Random Musings (Oct.4)

random thoughts:

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i realized today after the Donnie/Stosh car scene that i have really gotten a lot of the contents of the blood packet into my throat...

you see the problem is i have to hold the blood packet deep into my right cheek so by the time we get through the scene with all of the dialogue, i have amassed a pretty sizeable amount of spit in my mouth; so by the time i break the packet, it mixes with my saliva and runs pretty freely down my throat.

the worst part is i have no idea what's in the packet. i assume it's some sort of corn syrup with some sort of food coloring, but it tastes pretty much how it looks. it tastes "dark and red".

so if i figure that if about a teaspoon of "blood" goes into one of those packets, and if 6 teaspoons equals 1 fluid ounce, and if 33 fluid ounces equal 1 liter...that means that after about six months in the show (about 200 shows), i essentially am drinking half of a 2 liter bottle of soda that you would buy at the store...but filled with stage blood.

i should find out exactly what the hell is going into my system.

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i am horrible at blogging nowadays. but i also sleep a whole hell of a lot less and am working my ass off...so sorry about that but i guess it is what it is.

i don't think i can (or will) promise to do better at blogging.

but i'll try, i promise (i'm lying).

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the Chicago company celebrated their 1,000th show last week. that is 1,000 shows since the first public performance that the cast made back in San Fransisco when it opened there after the first national cast left for LA and before they moved onto Chicago.

what an amazing experience i have had being able to celebrate all these milestones with all of these different companies i have been a part of.

it's also amazing to me that i have been a part of three different companies with this show. Tour, Broadway and now Chicago; all so similar and yet completely different. I'd really like to do a show in Vegas so I can say I have done every North American company...

...or they can just send me to Australia for a few weeks.

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at intermission, everyone pretty much hangs out in the wardrobe room. not only because the wardrobe staff is freaking awesome, but because there is always so much junk food to eat.

today there were brownies, three different bags of chips/crackers and a birthday cake.

it's like a damn pot luck 8 shows a week and i can't stop eating...!

yet i have lost over 10 pounds.

so should i have more cake?

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i hated living in NYC but i can't tell you how badly i miss that city right now. i miss my friends in the Broadway cast so much and i want to see them right now. i miss going to a broadway show. i miss the really good halal cart on 56th and 6th. i even miss the subway a little bit.

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a few weeks ago i went with some cast members to this place called Stanley's Kitchen & Tap for a few drinks and, more importantly, for LIVE BAND KARAOKE!!!

they have an amazing live band, and as you would sign up at any other bar to sing for a crowd, you do it with a live band and it's unreal. i want to go back soon because i have not stopped thinking about how much fun i had.

i sang "Baba O' Riley" by The Who and "Everlong" from Foo Fighters and it made me feel just like i used to feel when i sang with my band back in college...

did any of you reading this knew i was in a band for seven years or that i recorded six albums with them...?

anyway - here's me singing The Who song - please excuse the poor video/sound quality:





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my daughter is the most adorable baby in the entire world. i look at her and i can't stop smiling. all i want to do is make her laugh and make stupid faces at her and for her to think her daddy is the silliest daddy in the world.

i go outside to do an errand for a few minutes and i walk back in the room and she turns her head to look at me and starts grinning from ear to ear and repeats the babbling of words, "ha da, da da, da da" - which obviously means "hello daddy! look it's daddy! i love you daddy".

she is everything to me and even with her sleeping in her pack and play near me right now, i am excited to spend time with her tomorrow and tell her i love her.

she is also crawling and it terrifies me because i know walking is next...












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i have fun news to share but i can't yet. i always love posting that shit because it puts some of you in such a frenzy to figure it out.

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good night.

Wrigley Field (Aug.28)

This afternoon, I was lucky enough to step onto legendary Wrigley Field and sing the National Anthem with the rest of the Jersey Boys cast (well, the majority of them at least). I am not a huge baseball fan (much to my father's dismay), but I can appreciate a ballpark like Wrigley. You just walk in there and the history kind of consumes you. A total "old school" park that still doesn't have a big jumbo-tron scoreboard...just literally someone that replaces the numbers of hits and runs every time they happen by hand.

I didn't stay for the whole game because I wanted to try and enjoy a few hours with Sarah and Riley before I had to head to the theatre, but I really enjoyed the time I was there. And of course, had my traditional dog, beer and cracker jacks...which my stomach was not happy with me about.

For those of you who missed it, here's us singing the anthem. I get a nice closeup as the song is starting:




Also, for those of you kind of wondering who is replacing Craig Laurie as Bob Crewe...all I can say is he is also singing the anthem and you can see him on screen. But I won't tell you his name because it's kind of fun reading all your posts trying to decipher it.

Oh, and another thing...I love whirlyball. It's 5 on 5 lacrosse in bumper cars...amazing. The tradition here in Chicago is as shows come into town (Chicago, Rent, Mary Poppins, Spring Awakening, etc), Jersey Boys challenges those shows to whirlyball for a few hours. It leaves me in pain and I am exhausted and yet it is the best time ever!

So that's all I got. Two shows tomorrow and then a final show for Craig on Sunday with a big party afterward.

Night.

Hello from Chicago (Aug.24)

well...just when you think you're out, they pull you back in.

greetings from Chicago. it has now been a full month since i have been back in the show and holy crap, is there a lot of catching up to do. let's start, shall we:

a bit after leaving NYC and moving home to the mitten state, Sarah and i had our beautiful daughter, Riley Addison. she was born on Jan.24, 2009 and the past seven months (yes, already seven months!) have been amazing. she's the happiest baby and she always has a smile on her face. she is sitting up all by herself for huge stretches of time so she can play with her blocks and other various toys and we're pretty sure she's going to be crawling any day now. we started her on solid foods (well if you can call pureed veggies and fruit solid) and she loves things like sweet potatoes, peas, bananas and pears...but hates avocado. it's still amazing to me that I am a parent and right now, i'm just enjoying every second of my time with her.

here's a few pics of her in the past seven months:





a few minutes old











2 weeks old








3 months old








4 months old








5 months old








6 months old





so...yeah...i have a pretty cute kid!

as far as Jersey Boys world is concerned, let me get you up to date there as well.

in mid-March, i was called to come to Chicago for 5 weeks as Michael Ingersoll took a one-month leave. so i traded in the gorilla mask for the mustache and debuted as Norm Waxman while Dominic Bogart played Nick Massi for the month.

cut to a few months later, Dominic gives his notice and i get the call to be the replacement.

so here we are:

• Chicago marks my third company with Jersey Boys. all i have to do is perform one show in Vegas and i can say i have done every North American company.
• With playing "Norm", i have now performed as six different characters through my tenure with the show.
• Before the end of the year, i will hit over 1,000 performances.
• Because of the basement crossover here at the Bank of America theatre, I have to climb or descend 462 stairs every show.
• With this contract, I am no longer understudying any of the four seasons (sadly), but am understudying Bob Crewe.

i am sure there is a ton more to catch everyone up on, but honestly, it's my day off and Riley didn't realize it and i have been up for a good few hours already and i'm having trouble focusing on anything right now.

i will *try* to do some more updates here and there. i know i have kind of fallen off the blogging grid, but i guess with the baby, that free time i had before is slim to none.

until next time...

Guess Who's Back...?

A new addition to the Jersey Boys family (Jan.24)

Introducing...

Riley Addison Gutman

Jan.24, 2009

4:10pm

7lbs 5oz, 21 inches long

Mother and baby are doing splendidly. This was the most amazing day of my life.

The Final Blog (Dec.14)

well...

a week has come and gone. i didn't find myself doubling in "Sherry". i didn't catch myself looking for a sunburst strat to play. and i didn't have to put on a wig to play a gay mute handing off a glass of milk.

a week has come and gone. i have found myself at our first birthing class. i have found myself installing a dimmer switch and custom shelving in the nursery. i have found myself drinking with my buddies at The Bench Pub in Livonia, MI.

how much can change in seven days.

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let's back up a moment to Dec.7. my last show was great. what a lame adjective to describe it but there it is: "great". it felt pretty much like every other show i've done lately with bits and pieces of the show almost as an out of body experience.

a perfect example was in the few moments i have before i enter as Handsome Hank were very cathartic; right before i walked onstage i found myself back two years ago in front of the entire creative and production team, as well as Bob and Frankie, auditioning at my final callback. And I realized that this was the moment that got me cast. I made them all laugh. In that small room at Chelsea Studios, i said my first "Hey!" and they all laughed. And that is what, I think, locked it in for me.

and so i walked onstage, and with as much excitement as i had in that final callback, i said my infamous line and that was it: "Hey". And everyone in the cast smiled at me.

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i wasn't sad at all through the rest of the show. i thought i would be but i wasn't. i was just thrilled to enjoy 150 minutes with some close friends making 1,222 people cheer and scream for us.

i was a little bummed out after "Can't Take My Eyes..." right before "Working My Way" simply because I had to say goodbye to Miles. Miles and i have been friends since day one with rehearsals for the National Tour and rocking out next to him upstage every show has been one of my favorite moments in the 800 shows i performed. having him make his way to Broadway was a thrill for me and to play my Joe to his Charlie again...to watch him play the shit out of that guitar every night...has been an honor to say the least.

and at the end of the show, while the band and i are performing the playoff, it was simply amazing to look stage right and see the entire cast cheering me on as i played my last rhythm guitar part in the show.

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the tradition in the Broadway cast when someone leaves is once everyone is out of costume, the entire cast meets back onstage once the house is cleared and we do a champagne toast for that person. a few people will say something for that person and then that person has a chance to speak as well.

Miles said some absolutely beautiful things. Mark and Peter showed love as well in some funny toasts and the Jersey Girls got me an adorable present for the baby (baby Uggs and of course, a "Big Girls Don't Cry" onesie - NICE!). then i got to speak.

i was very emotional the minute i opened my mouth. to see all of these wonderful people who have shared in this journey with me and to have to say goodbye to them...it was overwhelming.

i will try and sum it up the best way i can:

i love this show. i have loved every person i have worked with and feel lucky to have met them. the past two years of my life have been a dream come true and the fact that i have gotten to tour the Country as well as perform on Broadway...well...there are no words.

all my life i have wanted to perform. since i was a little kid, i knew that one day i would be on Broadway. i have achieved my dreams and the fact that Sarah was able to share them with me makes it that much sweeter. and i have lived the dream. i have performed in one of the most amazing musicals written in a quarter-century. i have seen people in the audience scream until they had no voice and i have seen the hardest of men cry when Frankie gets that phone call in Act II. i have performed as Bob Crewe, Nick Massi, Bob Gaudio and Tommy DeVito and i thank Des, Ron, Sergio and everyone else for seeing in me that i can be relied on as a solid understudy and dependable ensemble member.

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lastly, i want to thank those of you who have read my blogs and seen our show once, twice or 32 times. you are the reason we are the jugernaut we are. you are the reason that more and more people keep coming. and it still amazes me to this day that the blog i started simply for family, has morphed into something that a few hundred people read regularly. i aplogize for not keeping it up as much as i intended to and i apologize if i forgot some of your names as you said hello at the stage door. i have appreciated all of your kind words, emails and comments and it was nice over the years to have "family" show up at the stage door.

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so that's it for the blog. i hope that this does not end my journey with Jersey Boys forever, but for now, it is.

goodbye.
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the early morning before the end (dec.7)

this afternoon is my last show in Jersey Boys.

i tallied up all the shows i have done between the tour and Broadway and i happen to be leaving exactly on show #800.

it still hasn't hit me yet. maybe it will sometime in the first act. maybe it will later when the cast and i are out having drinks. maybe it will take two weeks when i find myself doubling Tommy's part in "Big Girls Don't Cry" while i put up shelving in the baby's room.

but it's happening. i am numb to it right now.

i think my cast mates are amazing. i feel blessed to have worked with such talented people both on the road and in NYC. i feel lucky to have had John Altieri in my life. i am amazed that tomorrow i get to walk onto a Broadway stage for 1,222 people and know that by the end of the show, the August Wilson theatre will erupt in applause as it has show after show after show.

800 shows.
11,200 costume changes.
84 blog posts.
i have covered and performed in four principal roles - three of which were Seasons.
i have performed for roughly 1.1 million people.

i will post one more blog after this one. and then...

thank you all for your love, support and encouragement.