or three in the morning. The show gets out at 11:30 P.M. and you are so energized that you can’t go to sleep unless you take sleeping pills, which is what I later learned to do. So you stay up late, watch television, or drink at the hotel bar. The next day, you may or may not have a matinee performance or a rehearsal. If it is a free day, you probably go to the mall and spend money out of sheer boredom. You might see a movie. […] Then back to the theater. You do the show at night, and then repeat the same goddamn thing. After performing a five-show weekend, you come home on Sunday night and pack. Monday, you travel to a new town. Now, for the first time, you realize that nothing fits in your three large suitcases because you bought so much stuff at the mall. Packing becomes a three-hour ordeal. The next day, you get on a plane at 7:00 A.M.
Marsh Hanson
Idle hands are the Devil’s playground, and life on the road can become fraught with dangerous possibilities. Sometimes the crazy schedule will wreak havoc with your biological clock and personal habits. Everyone slips up once in a while:
One Friday night, when I was on my national tour of Jekyll & Hyde in New Orleans, I forgot to set my alarm clock to wake me up for the 2:00 P.M. Saturday matinee. At 1:35 P.M., I received a call in my hotel room from a frantic stage manager. “Where are you? Where are you?” I quickly rushed out of bed. I arrived at the theater wearing only boxer shorts – no T-shirt, no socks, and no shoes. In the cab ride over, I washed my hair by sticking my head outside the window and pouring a bottle of Evian water on my head.
William Thomas Evans
Barring the odd mishap, the grind is rough on people touring for the first time:
The dynamics were hard. I had never experienced anything like that in my life, where you are working, eating, sleeping, and spending all of your time with the same group of actors. I lost my mind for a while. I thought I would have to go on Xanax because the thought of going to work made me physically ill. I started to get stomach problems. I had irritable bowel syndrome. I had acid reflux. I made myself sick from overexposure to these people. What I missed the most on tour were refrigerator magnets. Of all things, I missed having magnets on the fridge that I would see every day. One day, I walked out of a stage door and broke down because I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know what city I was in. I didn’t know what day of the week it was. All of the stage doors looked the same. I absolutely started to lose my mind…
Rena Strober
Hanson and Strober both allude to the legitimate use of pills in getting through the rigors of touring. Ideally, you don’t want to become dependent on artificial energy your first time on the road, but actors and dancers get injured all the time, and a little something to get through a show is not uncommon. Of course, some people can use recreational or prescription drugs without ever experiencing negative consequences or addiction. But for many others, substance use can cause problems:
When I was on the road with Cats, I was surrounded by dancers who would take eight Advil at a time. Pain pills were everywhere. Even though my character, Grizabella, could be fat and ugly, I felt pressure to be skinny like everyone else. At the same time, I wanted to have fun and be social each night after the show. I couldn’t smoke – it was bad for my voice. I couldn’t drink – it would make me fat. The pills would have to do. I started taking Percocet with the dancers after the show. I needed it for an escape. Like so many people in the show, I quickly became addicted. In every new city, I scouted for pills. I would go backstage and ask the stagehands. It got to the point where I needed to have two Ambien and a glass of wine each night before going to bed.
Jodie Langel
In the Cats national tour, many people in the cast relied on pills. One of the actors would take four to six Ripped Fuel, a drug with ephedrine, just to get through the show. I knew his body hurt, but I wondered why he did the show if he was so injured and he needed drugs just to get through. It was pathetic, and he had major mood swings. He was really high or really low, always complaining, and never happy. There were so many people on tour who were unhappy. One of the main reasons they stayed in the show was out of fear of not finding another job. They also knew that tons of people would die to have their job. So they just continued to do the show, unhappy and in pain.
Kevin Loreque
So how do you keep from getting bored? What breaks up the monotony and tedium of a touring schedule? How do you avoid socializing and stimulants controlling your atmosphere? It’s easier for some than others to get over the doldrums, I’ll grant, but to this incurable optimist, there are a few solutions.
- First, take care of yourself. Get lots of rest, because you’ll need it; it’s not for nothing that Ethel Merman once said you have to “live like a fucking nun” to do musical comedy right. In an excerpt from an interview conducted by Andrew J. Simpson for Jesus Christ Superstar Zone, Stephen Lehew shares his view on post-performance behavior: “I was very fortunate to get my first professional job at the age of 17. It was with a company that taught me how to work, and be professional. They taught me how to ‘suit up,’ show up on time, and give 100%. That’s one of the reasons why I never missed a show with JCS. Of course, at that point, I knew what it took for me to be able to do that. What it took was I had to be quiet for part of the day. I couldn’t go out and party, although I did occasionally, not for very long. I did that not just because I take pride in what I do, but also because I was working for people, I was getting paid, and I had my name above the title, so there was a responsibility there. We had a lot of young people in that cast, and I saw them burn the candle at both ends, and get out onstage and not do the work that they were required to do.”
- Secondly, being on tour is an unparalleled opportunity to explore places and events you never thought you’d see. You never know if you’ll be back in that part of the country again. So, good or bad, be sure to check it out. See and experience every city! Have fun! (If you can’t have fun, what’s the point?) Sight-see, and go do stuff (you can find batting cages, mini-golf, bowling — the “I” states [Indiana, Illinois, Iowa] are especially conducive to bowling, laser tag, boats or jet skis to rent at lakes/beaches, catch the must-see movies, even try to see local theater). This type of making the most of your music (as Sondheim would put it) can have unexpected advantages. One actor friend confides, “I know a few cities I’ve liked so much that I went back to spend more time in after the tours. Charleston and Savannah come to mind.”
- Finally, when all else fails, seek out what is comfortable and familiar for you. Rena Strober’s solution to the stresses of touring life, for example, came in an unexpected form: “…I started to go to synagogue in each city. I needed something familiar. I hadn’t gone to synagogue since I was thirteen. I wasn’t a religious person at all. In each city, the Jewish community took me in. They thought I was this amazing person on the national tour of Les Misérables. ‘Come into our synagogue.’ ‘Marry our grandsons.’ ‘Eat our gefilte fish.’ So every week, in every city, I started going to synagogue, and it saved my life.”
Interpersonal Relationships (Including “Showmances”)
Emotion is defined as “agitation or disturbance of mind; vehement or excited mental state.” And, as The Rocky Horror Picture Show pointed out, it’s also a cruel and irrational master. Life on the road with the same group of people every day can take an emotional and psychological toll. Cliques, friendships, and even the infamous “showmance” will all have their part to play. But since I know what you randy young first-timers want to hear about, I’ll get through the clique and friendship stuff as quickly and as generally as I can. Love is the kind of minefield that deserves as much attention as it can get.
Kurt Vonnegut once said that true terror is waking up one morning and discovering that your high school class is running the country. Even more terrifying to an actor is to discover that being on a national tour, union or non, is like being in high school all over again:
I think it was Patti LuPone who said, “It’s a long walk from the dressing room to the stage.” And it’s true. The experience of being on stage is about ten percent of your experience as an actor. The rest is interpersonal bullshit. It’s like being in summer camp. You are sequestered in a building with no light and a whole bunch of needy people.
Craig Rubano
If it’s a large company, cliques will form. And let’s not forget, you aren’t the only first-timer on the road. Some people may feel more comfortable with things on the road than they are at home, by which I mean there’s a good chance that someone will come out of the closet. Equally common is that there will be at least one major marriage (or marriage equivalent) break-up, and another will form. You may even find yourself in a relationship. Christiane Noll has a theory as to why: “You all have a similar goal, so obviously, you have a lot in common.”
It’s also worth pointing out that touring brings together people from many different backgrounds, with many different points of view. It’s not like Tumblr, where every trigger has a warning and every form of bigotry has a label. Your fellow cast members may share an opinion vastly different from the majority:
We were in Topeka, Kansas. Cats had never been there before. One day, somebody came into my dressing room and said, “People are picketing the show!” I wondered, “They are picketing Cats?” I didn’t get it. Did they think it was cruelty to animals? They couldn’t be that stupid. What the hell was going on? When I heard the news, I had my Cats make-up on and my hair was in pin-curlers. I must have looked like a kabuki weirdo. When I went outside to see what was going on, there were about fifteen people with signs, marching. The signs read: “New York Fags Go Home” and “Fags Die of AIDS.” I was flabbergasted. I immediately asked to speak with the owner of the theater. The owner said the guy outside was a fundamentalist preacher who pickets everything that comes into town. This was the same guy who picketed Matthew Shepard’s funeral and the wakes and funerals of people who die of AIDS. I was worried about safety. A woman came up to us and said, “This happens all the time. We just ignore it.” I said, “You can’t ignore this kind of stuff. It doesn’t go away unless you say something.” I wrote to the city council. The mayor’s name was Butch. He responded by saying, “You New Yorkers think you know about the First Amendment, but you don’t. We can say whatever we want here in Topeka.” Three weeks later, we were in Raleigh. One day, when I checked my mailbox, I noticed that everybody had been sent a five-page note. It read, in part: “I am trying to explain these people’s position. This is why God doesn’t condone homosexuality.” It was signed by five people on the Cats tour. It had Biblical references. “God loves you, he just doesn’t love you being a homosexual.” Needless to say, it caused a huge rift in the cast.
Robert DuSold
Make no mistake, people: you have to be prepared to roll with anything. And I do mean anything. Theater, by nature, can lead to a type of sexual intimacy not common in other professions. Actors thrust into romantic roles can quickly lose track of reality. Boundaries are blurred, and lines are often crossed:
I have seen so many relationships fall apart. In this business, we work so intimately with people – everyone is always falling in love with his or her costar. It is ridiculous. You work with someone for nine hours a day and then you go out with him at night. It is so easy to fall in love with someone that way – you are thrown into intimacy within twenty-four hours of meeting.
Jessica Snow Wilson
When you are in rehearsal, you sit really close, and sing in each other’s ear. That afternoon, you are dancing. You are partnering. You’ve got your hands all over each other. The familiarity happens that fast.
Jeff Blumenkrantz
The first rehearsal of a show is a lot like the first day of school. You start looking around the room and checking everyone out. The older you get, the more you start looking for wedding rings. It’s really fun, especially when you are on the road. It is such a playful place.
John Antony
The lines get blurred. When you have to kiss, hug, and be in love with somebody on stage, people easily come to believe that it’s really happening. I don’t fall for that, but I know a lot of people who do.
Sarah Uriarte Berry
And if you’re a straight male? Well, shit, you’re gonna have fun:
Being a straight man in musical theater is an incredible thing. You are surrounded by beautiful women with terrific bodies. You have no competition because everyone else is gay. This is especially true on the road, because people get really lonely and you’re the local rooster. If you are married, like I was, it can cause a lot of problems and frustrations. It was painful at times. I was lonely on the road and wanted companionship. I am a saint, so I didn’t do anything, but it was really difficult.
Adrian Zmed
But don’t think that it’ll be easy, or that people won’t figure it out:
Inevitably, when two people find each other attractive, one of them is always involved with someone else back at home. I have been in that situation. We had to sneak around and hide it from the rest of the cast. People saw it coming from a mile away. There is always some cast member who is up at 3:00 A.M. and sees you walking down the hall, thinking, “He doesn’t live on this floor.” I had a great affair that didn’t require any kind of dating and very little attention, other than sexual. I just wanted to have great sex after the show.
John Antony
The question, of course, is how to be safe, and how to navigate the difficult waters of road relationships, romantic and otherwise. Nobody’s an expert, sadly, but hopefully, this thoughtful advice will provide a possible path forward:
- Don’t give in to cliquishness. Don’t be afraid to stick to your usual group of friends, but always try and invite others.
- If/when you finally get tired of everybody’s bullshit, because after a few weeks maybe you won’t want to talk to anybody anymore, you win if you’re a reader. Either bring the e-reader of your choice or lots of books. (But remember you don’t want to bog down your luggage – pick up cheap paperbacks [used books are even better] that you can leave along the way, rather than indulging in heavy, expensive hardbacks or scripts you need to keep carrying with you.) Reading makes travel, especially by plane or train, a snap, and it’ll also make you very popular, as other people will want to borrow your reading material for the same reason.
- I suppose you think I’m going to advise you to steer clear of “showmances.” Far from it – you’re young, and you’re traveling. Have a little fun. But don’t forget that when the tour is over, this relationship will probably be over, too. So do your best to preserve your feelings and those of the other person involved. As Christiane Noll put it: “I have had my share of road flings. They were very important to me at the time. But they were all doomed because they were born out of this fantasy world. They weren’t real. It’s easy and safe. On my first show, I saw a lot of roadkill. It was really sad and eye-opening.”
- If you’re married or otherwise seriously committed, and temptation’s almost as strong as your will but you don’t want to slip up, find other ways to help. Adrian Zmed, for example, developed an unusual sideline on the road: “After a while, the women in the show got ornery and things got difficult. They weren’t with their boyfriends or husbands, and there weren’t enough straight guys in the show to satisfy their sexual desires. They had to try to take care of themselves in other ways. I did my best to make sure that just about every girl had a state-of-the-art custom vibrator, which I specifically picked out for them. I’m not kidding. Ask anyone on tour. I became the ‘vibrator master.'”
If all this hasn’t discouraged you, and you think you can take these lessons to heart, you’re ready for the road. Thanks for reading, and break a leg!
