Ham (17 page)

In the most unprofessional move of my seven years, or any time thereafter, I began to cry and ran off the stage.

I buried myself in the black drape bordering the stage-left wings until a teacher came and pulled me away and down the few stairs to the classroom hallway, where I could no longer sabotage the production. I sobbed and blubbered as Penny finally got to sing her song. At its finish, even from the hallway, I could hear the deafening applause. I knew it was not so much for her performance as in support of her ability to go on with the show after an upstart elf tried to abduct her moment in the sun . . . or the snow, as it were.

I sat, alone, in my second-grade classroom for the remainder of the show. I didn't return to the stage for the company curtain call, afraid I would be booed or, worse, patronized. It wasn't cute. I changed into my civilian clothes and waited in the parking lot by the car for my parents to take me home.

•  •  •

Twenty-five years and several thousand performances later, I played the title role in the national tour of the Broadway production of
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
It was the best financial deal of my theater career thus far and I called my parents to share the good news: an incredible weekly salary, a percentage of the box office, merchandising. After a long silence, my father said, “You know, if you were a professional baseball player, you'd
really
be raking it in.” If I had called to tell them I'd become a professional baseball player, he'd probably have said, “You know, if you were emperor of the world . . .”

Undaunted, I heartily dove into the Andrew Lloyd Webber show, which was based on the classic Bible story but was really about my being practically naked in a loincloth. At least it was for me. I spent more time doing crunches and push-ups than singing.

One of the unique elements of the tour was that we picked up about forty local kids in each city to participate onstage with singing and some dancing. They were cast months in advance and were rehearsed prior to our arrival. They ranged in age from about eight to thirteen and, often, by the time we actually rolled into town, some of the girls had blossomed into young women—tall young women—with large breasts. They were placed in the back row and their chests were strapped down with ACE bandages and hot glue. The short, innocent, and innocuous were positioned in the front. And then there were the parents—hovering, crouching in the shadows like vermin.

For some reason, certain cities produced an astounding number of stage parents who encouraged their moppets to mug and upstage other actors, seeing this as their wunderkinds' big break into show business. Little tykes would come to the put-in with enough makeup to make Courtney Love look like a PTA president—and some of the girls wore makeup too. I recall a sweet boy, undersize for his eleven or twelve years, with a real sparkle about him, who was always practicing little pirouettes in the wings. Unlike some of the other mothers, his was unassuming and trying to honor her child's hunger for the stage, though she didn't quite get it. I wanted to say to her, ever so gently, “You do realize that little Brian is a big queen, right? Be understanding with him. Norfolk won't be . . .” But I bit my tongue and gave him the thumbs-up. He returned the signal and landed in splits.

I would receive notes, drawings, and little gifts backstage from the kids. Most were lovely: “Dear Mr. Harris, this is my first show. It is so exciting. Break a leg!” Little Brian wrote: “Dear Mr. Harris, how often do you work out to get your chest like that?”

I once actually got a note from a child that said, “I need some advice about agents. Can we have coffee between shows?”
Agent advice? Coffee between shows? From a ten-year-old kid?
A mother was clearly involved. I wrote back, “I never have coffee between shows. It keeps me awake during Act Two.”

Truly, though, I did enjoy them. They were, for the most part, ebullient and joyful. However, when you're on the road, a lot of enthusiastic screaming children can be trying, especially when you're hungover and still have hundreds of crunches to do before curtain. I fantasized that they could be chained up in the boiler room when not onstage. Occasionally, there'd be a child who had “it”—that special inner light and inherent need. And I knew they'd been a backup elf in a Christmas show somewhere, desperate for a solo, and that they were destined to make this their life. When I saw that spark, I would make a point to spend time with that child and let them know I recognized their calling.

At the end of the show, I sang an encore of “Close Every Door,” which had a dramatic key change and final note that never failed to ensure a standing ovation. The kids were staged to sit on the floor around me and gaze up with their sweet little faces and sing their sweet little
la-la
s in the sweet little interlude. One night about a year into the tour, a talented and highly driven ham of a child, who was positioned directly at my feet, kept smiling straight out to the house instead of up at me. Then, during the song, he somehow edged in front of me so that he was center. At the key change I would always walk down a few feet for the big finish, but with the kid there, I had to climb over him so as not to step on his hands. After the first show, I asked that he politely be told not to crawl in front of me. It was reported that his reply was, “I'm so sorry. I didn't realize I was doing that.” Sweet thing. It can be confusing out there with all those people staring.

The next night, he not only made his way in front of me but took to sitting on his haunches so that he was tall enough to be in my light. It was as if he was possessed. Clearly, whoever was talking to him about this problem was not making headway, so I asked to speak to him myself. He was brought to my dressing room, where I told him that I was concerned that I might step on him when I moved downstage and would hate for that to happen. He was quite mannerly, said he hadn't realized he was doing it, and then asked if he could try on my gold finale headdress.

Since the poor kid had been admonished twice, I thought it was the least I could do.

The next night, little Hormel edged his way down center, rose to his knees, smiled out front, and now I could hear him
singing my part!
Just as I had done to poor Penny Bare. But this kid seemed intentional, calculated, and I knew I should never have let him try on my gold headdress—the showbiz equivalent of smack to a junkie.

When the key change came, I had no choice but to cut him off, cold turkey, so I stepped forward onto his little hand, not giving it my full weight . . . well, most of it, and without letting the audience see, I shot him a death stare intended to stunt his growth.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was competing with a little kid for my place on the stage and how pathetic that was. What did that say about
me
?
My
ego?
My
ham-dom?

That was when I stepped on his other hand.

He had a choice: either see it as an opportunity for
more
attention by jerking back or crying or running off the stage—or get the message, suck it up, and learn to be a pro, kid. He chose the latter.

After the show, I told him how sorry I was for stepping on his little hands, but he'd somehow
accidentally
gotten off his mark and I couldn't see him
all the way down at my feet
for the glare of
my
spotlight. We stared at each other for a moment. Then he said, “It's okay, I didn't really feel it, with all the applause and excitement and everything. Hey, did you hear that audience tonight? I think they were the best yet. A little slow in the beginning but by the end they were like putty.”

This kid had it bad. I predicted big things.

•  •  •

After fifteen thrilling and arduous months with
Joseph,
I was ready to move on. Keeping my weight in constant check had resulted in choosing alcohol as my primary means of caloric intake. I'd also decreased my sit-up regime and had taken to drawing on abdominal muscles with brown eye shadow. I was grateful to hang up the loincloth at last. A new chapter was at hand: Danny and I were getting ready to move to New York as a couple!

We had met on the show. I was taken with him on the first day of rehearsal when the cast took turns introducing ourselves and he cleverly said, “I'm Daniel Jacobsen and I'm playing Daniel, Jacob's son.”

He was ruggedly handsome in a Marlboro Man way, but with the naive, jocular smile of a boy, and he drew my eye against my will. I was officially still in a ten-year relationship that was suffering a sad, irreversible rut, but I swore it would not be a casualty of the road. I chose isolation and discipline. Still, as the tour progressed, Danny pierced my defenses, unknowingly ripping me from my settlement of routine and an overall solemnness that had bound me to the known and prohibited me from spontaneity for so long.

I left my hotel room.

We explored cities and jumped in lakes and hiked up mountains, we made up songs and talked with silly accents, we shared our fears and expressed our hopes and we lived. And somewhere along the way, I discovered and returned to myself, concurrently. It was as consuming as a storm in the way it drenched me. It was as unpredictable as tears in the way it surprised me. And it was as sturdy as courage, in the way I said yes.

Danny would have no part in the collapse of my marriage, and I tried desperately to deny that I was meant to be with this shining, beautiful, charismatic guy who was playing my brother. Ultimately, incest would triumph. We resisted during the Northeast leg of the tour, platonically courted on the Eastern Seaboard, and consummated in the Deep South. My previous relationship legitimately ended in the lower mountain region, and Danny and I moved in together in the Pacific Northwest.

Now we were moving into a grand nineteenth-century brownstone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. During our travels, we had shopped for furnishings, which had been stored in various cities, and now crates containing sofas, lamps, tables, carpets, collectibles, and art were arriving from all over the country. It was like being in our own, at-home version of
Antiques Road Show.

Only three weeks later, I got a call from Garth Drabinsky, the producer of the Canadian company of
Joseph,
which had been touring for several years and starred Donny Osmond. It seemed Donny had ruptured a vocal cord and would be out for a week, maybe two, to recover. I was asked to fill in for the last week of their run at the Colonial Theatre in Boston and
possibly
open the show in Detroit at the Fox for the first week.

The last thing in the world I wanted was to go back to the road and play this role again. I'd already gained five happy pounds and the only sit-ups I did were to reach for a box of Cheez-Its, an ashtray, a TV remote, or another glass of wine. However, the offer was lucrative and donning the loincloth would be like slipping on an old shoe—a bun-hugging, abdomen-revealing old shoe—and I still had a large supply of brown eye shadow to paint on abs as necessary.

Also, I'd been in show business long enough to know that it was an ever-changing climate of wet and dry spells. I'd been quenched and parched my whole professional life and, having been out of the New York scene for nearly two years, with Danny and I living large and no prospects on the horizon, I remembered the motto of a good friend: “When a limo pulls up—get in.”

I said yes, with the provision that if it turned out to be more than a week, my fee would increase substantially. If it was more than two weeks, it would increase again. And again after the third, fourth, fifth, and so on. I knew that the healing of Donny's ruptured vocal cord was not something that could be rushed, and once I was in, it would be hard to desert the show.

My stint with the Canadian company turned into six weeks and my salary provided a year's worth of living expenses in our fancy brownstone.

During the final two weeks of my run, Donny flew to Detroit and started hanging around the theater. I had been a fan since I was about ten and had seen him and his brothers on tour three times, and was thrilled to find he was one of the kindest, sweetest, most genuinely gracious people I'd ever met. His relationship with the company was playful and there was no star ego whatsoever. Though he'd been road weary and injured, he missed his traveling family and was eager to get back to work.

Donny was on strict vocal rest and wrote everything on a pad to communicate. I'd been in that position myself and knew how grueling and frustrating it could be. Writing conversation is belabored, kills any sense of comic timing, and arguments are next to impossible. Once, while on voice rest myself, and using a pad to communicate, a friend and I got into a fuming squabble and I began writing every furious word in all caps. He grabbed the pad and said, “Stop yelling at me!”

Donny wasn't yelling at anyone. He was all smiles all the time. He started visiting my dressing room before the show and then hanging out backstage, playing pranks on cast mates and joking with the crew, but always watching me from the wings during primary scenes and songs. Finally, he was given the thumbs-up to return to the show, but Garth decided that I should finish the run in Detroit. The reviews had been stellar, the show had sold out, and it had become “Sam Harris as Joseph.” For press, for ease, for everything, it was just cleaner to put Donny back in at the next city.

To assure promoters that he was returning for the remainder of the tour, and to create some extra publicity, the producers decided to put Donny in the curtain call. I was happy to comply, though I thought it odd that I would work my ass off (and abs, painted on or otherwise) for two hours and then Donny would come out for my bow, fully clothed. But I was trying to get the bigger picture and be a mensch, so I came up with a solution that I felt would serve us all, and everyone agreed: rather than having Donny enter
during
the bows, I suggested that we separate his appearance from the show to
after
the bows. I would make a curtain speech saying that I'd had a great time with this company and that Donny was healed and returning but was still on voice rest.