...running like an engine that’s just been freshly oiled.

It's the holiday season and with the holiday season comes holiday parties. Since I’m currently working as a cater waiter that means a lot of hours and a lot of money…okay not a lot of money but it’s far better than being unemployed.

I think just about everyone knows what a cater waiter is. For those who don’t, cater waiters are the people who work at parties, weddings and charity events. They take your coat, serve your food, serve your drinks and clean up after you’ve gone. Cater waiters are the people who work during a party so that no one else has to.

Doing this kind of work is a double edged sword. For every good thing about being a cater waiter there is a not so good thing. Most often the work itself is quite easy. However standing on your feet for 15 hours at a time is not. You have the luxury of making your own schedule. However you also have to deal with the periods where there isn’t much work.

There are two definitively great things about being a cater waiter. The first is the community of people. Practically everyone you work with is an artist in some way. I’ve met painters and sculptors, vocalists and instrumentalists and just about every other kind of performing and visual artist you can think of. The second is, even though I’m just “the help”, I get to go places and see things that aren’t available to me…yet.

Once I was setting up for a charity event. I was on napkin folding duty. Three of us sat around a table artistically folding dinner napkins for 600 people. While gossiping away I happened to look up. Coming down the aisle was a group of about 12 guys. All of them in their early 20’s. All of them non-descript and really quite bland in appearance. My first thought was oh god, they must be the entertainment. We’re in for it now.

At almost every catering event there is some sort of “entertainment”. It can range from a deejay, to a magician, to a band, to a string quartet, to a circus troupe. Sometimes this entertainment is sub-par. As a performer it can do a number on your head. You compare yourself and wonder how a trumpet player who consistently plays flat gets a performing gig while you struggle to get a callback. Apples and oranges maybe, but it still can be disheartening.

The young guys took to the stage area. They chatted a bit, set up microphones and then went to their assigned spots. This group of boys that were so unnoticeable and lacking in anything remotely distinctive began to sing. Their voices were glorious. I sat enrapt watching and listening to their sound check, as if they were angels announcing the coming of God. Every hair on my body stood on end. Tears fell from my eyes, literally tears, while folding napkins for 600 people, at a catering gig.

At another party for about 120 people there was equally impressive entertainment. During our staff meeting of what would be happening that evening we, the caterers, were told that it was a sit down dinner with a choice of entrée and a few extra courses. If you’ve even been a cater waiter or worked in a catering hall you know what a headache that could turn out to be. On top of all of that there would be a cocktail reception before hand and a dessert reception afterwards.

During the dessert reception we were to breakdown the entire room and set it up as a lounge and dance floor. The guests would then come back into the space and enjoy the entertainment for the evening, Journey. The mega-hit band Journey was scheduled to play for this company’s party. Journey!

The evening went as planned with the cocktail reception, dinner and dessert reception. We set up the lounge and with the exception of cleaning up afterwards our work for the evening was finished. We could relax. It’s a rare event were cater waiters actually get to enjoy the entertainment. So most of my colleagues decided to go up to a balcony area to watch the show. I decided to stay in the backstage area. Lots of people have seen Journey concerts, but not many have seen one from the wings of the stage. We all waited with baited breath for the band to ascend.

Journey was amazing. They sang all their greatest hits as well as some of their lesson known tunes. They sounded just like their albums and they were singing live. Journey was singing live right in front of me. It was incredible.

With so much money making work going on, catering, it’s been a challenge to do potential money making work, auditions.

Auditions can pop up at any time. If it’s an Equity Principal Audition (EPA) or an Equity Chorus Call (ECC) the postings for these have to be announced no later than a week before the actual audition takes place. If you submit yourself for a show, most often an audition can be scheduled around your previous conflicts, for example catering. If you’re signed with an agent or even freelancing with an agency (working with them without benefit of signed contract) auditions can literally come up within a few hours.

As a cater waiter, the companies that you work for want to know your availability as far into the future as possible. A cater waiter can be scheduled to work a party anywhere from about 2 months to right up until 2 hours before the party starts. Although that’s usually for emergency replacements. Right now I have gigs scheduled for late February.

You as an actor have to have the foresight of an Oracle. It literally comes down to predicting when you think auditions will come up. And the auditioning just doesn’t happen by itself.  There’s a whole lot of work to be done before you step in front of the people behind the table. On top of your third eye sight, it takes some expert planning and time management.

Imagine you’re an actor who makes money outside of theatre as a cater waiter. You’ve been on your feet catering for 10 hours, which is the average length of one of my catering shifts. You finally get home at 1am. You wake up at 5:00am to go stand in line outside in all kinds of weather. You wait for three hours to be able to pick your audition time. Even though the audition runs from 9:30 until 5:30pm, your audition must take place between 9:30am and 2pm. You have to be dressed in a tuxedo and at your next catering gig at 3:30. It’s the holiday season so you’ve been on this type of schedule for a few weeks now. When do you take care of all the preparation of auditioning like warming up or learning material or making sure your audition outfit is clean? How do you make time to make your audition perfect?

While watching Journey perform live from the backstage area, someone pointed out that the lead singer was using a teleprompter. Being a theatre performer and having to be completely memorized for shows I couldn’t believe it. I had to see it for my own eyes.

I walked over to where a tech guy was looking at a computer screen. I peaked around him and indeed saw that the lyrics were streaming on a monitor. To me this was unfathomable. Not as unfathomable as the day I discovered that the people in movie musicals weren’t wearing tap shoes during tap numbers but it was high on the list of “oh my god I always thought…”

Because of my previous vantage point, the lights and all the movement, I could never really see who was singing the lead on the songs. Behind the teleprompter there was a different view. I raised my eyes up from the screen and I looked out onto the stage. I saw the guy who was rocking out. I turned to one of my colleagues and said “Since when does Journey have a metro-sexual Asian dude as a lead singer?” My colleague gave me the scoop on how the band found the replacement for their lead singer.
 

After folding 600 napkins, serving dinner and dessert it was time for the charity event’s entertainment. “Ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage…”

Well that certainly explained a lot. The “non-descript and really quite bland in appearance” group of guys who’s music moved me to tears during their sound check was actually Yale University’s Whiffenpoofs. They are the pinnacle of perfection in male a cappella groups. Dressed in their white tie and tails they took to the stage. Again their voices stunned and silenced those who were listening. Again it was as if the gates of heaven opened and allowed this glorious sound to float down on angel’s wings. And then it happened. His voice cracked.

I can only surmise that the lead singer pushed a bit too hard on the top notes of the song. It was barely perceptible, easy to miss. The singer kept going of course not even registering anything was amiss. When the same phrase came around again so did the crack. The only reason I knew it was there was because it wasn’t there during the sound check. I’m sure no one hearing the concert for the first time even noticed it.

Back before I was catering I had a day job where I could pick and choose my schedule. I’d put in my schedule request a week beforehand. Whenever there was an audition announced I would simply ask for the day before and the day of off. I could make up any lost hours and money another time. Many of my peers laughed at my obsessive compulsive scheduling.  They couldn’t understand why I did this.

I had a system. It allowed me to take as much time as I needed to prepare, reserving the day before for any final tweaks to my material, including a last minute lesson if needed. It allowed me to make sure I had the audition outfit I wanted to wear picked out, cleaned and pressed. I had time to assemble pictures and resumes. There was ample time to warm up. Most importantly I had time to rest and clear my mind and focus on theatre. In short I had time to make sure everything was perfect.

 

Before seeing the little Asian dude, I was convinced I was listening to the original Journey with Steve Perry singing the lead. Steve Perry doesn’t sing with Journey anymore. Yet their sound was virtually the same and everyone, including myself, enjoyed it just as much.

Who cares about a slight crack? Even at their worst the Whiffenpoofs are better than the vast majority of groups at their absolute best. A tiny vocal imperfection doesn’t derail them from their domination of male a cappella groups or their world tour.

In watching these two extraordinary performances, while I was catering, I realized something…again. We do live theatre. Being alive is complicated and messy and for most of us not perfect. Why do we expect our Art to be anything else?

I love to always be prepared with appropriate audition material. I love to always wear something to the audition that I feel great in and makes me look my best. I love to sleep nine hours so I can function at my peak.  The time I feel my voice is soaring is about 4pm. That’s when I love to audition. However right now my time is all but my own.  I no longer have the luxury of my obsessive compulsive audition rituals. I mentally and physically prepare for auditions as best I can, when I can. And that’s all I can ask of myself.

Neither Journey nor the Whiffenpoofs were “perfect”. However they were perfect to the people seeing and hearing them at that time. So don’t wait for the perfect opportunity or the perfect song or the perfect outfit or the perfect amount of rest. Just go to auditions. You as an actor can never know what the people behind the table are looking for. Nor can you predict what talent they’ll see. In the end just showing up can make you...

Practically perfect in every way.