Free Places, Please!: Becoming a Jersey Boy by Daniel Robert Sullivan Page B

have a bit of drama with Mark and some teenage shenanigans that occurred on a recent Boy Scout trip, but I leave my phone out while we talk to him (yup, ringer on high). We have a family dinner out at Blockhead’s, a terrific Mexican restaurant with cheap and delicious margaritas, and I leave the phone next to the salsa with the ringer still very much on high.
    No calls come today. I guess I have one more night to dream.

PREPARING TO LEAVE
    TO-DO LISTS, DRAMATURGICAL LECTURES, & DANGEROUS BUTTERFLIES
     
    April 27, 2009
     
    The phone rings this morning at 9:40 a.m. It’s Meg; I answer it as calmly as I can manage. Cara just about jumps out of her pants when the phone rings; and it is hard to focus when your hot wife is jumping out of her pants. But Meg just wants to check in and see how the audition went. I tell her it went well enough, and leave the details for her to read about if this book ever gets published.
    At 10:30 a.m., the phone rings again. I sit down on the couch before answering, knowing this has to be news—good or bad. Before even saying hello, Meg whispers, “Dan, you got it.”
    I got it.
    I actually got it.
    Cara crawls onto the couch next to me and is hardly controlling herself. I say, “Oh. My. God.” Cara jumps up with a squeal, and I start thinking of all the million-and-a-half things I now need to do. Why can’t I just live in the moment like our therapist (yes, our therapist) says I should?
    The first thing Meg tells me is that I should send Merri Sugarman a nice bouquet of flowers. I am thinking, “And one for you, too, I believe.” But the truth is I had already planned to send Merri some kind of thank you today anyway; this thank you will just be a bit more lavish.
    Meg has no details for me yet, but my mind is revving with a to-do list. I actually start writing these chores down while I am still on the phone with her because there is much to be done and I only have a half-hour before I have to leave for a meeting at the Roundabout.
    In the next blur of thirty minutes, I assign Cara the task of picking out the perfect flowers to send to Merri and Meg. (She has a much better eye than I for these things, and confirming this, Merri later calls me a “class act” for sending such a nice ensemble. Well done, Cara!) I call my mother, who has to bottle her excitement because she is among patients at work. I send a text to my brother, and he replies that I am “gonna b famous.” (I text back that I am “scared shtlss.”) I email my stepfather at work, but my mother called him already during the two minutes I spent texting. I call my producing friend at Theatre-By-The-Sea and he knows instantly what I am going to say. My agent will make an official call to him soon, but I wanted to reach him first. And I call John Cariani to bow out of his production of Almost , Maine . This one’s tricky. I am very afraid of burning bridges, and I really want to maintain a friendship with this well-known guy. He takes the news well enough, and asks for recommendations for someone who can take my place.
    Then I have to run to my meeting! Boy, there is never time to just sit down and appreciate things, is there? Toward the end of the meeting I begin helping with the daunting task of re-assigning all of the workshops, classes, and lectures I was to give over the next few months. The projects I work on with Roundabout are many and varied, but today my job is to quit all of the following:
     
Twenty classroom workshops at Manhattan Bridges High School centering on lyric writing for musical theatre.
Ten classroom workshops at IS 237 Middle School in Queens using Set Design to teach Math skills.
Many hours of work as the project coordinator for the Roundabout’s partnership with the Brooklyn School for Music and Theater.
Ten classroom workshops at IS 237 Middle School using tableaus and storytelling to expand ESL skills.
Fifteen private Professional Development workshops dealing with arts integration with a new