m_emerson_news

by Barbara Hoffman

June 16, 2008 --

THE question came from a young actress, newly arrived in New York: "What's it like not to be poor and afraid?"

Randy Lutterman never forgot her. Having left a steady gig, boyfriend and one-bedroom apartment in Toronto 15 years ago to make it here, she knows what it takes to survive.

Enter SpringboardNYC, the "intensive summer boot camp for actors" Lutterman directs each June at the American Theatre Wing, a k a the Tony people.

Its aim: giving starry-eyed theater majors (and the occasional confused criminology major) the 411 on auditions, agents, apartments and more. Where else can a fretful thespian ask "How much body is too much body in a head shot?" and "How helpful is a teaching degree?" (In a nutshell, respectively: "Depends" and "Very." )

Here's how a few troupers found their feet in the city:

Peter Gallagher ("The Country Girl")

"I got here in the spring of '77 and knew absolutely no one. I was staying at a friend's grandmother's apartment on 28th Street, which I sublet for $200 a month. I gave myself six or seven years to make it. A year or two wouldn't do it, and 20 years, your life would be over . . .

"There was an open call for 'Grease,' and I thought, Omigod, I could never do it. But my friend said, 'I thought you were gonna audition for everything. You're backing out now?'

"The line snaked around the block. I sang my few measures and [the casting agent] said, 'That was beautiful!' My knees buckled and I almost started to cry . . . I went on the road for six months as Danny Zuko, then came into the Broadway company in the same theater I'm in now . . .

"Woody Allen said 90 percent of life is showing up. You just gotta keep showing up - and hold close to your heart the thing you love."

Michael Emerson ("Lost")

"I came cold to New York twice, [first] after college, in '76. I grew up in small-town Iowa and New York knocked the wind out of me. I had no contacts, I didn't know what the drill was. It was a much grimmer city in those days, so I scrambled around, trying to get day work and a roof over my head. I got a variety of low-grade jobs, one at an all-night newsstand. I took some evening courses and became an illustrator.

"I went down south and worked my way back north doing community theater [and] came back to New York 20 years later, after grad school. I lived with a fellow grad student in Astoria - the actors' bedroom. It was sort of terrifying to be living as poorly as I was, but I thought, I'm not gonna let New York say I can't do this. I gave myself two years. Just before they ran out, I got a part in Moisés Kaufman's [play] "Gross Indecency," and doors have opened for me since.

"Not everybody's on the same timetable. If it's the thing you're meant to do, the question is, 'How long can you hold on to it?' "

Jonathan Groff ("Spring Awakening," "Hair")

"I came from farm country in Lancaster, Pa., and NYC was a huge change for me. The day I moved here, I got a job waiting tables at the Chelsea Grill of Hells Kitchen on Ninth Avenue, and that sustained me for the first year, until I got more steady acting work.

"Whenever I would get rejected from an audition, I would take a walk through Central Park or go see a show to help inspire me again.

"This city can give just as much as it can take out of you. You just have to be open to it and know how to protect yourself."

(My thanks to mythicfeline of MEFB forum por posting this.)