SJM 225 Jay Black — Last Laugh - FINAL_Big Daddy 2 / 20 / 25 12 : 46 PM Page 1 L A S T b y J A Y B L A C K L A U G H ? Jay Black is an award - winning standup comedian who tours all across the U.S . To find out when Jay will be performing near you , please visit JayBlack.tv Take a Bow ELIOT ONCE WROTE THAT Insideof every theater kid are two wolves , You will also be driving to local busi - “ APRIL IS THE CRUELEST one named Preparation and the other nesses , where your kids will be hard - selling T.S . MONTH , ” which means he obviously never named Panic , and they fight with each themanagement to buy Playbill advertising spent a March in South Jersey . other every night , usually while you’re with all the subtlety of the third hour of a They say that March comes in like a tryingto help them memorize their audition time - share pitch inside the conference lion , but in our fair state , March isn’t just sides.You have to stay strong : When they roomat a Ramada in Jacksonville . any lion . Jersey March is a drunk , angry askyou for the 974th time if they’re audi - And don’t forget about the Playbill lion , driving a 2004 Ford Taurus littered tioning for the right character , it will take shout - outthat you’ll be buying , which has all your willpower not to punch the outline totiptoe on the razor’s edge of being both of the tragedy mask into your drywall . But sincere and not totally embarrassing for that’s when you smile , say “ yes , ” and go your kid . These two simple sentences re - back to listening to them try out 400 dif - quire so much caution and editing that ferent ways of how their character might theymake the wording of an international pronounce “ hello . ” treaty look like a pancake description on Then there is the emotional rollercoaster aDenny’s menu . of the time between auditions and the But then , after all the anxiety , and the release of the cast list , a period during which effort , and the anxiety , and the late nights , your kids will swing from dark fatalism to and , also , the anxiety : It’s show night and ecstatic confidence with the same jittery everysingle second of it becomes instantly with Lotto scratch - offs , ready to ruin Sunday caprice as a squirrel being subjected to so worth it as you watch your son , a kid gravy with yet another loan request . It’s as Fourthof July fireworks . Your job ? Soothing whoonce almost burned down your house cold as February and as wet as April and it their insecure souls at the same time you by microwaving a marshmallow on high doesn’t even have the decency to be as affirm , as much as your personal ethics will for two full minutes , become a German short as those months . allow , all the catty comments they’re making scientist , or a rapper , or even Shrek , in So , while we wallow in the ice - flecked aboutthe other kids who auditioned . frontof a packed house . mud of another miserable March , let’s try to focus on one of its very few bright spots : March is the beginning of spring musical season at the various high schools in South Jersey . I’m a theater dad , which was not some - thing I ever expected to be . See , my wife is a champion athlete , chock full of all the genetics necessary for producing muscle , processing oxygen and having limbs that actually listen to what her brain tells them to do . And me ? I’m a comedian , which means most of my talent lies in being able to nap easily at select mid - budget hotels around the country . The fact that our DNA produced at least two children with the acting bug is a genetic mystery . It just should not be , and yet , every March we find ourselves seated in a middle or high school theater , watching Once they have gotten their part , it is It’s glorious . It feels like how I imagine our kids sing , dance and act . rehearsaltime , when your afternoons will myown father would have felt about me There is a particular set of joys and begobbled up by hours of idle waiting in if I was better at throwing a baseball . challenges to raising theater kids that my schoolparking lots , looking up and down Living through March is like eating a wife and I , as first - generation theater par - theline of cars in front of you , wondering bigbowl of your least favorite cereal , dry , ents , are experiencing fresh with each new which one holds the parents of the con - with a fork … so why not warm up your musical our kids audition for . niving snake who got the part your perfect soul by checking out some local high n First , let’s talk about those auditions . angelwanted . schoolproductions ? SOUTH JERSEY MAGAZINE volume 21 issue 11 SouthJerseyMagazine.com 48 |