New York Echoes by Warren Adler

Author:Warren Adler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Brothers and Sisters, Domestic Fiction, Married People, Psychological Fiction, Single, Families
Publisher: Stonehouse Press
Published: 2008-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Actors

by Warren Adler

“My name is Bruce and I’m your server,” Bruce said, yet again. He prided himself on memorizing the specials. He was, after all, an actor and he had been a server for nearly two decades now, working in upscale restaurants in Manhattan and Los Angeles while pursuing what he considered his true vocation, acting.

He lived with Marilyn, his girlfriend of three years. She too considered herself an actress, having done a number of commercials and small parts in off- and off-off-Broadway shows. When she wasn’t working at her craft, which was most of the time, she also waited tables in various restaurants in their neighborhood in the East Village.

They shared the rent in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and earned enough to live on the fringes of a gentrified New York lifestyle, largely because they were able to defy the Internal Revenue Service by not declaring all of their tips. They attended acting classes, usually in the early morning hours or between the lunch and dinner hours and could afford workouts at a sports club a few blocks from their apartment. Above all, actors had to keep in shape and, of course, continue to hone their acting skills, a lifetime career requirement.

Bruce was always on the lookout for someone in the business who could make hiring decisions. He was not bashful about supplying someone with a picture and resume; a long shot, he knew, but cheerfully offered. One never knew when lightning would strike. It had once when he got to play the part of the gravedigger in Hamlet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA by playing pickup basketball in the schoolyard of Beverly Hills High School.

“It’s all about contacts and connections,” he lectured to his various girlfriends or anyone who would listen. It was, of course, the prevailing opinion in the business. “It has nothing to do with talent. We know we have talent, but in our business, you need a platform to truly display it.”

The gravedigger part lasted approximately six weeks and so far it had been the highlight of his so-called career. He was not loath to mention it repeatedly to the various agents with whom he was briefly attached and with whom he periodically parted company when they didn’t or couldn’t deliver. After ten years in Los Angeles, he went back to New York, where he concluded people were more genuine. Besides, as he told himself, he preferred live stage to film. Not that he was averse to taking film roles or commercials if offered, and he did have some film walk-ons or one-liners through the years, but his real love, as he trumpeted often, was live theater.

Although he was generally considered reasonably handsome with a rugged, sculpted face, a cleft chin, and good, well-whitened teeth and a full head of hair now graying at the edges, he saw himself now as a character actor and, as he aged, felt that his casting opportunities might increase as others dropped out of the business. One

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