Let the Auditioner Beware

An audition story. Not my audition but I suffered through it second-hand, now it's your turn. 

Birmingham Theater, outside Detroit. A young man in our cast had big news-- an audition in New York City for LES MISERABLES, the day after tomorrow. He had to learn 32 bars of specific music from the score, get to New York in less than 48 hours, make his way to the audition by the specified time, sing this musical passage, and get back to Michigan in time for that night’s show. A lot to do, but exciting because it seemed a genuine chance to be in a Broadway hit. 

He had to get a LES MIS score, copy the specified section, learn the music, hire an accompanist so he could rehearse, and arrange travel from Detroit to New York and back in the same day. 

Somehow he found the score. I don't remember the details but it was an expensive arrangement. He paid for two hours with an accompanist and made an airline reservation which, since it was last minute, cost him hundreds of dollars. He was okay with all that because he loved LES MIS and felt he was getting a real shot. 

Two days later--the guy, safely returned from his adventure, told us his audition story…

He'd taxied from Birmingham to the Detroit airport, flew to New York, got a taxi to midtown Manhattan. Both cab rides quite costly. He got to the audition just before his scheduled time, drew some deep breaths, and was called into the room. 

There he encountered a pianist and two people behind the table. The guy in charge was, he said, thin and dapper with a fancy tie and vest and a pointy little goatee. Goatee Guy said, "Welcome! Glad you could make it. What are you going to sing for us?” 

This confused the young man and he stammered, “I was told to learn this music…” and Goatee Guy said, “Oh, you don't have to do that. Sing whatever you want.”

The young guy, having gone to all this trouble and expense, said “I'll just sing the piece from the show.” “Fine,” Goatee said, “go ahead.” So the young man sang his music. He said it went well and Goatee Guy complimented his voice. The young guy said, “thank you.” And Goatee Guy said, “But we cast the role yesterday so… thanks for coming in. We’ll keep you in mind.”

And that was it. 

The young man taxied to the airport, flew back to Detroit, and got a cab to the theater in time for that evening's performance. Kind of shell- shocked, he told his story. I remember he had a strained little grin on his face. He was a nice kid who had gone way out of his way to prepare for this audition --following his instructions exactly-- and who spent at least two weeks of his pay to make this happen. 

A favorite piece of wisdom: actor William Redfield wrote, “One can never be truly happy in the theater until he learns to expect no justice from it.”

A while back I was flipping through a slew of YouTube videos, ‘cause I don’t know no better, and I found myself watching the cast of LES MISERABLES performing “One Day More” on the Tony Awards show back in 198-something. And there, getting his moment on camera, was Leo Burmester as Thénardier. I smiled when I spotted him.

        I don’t think of Leo that often, but over the last 40+ years, whenever he has entered my view or crossed my mind, it was always as “Leo, the guy who had my career.’
He didn’t really, but sorta. But not really. Just sorta. It went like this.

In 1975 I got a phone call from the producer at a local (Louisville area) dinner theater. I had worked at this theater less than a year earlier, so we knew each other. He wondered if I’d be interested in coming in to audition for the role of “Dolan” in his upcoming production of MISTER ROBERTS. Why, of course I would! So we arranged that I would meet him at the theater in just a couple of hours.
      I arrived in good time, met the producer, and read a scene. He said, “good, good, that’s fine.” Then he drew a breath and said, “this is a weird situation.” 
Turns out that he’d staged MISTER ROBERTS at another of his theaters just a few months earlier and he wanted to re-use a bunch of actors from that production. One of those actors was the guy who’d played Dolan. That being Leo Burmester.
He’d been trying to get in touch with Leo for a long time -- I think maybe he said for “a few weeks” -- but, despite leaving multiple messages with his service (ah, the olden days), Leo hadn’t called back. Earlier that very day the producer had called Leo one last time. He left a message saying that time was too short, he had to fill the role, so if Leo didn’t get back to him by 5 pm, he’d cast somebody else.
The producer told me this story in an apologetic tone. He said that the role was mine unless Leo got back to him by five o’clock. He was sorry to be so indefinite, but he needed to cast the role, he’d given Leo that ultimatum, so…
I told him I understood, no problem, and I left, driving directly home. As soon as I walked through the door, the phone rang. Of course it did. Leo had just called back and accepted the role. The producer apologized again and said--as all producers do-- “I’ll find something for you in the future.”  To his credit, he did. I did four more shows for him over the next couple of years.

That’s just the beginning of the story --and my only real part in the story. Leo did the run of MISTER ROBERTS, then later, he played a major role in the premiere production of Marsha Norman’s GETTING OUT at Actors Theater of Louisville. Probably no connection really, but I always associated Leo’s MISTER ROBERTS gig with him being hired at Actors Theater. In other words…maybe that could have been me.
The play got great reviews, as did Leo, and it moved to Off-Broadway where, again, great reviews and awards.

From there it was onward and upward for Leo. He replaced John Goodman as Pap Finn in BIG RIVER on Broadway. He originated Broadway roles in LES MIS, BURIED CHILD, THE CIVIL WAR and others. He also appeared in a bunch of movies and TV shows, where I would regularly spot him. Most of his film work was in pretty small roles. And, small or large, he did get to work with Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, William Friedkin, Sidney Lumet, and Clint Eastwood.

        Of course, there’s no real career theft here unless you count him taking the MISTER ROBERTS job from me. His role in GETTING OUT was not something which I’d have done well, and it was that which led to everything else for Leo. So, no, it wasn’t that Leo had my career, more that I could watch him work and pretend that “I could have done that.” I never ground my teeth because he got roles that I didn’t. Matter of fact, I smiled when I saw him. He felt like a connection to my own past. A guy who’d made good.

        I only met Leo a few times, way back in those Aulden Dayes, and our meetings were merely of the “hey, nice to see you…hey, how are you?” sort of thing.

Leo died in 2007 of, apparently, a tick bite. One of Nature’s more lousy jokes.