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...