On the road again! Charlotte's Webb Tour, Spring of 2000

It was November 8th 1999. I took the day off from class to go New York for an audition for Theatre Works USA. They were the largest national touring theatre for young audiences in the country! I was pumped! I also knew they were Equity. Equity is the union for actors and stagemanagers. So if they cast you in one of their shows you automatically became equity! Which meant you usually were paid more than non-equity actors and recieved health benifits! Sounds great huh? There is a catch to it though. If you were in the union you couldn't audition for and be cast in non-union productions. If you did you were kicked out the union and black balled if they found out. Now seeing as though most theatre companies are non-equity you were potientally losing alot of work. Also, most equity theatre companies don't usually cast a show entirely with equity actors. It depends on their contract with Actor's Equity Associations (AEA). If the theatre company was LORT A (League of Residentional Theatres) they are required to cast a show with the majority of the cast being equity actors. However, in Philadelphia the largest equity theatre company was the Walnut St Theatre and they are LORT B. The rest of the equity theatre companies were LORT D or lower. For instance, SPT (Small Professionall Theatre) they could usually get away with hiring a couple of equity actors. So simply put, once you join the union you are up aginst stiff competion with equity actors who are more established and well known. So theatre companies looked at young actors with equity cards as a high priced unknown commodities. Now they might consider you for an ensemble role but they usually weren't willing to pay an equity salary for an ensemble actor. The last stat I heard was that at any given time 90% of union actors are unemployed! Crazy huh?! But here I was on the train to New York and I knew all of this. I was arrogant enough to think I would be different. I thought I was so uniquely talented that I would have a different fate. I realized later that it is almost never about talent entirely. But so many outside factors. Anyway, when I arrived at Chelsea Studios in Manhatten, NY it was pretty croweded. This was an open call audition which meant that you didn't have to have an appoinment. I signed my name and waited for my time slot to audition. They wanted us to sing first. When it was my turn I sang "My Corner of the Sky" from Pipin. If they like it they would call you back and have you read from sides from the shows they are looking to cast. I got called back to read for the narrator for Charlotte's Webb the same day. During the reading I had the director cracking up. The narrattor also plays all the small roles so I had the oppurnity to show the director my comedic versitility on the fly. He called me back for next week. So that meant another NYC trip and a day off from school (no wonder my grades sucked!) Well on December 4th of 1999 Theatre Works called me to offer me the role of the narrator on the Charlotte's Webb national tour. When Charles Hull the Managing Director of TW called me to offer me the role he ended the phone call by saying welcome to Equity! It was quite a feat at 19 years old to be equity already! It takes alot of actors years after they graduate college to land their first equity contract! The first rehearsal was January 3rd, 2000 at the Chelsea Studios in Manhatten. TW didn't put you up so if you weren't from NY you were on your own to find somewhere to stay during rehearsals. I stayed with my friend Chris Yustin from my Tom Sawyer the year before. He lived in Kew Gardens, Queens. It was an hour subway ride to Manhatten! I learned all my lines by the first day of rehearsal. This impressed the director Rob Barron. The cast was Sara Kathyryn Bakker (Charlotte), Lizz Maccie (Fern), Paul Casali (Homer), John Ferry (Templeton), Jason Russell (Wilbur) and me the narrator. Bill Linne was our Road manager. We couldn't stand this guy! This tour was pretty crazy. First Lizz's mother was diagnosed with brain cancer right before the end of rehearsal and she told TW she would be leaving the tour a week after the show hit the road to be with her mom. But she said she would return in April. She was replaced by a crazy actress named Jane Mendez who drove everybody crazy. She did the role the year before. When her mom's condition didn't improve and Jane's contract was up they replaced her with 19 year old actress Meg Smith. Then Paul's father became very ill with an heart ailment in April he left the tour and was replaced with Dave McMullin who also did the role the yaer before. We couldn't stand Paul so we were happy to see him go and Dave was great. We missed Lizz though. We all loved her. Then my only friend on the tour Sara Bakker was leaving the tour at the end of March to do an off-broadway play. This saddened me. We were room mates and good friends on the tour and relied on each other when all the negativity of the other castmates just wanted to bring you down. We would exercise together and pretty much kept to ourselves. Sara's last show was in Jacksonville FL. After the show Sara hugged me and told me " I will miss you most of all scare crow." She was like a big sister to me on that tour. We keep in touch to this day. She just did a film called "The End of the Spear." It was released in theatres across the country! She had a supporting role! I was so proud of her! When she left the tour she was replaced by Tonya Cornilesse. She was a crazy red head who was very cool which was a relief. One of the highlights of the tour was performing at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville Tn.! This was the first of the three times I would perform there in my career. Imagine performing for 4000 people in two sold out shows! A venue with so much history! Also at the end of the tour when we were performing on Long Island, TW chose our tour to featured on The Early Show on CBS! The reporter and her camera crew followed us around for a day and she even was given a small part in one of our performances! It was funny because she was sooo nervous! It aired on national television a week later! I still have a tape of it. It was relief when that our ended! It was six months long! I saved alot of money and Shavonne and I started dating. I decided to stay in NYC with Chris and his roomates. I was about to turn 20 and I was looking for my next challenge. NYC was that challenge! My goal for the 99-00 theatre season was to top 98-99. I did that! But instead of feeling more confident I was more insecure. I didn't want to admit I was losing confidence but I was. How could I be!? I did exactly what I set out to do and more! I proved to myself I belonged. Show business will way on you emotionally. It started waying on me. I was at another crossroad. Stay in NY and do the show biz thing or go back home. I had decisions to make.