It is exactly the kind of annoyance that I've endured perhaps 100 times in dozens of different theaters: a cellphone ringing away in someone's pocket just as a show gets going.

Except, in this case, it was my cellphone. In my pocket. And I wasn't in the audience; I was onstage.

Such are the perils of The Theater, of course, perils I learned about first-hand during a daring monthlong experiment in immersion journalism/latent show-off-manship. My assignment, as it were, was to take a role as an actor, working my way through a rehearsal process and finally to actually appear in a show, all in order to expose the daily torment that is life way-way off Broadway.

The show in question is "Cats Talk Back," a mock-docu-comedy (think "Waiting for Guffman") playing at the Kraine Theater in the East Village as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. Written and directed by Bess Wohl, a Yale School of Drama graduate, and presented by her company, Get Out of Yale Free Productions, the hourlong play follows a fictional panel discussion involving five former members of the Broadway musical "Cats" and a somewhat arrogant, somewhat embarrassed, somewhat clumsy journalist who serves as the show's moderator.

Guess who I played.

The process began in early June, when the producer of the show, Bill Thompson, a 26-year-old actor, Yale graduate and aspiring Max Bialystock, sent me an e-mail message asking if I might be interested in the role. My first thought was something along the lines of "Not if you paid me." Mr. Thompson assured me that wouldn't be a problem; the show, after all, was playing the Fringe, where an actor's salary usually comes in the form of subway fare or a beer after the show. The play itself sounded intriguing. "Cats Talk Back" actually had been performed several times before, including stints at the Yale Cabaret and a workshop last summer at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts. The cast — and the Cats — here would be the same as in Williamstown: five other recent graduates of the prestigious Yale School of Drama. The only new cast member would be me, who once visited the Yale School of Drama.

The prospect of taking the stage with these newly minted professionals was more than a little daunting, though as a former drama student at the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, I had some stage experience, as well as a healthy sense of self-worth. I would also be playing myself, Jesse McKinley, arts reporter for The New York Times, which wasn't much of a stretch.

There were also other enticements outlined by Mr. Thompson and Ms. Wohl. Though there was some singing and dancing in the show, I, as the Moderator, wouldn't have to boogie or vamp. My lines would also be written on large index cards — à la James Lipton — so no memorization would be necessary.

Finally, the playwright pulled out the ultimate weapon, a maneuver used down through the ages to convince an actor to do plays: pure unabashed flattery.

"All in all," Ms. Wohl wrote in an e-mail message positively dripping with sugar, "I think you would be a truly incredible addition to the production."

Well, yes, I would. But there was also, to paraphrase the play itself, a chance to explore the lives of actors, both those on Broadway and in those precincts down under 14th Street. Along the way, what I discovered were all the expected challenges of working in the trenches of American theater — minuscule budgets, tiny rehearsal halls and stage fright bordering on arrhythmia — as well as a few things that surprised me. Like my cellphone, but more on that later.

And it all began, as so many great productions have, in an overheated yoga studio on Ludlow Street.

Practice, Practice

The first day of rehearsal was July 28, a muggy afternoon exactly 12 days before the first performance, scheduled for Aug. 8, the opening day of the Fringe Festival. (The brevity of the rehearsal schedule was primarily because, with the exception of me, the actors knew their roles.) Working on a budget of roughly $3,500 for six scheduled performances at the Fringe (three more have now been added), Mr. Thompson had — like so many other downtown producers — sought out affordable rehearsal space.

It is not an easy task. In recent years, several of the rehearsal-room mainstays of Off Off Broadway producers — including Charas/El Bohio, on East Ninth Street — have been closed or gone out of business. So when Mr. Thompson told me the first rehearsal was at a place called Earthmatters on Ludlow Street, I wasn't surprised that I hadn't heard of it.

I was surprised, however, that it was a grocery store. I found Mr. Thompson waiting for me outside. (The consummate professional, I was 20 minutes late.) Walking inside, my first impression was intense confusion: from what I could tell, Earthmatters wasn't in show business, it was in the organic food business.

But at the very back, past the soy coffee and organic butter, was a set of steps leading to a second-floor garden, which in turn led to a small, clean and un-air-conditioned yoga studio wherein sat my fellow castmates, a stage manager and the playwright herself.

As with most first rehearsals, usually spent on a simple read-through of the script, the mood was one of nervous expectation. And sweating. Quite a bit of sweating.

Ms. Wohl apologized for the heat, told us how excited she was and then told us to jump right in. And the first line of the show was mine: "Good evening."

I nailed it.

The rest of the read-through was something of a blur. The cast all seemed very relaxed in their roles, and while I may have flubbed a few of my lines, I believe the majority of them were spoken approximately as written.

Afterward, Ms. Wohl seemed happy. She offered just a few suggestions and then released us all back into the wild.

Just feet from a display of wheatgrass, I found several of my new cast members slipping out of their roles as ex-Broadway actors and into their lives as current striving ones. Frank Liotti, who plays a former leading cat-man in "Cats Talk Back," was on a cellphone. So was Bridget Flanery, who plays a shy sex kitten in the show. And both Mr. Liotti and Mr. Thompson were also pondering another evening working as — you guessed it — waiters.

Indeed, like generations before them, most of the actors on the Fringe must have day jobs to act at night. Then there is the other creative work some do. Jackson Gay, for example, who plays a rapidly fading diva in "Cats Talk Back," is co-directing another Fringe show, "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret of Making Whoopee II: The Houdini Incident," by Sean Cunningham, at the Greenwich House Theater. Her co-director is Will Frears, another Yalie, as is Mr. Cunningham. (I was beginning to sense a theme.)

The Next Steps

I, too, had a day job, albeit one with health insurance and a really cool business card, so my next rehearsal wasn't planned until the weekend.

The weather on Aug. 2 was equally torpid, but the rehearsal space had taken a serious turn for the better. For that Saturday, Mr. Thompson had booked a dance studio at 63 Greene Street in SoHo. Like the yoga studio, it was small and brightly lighted, but did have the major advantage of A.C.

When I arrived at noon (having forgotten my script at home), the first thing I saw was the cast being led through some basic dance steps with the help of a choreographer, a development that sent a momentary quiver of terror down my spine. Ever since a bad experience doing the musical "Chicago" in high school . . . well, let's just say I don't dance onstage anymore. Luckily, Ms. Wohl had no intention of allowing me to.

In addition to the choreographer, Nathaniel Nicco Annan, there were some other newcomers in the room that day, including the dramaturg, Kate Bredeson, and several other actors who were playing audience members who ask questions of the performers during the show. All of which speaks to a truism about shows, regardless of where they play: it takes a lot of people to make one happen. (Not to mention a lot of people from Yale.)

In addition to the cast and the six actors who appear every night as audience plants (two are Yale alumni, one teaches there), the staff of "Cats Talk Back" also includes a set designer (a Yalie), a costume designer (a Yalie), a lighting designer (a Yalie), a stage manager (a high school friend of Mr. Thompson's), a dramaturg (a Yalie), a composer (a friend of Ms. Wohl's from — Harvard!) and a choreographer who has worked at Yale. Throw in me, the playwright and the producer, and that's nearly 20 people — all working free — to put on an hourlong show with a minimal set.

Then there are the logistical challenges. Everything in the set was borrowed from a theater in New Jersey where the set designer works, except a pair of "Cats" eyes, which were painted by some generous souls in that theater's set shop. The costumes are from the actors' closets — or the closet of the costume designer — and are all taken out of the Kraine Theater every night.

Which brings us to challenges unique to the Fringe. Because each of the festival's 20 theaters has multiple shows being performed one after another — the Kraine has 11, for example — each show is on a tight schedule. Producers are given exactly 15 minutes to assemble and erect their sets, and 15 minutes to strike them. In addition, audiences are expected to be herded into their seats in a mere seven and a half minutes, and ushered out in another seven and a half minutes.

The reason is simple. "If four shows start 10 minutes late," Mr. Thompson said, "the fourth show goes off 40 minutes late."

One major challenge of the early rehearsals, in fact, was to keep the show at an hour. Still, it was something of a surprise when I discovered at the second rehearsal that about 10 of my lines had been cut.

Ms. Wohl assured me it had nothing to do with my performance.

The Pace Quickens

The next several rehearsals followed a similar pattern: a run-through, some notes and a gradual ratcheting up of my heart rate. By Aug. 4, we had moved to our third rehearsal hall in a week, at 440 Lafayette, just across the street from the Public Theater.

Having been rehearsing for only a week, I wasn't expected to have my lines down, but I was still trying. The plan was to have all of my lines pasted to a stack of 35 index cards, which I would use to cheat during the course of the show. On Aug. 5, our first run-through with a test audience, Mr. Thompson handed me the cards, and exactly what you might expect happened: I forgot my lines.

With all of my lines on the cards, you see, and some of them wedged in my brain, I found myself fumbling. And when I wasn't fumbling, I was melding my semi-memorized version with the playwright's, mangling Ms. Wohl's terse prose into something resembling third-grade Esperanto.

Afterward, Ms. Wohl was kind, and I promised not to be quite so bad when there was a real audience in the house.

THe next rehearsal was better — I got through the whole thing retaining my ability to read — and by Aug. 7, we had actually made landfall at our theater, the Kraine on East Fourth Street.

For most productions, the technical rehearsals are known as "tech hell," a grueling period — often lasting weeks on Broadway — when the designers take over and slowly, methodically, fix all the light, set and sound cues.

In the Fringe Festival, "Cats Talk Back" was allotted a whopping four hours for this process, resulting in the kind of thrilling stop-start action you might find on a Los Angeles freeway. (The original schedule had called for a mere three hours, but Mr. Thompson bribed the theater's manager with a slice of cheese pizza, garlic nuts and an orange soda. Just like David Merrick used to do.) As the cast sat onstage, the designers in the booth frantically adjusted lights overhead and sound cues.

Finally, about 12:30 p.m., we started our dress rehearsal. The lights went down, I went on, and the lights came up — on me. "Good evening," I said, in the middle of the afternoon.

A Ringing Success

The first public performance of "Cats Talk Back" was scheduled — once again, because of the festival's cram-in-as-much-as-possible ethos — for 5 p.m. last Friday, a time generally reserved for heavy drinking or going to the country. And judging by my nerves at 4:30 p.m., I was strongly considering doing both.

Ms. Wohl had called an emergency rehearsal earlier that afternoon to iron out where, a bit late in the show, I take aside a particularly troubled former Cat — played by Derek Milman — and ask him to share his feelings with the audience. And after an hour of working the moment, sure enough, we had somehow dug out its deeper meaning. (Translation: we did it faster.)

Still, as the crowd filed into the aisles of the Kraine, I was feeling a little less than confident. The other actors, however, assured me it was all going to be O.K. After all, I was holding cards with my lines on them. What could go so wrong?

And indeed, at exactly 5:02 p.m., I walked on stage and said my first line — something about it being a nice night — and got a laugh. Then my first monologue was done, and the other actors were there. Then they got some laughs. Then I talked some more. And then they did. More laughs.

And it was just then, say, 10 minutes into the show, that my friend Michelle called me.

As a general rule, I set my cellphone ringer on "High." But as far as I know, the ring that accompanied my friend's call may have been the loudest cellphone ever.

I froze. The cast froze. The audience froze. People in Dubuque froze. The earth stopped spinning. And the phone kept ringing.

Then, I was suddenly digging frantically into my pocket, trying to kill the noise. Luckily for me, I was onstage with several trained actors, one of whom, Brad Heberlee, turned, and in character, said: "Jesse, didn't you hear the announcement at the beginning of the show?"

The crowd laughed — to Mr. Heberlee's credit, I think they thought it was planned. I managed to silence the ringer, and then, just like that, the cast picked up and started exactly where we'd left off.

The rest of the show, I think, went off without a hitch. I wouldn't know, because I was still having a cellphone-inspired, out-of-body experience. (I later realized that the perfect comic moment would have been to take the call.)

As the show finished, however, and the final light cue was called and the audience began to applaud, I felt something I vaguely remembered from my acting days: that strange curtain-call sensation, that addictive feeling that you never really feel more like yourself, or at least more alive, than after playing another character. It's why, I think, many actors act, whether on the Fringe or in Dubuque or on Broadway itself.

Since then, I've felt the same charge a few more times after shows, and hope to, a few more times before the final performance on Aug. 23. After that, it's back to something a little less nerve-racking. Shark-feeding, say, or poison-tasting. Till then, however, I'll be the guy in the rear of the Kraine, cellphone off, waiting for the lights to go down and for my good evenings to begin.

The New York Times
Agosto - 2003