Being a con man in 1912 River City, Iowa isn’t the easiest job, especially when it comes to singing and dancing to convince citizens to give you their money. Throwing in plaid, warm wool suits? Forget about it.
But when Ethan Garrepy and Jaime Brustein take the Black Box Theatre stage as the only two con men in “The Music Man,” it appears as though everything they do comes with ease.
From Oct. 16 to Oct. 27, the UF School of Theatre and Dance put on a nine-show run of the musical, which follows traveling conman Harold Hill, played by Garrepy, who goes from town to town persuading citizens of his “plan” to form a boys marching band. After collecting payments for instruments and uniforms, he skips town, starting his pursuit of his next victims. But this time, it’s a little different.
“Things happen that normally don’t happen in other towns,” Garrepy said with raised eyebrows, hinting at the show’s plot. “It’s super fun.”
When Garrepy, a 20-year-old UF musical theatre junior, first auditioned for the show in spring, they had their mind set on playing Hill. As an actor, it’s common to always “have your eyes on the lead,” and Garrepy was ready to work for it, they said. Even after booking the role, Garrepy never stopped giving it their all, leaving everything on the table to prove this was the type of role they could do.
Although they were working on “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at The Hippodrome Theatre at the time they were cast, Garrepy dedicated multiple hours a week to memorizing the music, conducting dramaturgical research and discovering who their version of Hill was.
However, there was one thing Garrepy wouldn’t sacrifice for the charismatic conman: their mullet.
“You can’t touch the mullet,” Garrepy said with a smile.
To keep their beloved hair intact, Garrepy is called to the Black Box Theatre an hour earlier than the other members, showing up two and a half hours before Oct. 26’s 7:30 p.m. showtime, the night before the final show.
Garrepy walked through the doors of the McGuire Pavilion at 5:00 p.m. Sitting in the wig room backstage, Garrepy’s hairdresser, Sherri Trimble, works to put their hair in pin curls. There’s not much commotion – only two other cast members join Garrepy, occupying three of the six mirrors for wig preparation.
As Garrepy fidgets with some of the hairpins, waiting to hand them to Trimble, they point out how some of the wigs used in the show are rented from a New York wigmaker who worked for Broadway shows like “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Wicked.” Garrepy’s Harold Hill wig was hand-tied by Ryan Moore, a visiting lecturer in costume technology at the School of Theatre and Dance, adding different colors and textures to make it look more realistic.
It takes about thirty minutes for Trimble to pin Garrepy’s wig on, but there was a lot more work that went on behind the scenes, Garrepy says.
The wardrobe team completed molds of the cast members’ heads to ensure the wigs were fitted properly. The process required cast members to sit in chairs and wrap plastic wrap around their heads. The styling team then traced the members’ hairlines before removing the plastic, filling it with foam and letting it mold.
“That’s the most weird thing I’ve ever done,” says Garrepy’s fellow cast member Javier Colazzo Lopez as he prepares to have his hair pin-curled. Lopez, a UF freshman, plays traveling salesman Constable Lock and a River City kid in the musical.
With the wig secured to Garrepy’s head, they take one final look at themself in the mirror, tilting their head to ensure everything looks and feels show-ready. With two hours left until Garrepy takes the stage, their next stop is to get a microphone. At the sound system behind the audience, there are three crew members and two other cast members. As it gets closer to the show, everyone will be out and getting ready together, Garrepy said.
As a crew member tapes a microphone to the left side of Garrepy’s face, Garrepy points out the set. It’s a small space with a 200-seat capacity, but the crew makes it work, Garrepy said. Each building on the stage has windows where lights will turn on, signifying the time of day to the audience. Some of the show’s buildings are also moveable and turn around to become other objects, such as a bookshelf, podium and library desk.
The audience is placed on two sides of the stage, creating an almost diamond-shaped setup. Garrepy said the intimate setting makes the audience feel like they are a part of the story.
“We try to include them as much as possible,” Garrepy said.
Growing up in the arts, Garrepy often attended performances as an audience member and loved feeling like a part of the story. They eventually tried their hand as a performer and haven’t looked back since, they said.
But it hasn’t always been the glitz and glamor that’s commonly associated with being a performer. Garrepy recalled life as a queer actor, spending most of their career playing “comedic side characters” and “more funny queer roles.”
“I thought that the type I had sort of been put into was going to be it for the rest of my career and that those were the only characters I was gonna get the opportunity to play,” they said.
During Garrepy’s second year at UF, they walked into the audition room for “The Music Man,” ready to push themself to prove they were capable of something more.
Six months later, Garrepy stands in the bathroom one floor above their dressing room, putting on makeup as they prepare to play the show’s leading character, which they said has been a significant turning point professionally and personally.
“Being given the opportunity to show that this is something that I can do without having to feel like I’m compromising some part of my identity, I think, is super cool,” they said.
An hour and 15 minutes until the show starts, Garrepy makes their way downstairs to the dressing room to complete another step of their pre-show routine: listening to their Harold Hill-inspired playlist. To get themself into character, Garrepy filled the Spotify playlist with a combination of songs they thought Hill would listen to and those that are reminiscent of the character. Because it’s a musical, Garrepy also added a few songs from the show’s original soundtrack.
“In this specific show, I mention a lot of composers or band leaders,” Garrepy said. “I wanted to make sure that I had at least one song from each of those [references]. That way, when I’m talking about them on stage, I have an idea in my head of exactly what I’m talking about.”
As Garrepy stands outside the dressing room and scrolls through the playlist, pointing out the songs related to the show, their scene partner Jaime Brustein walks through the stairwell doors. Brustein smiles when he sees Garrepy, and the two jump into a conversation about fantasy football.
Brustein said UF’s musical theatre program decided to start a league this season, and Garrepy is currently doing the worst. Brustein offered him some advice, but not too much. He wants to win, but unlike his character, he plans to do so honestly.
Brustein, a 21-year-old UF student pursuing a bachelor’s in musical theatre and a master's in business management, plays Marcellus Washburn, the other con man who becomes Hill’s “right-hand man.” After previously booking dancing roles, Washburn is Brustein’s first leading role. Although Garrepy said it’s common for actors to pine for leading characters, Brustein said he knew he wanted to play Washburn.
Walking into auditions six months ago, Brustein remembered a piece of advice “The Music Man’s” choreographer and Broadway veteran Andrew Cao gave him: “As much as you think the audition process is about you, it’s not,” Cao said. “You are there to help the casting team. They are rooting for you. They want you to be good.”
Brustein’s audition attitude followed him into the nine-performance run of “The Music Man,” and he now deems it the “screw it” mindset. Instead of psyching himself out before making his principal debut, he’ll remind himself of this mentality: “There’s only one Jaime Bru,” he said. “My way isn’t always the best, but it’s very particular. When I’m entrusted [with a role], I feel like I have great ownership of it.”
However, Brustein wasn’t originally entrusted with the role of Washburn. Reflecting on auditions, he said he performed poorly and didn’t receive a callback. Unafraid to advocate for himself, he contacted the director and asked to gain access to the callback room.
“I said, ‘With all due respect, this is important to me, and I’ve been prepping the materials throughout the year,’” he said. “So I asked permission. I said, ‘Can I please do the callback for Marcellus? I know you didn’t ask me to. I think I can do it.’”
Sitting on one of the couches above the Black Box Theatre and listening to the chattering of audience members arriving, Brustein remembers the confused faces of his now-castmates when he walked into the callback room after the director approved his email request. These castmates have now become a family, and if he never sent the email, he may not be there today, he said with a smile.
There are only 45 minutes left until the show begins, and it’s time for Brustein to get into character for the role he fought so hard to play. Washburn is the “wired” and “zany” comic relief of the show, he said, and sometimes all it takes to get into the right headspace is plastering a smile on his face and “turning off his brain.”
But before he shuts his brain down, he makes sure to have a coconut water and Costco-brand protein bar.
The protein bar isn’t necessarily to help play Washburn, though. Brustein said the musical program at UF is a very Broadway-oriented training program. Although the experience is “prolific” and teaches him a great deal, Broadway isn’t necessarily for him. He’s got other career goals on his mind, he said.
“Even though Broadway’s dope, my dream is to be Magic Mike in Las Vegas,” he said, his face serious. “I’m not even joking. Magic Mike. Las Vegas. So, that’s why I have the protein bar — to get in shape.”
After Brustein graduates in December, he said he is off to New York for a five-month-long dance training program. The program will allow him to sharpen his skills to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing the fan-favorite male stripper, he said.
“I watched the movie, and I was like, ‘I actually think I was built for this,’” Brustein recalled. “Some people are built to be doctors, lawyers, writers. I was made for Magic Mike, and I believe that firmly.”
There’s now only 30 minutes until Brustein greets the audience as Washburn, and the voices of eager audience members outside grow louder by the second. This is the second-to-last show before “The Music Man” closes, and he soaks in these final pre-show moments.
He glances at his iPhone to check the time, then puts it in his pocket as he stands up. He takes a breath, straightens his shoulders and walks through the doors leading backstage, where a protein bar and coconut water sit waiting for him.
Contact Tanya Fedak at tfedak@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @ttanyafedak.
