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Learning the hard
By Tim Ryan
lessons of ‘Fame’
Star-BulletinFAME encompasses loneliness, vanity, pride and ego-building. Carl Tramon has something else to add.
"Actually I think fame is simple," says Tramon -- pronounced Tray-man -- who plays Schlomo Metzenbaum in the national tour of "Fame: The Musical" opening Tuesday night at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. "It's being known to more people than you know; and fame comes at a price; you really gotta want it, not just sorta want it."
Tramon knows firsthand.
Imagine being 8 years old. You'd won the lead child role in "The King and I on Broadway with Yul Bryner, over hundreds of other young actors. Then at your first dress rehearsal the star yells at you for being too short.
Tramon laughs about it now.
"But it's true," he said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "I had learned an impeccable British accent, all the songs by heart, and had gone through costume fittings."
So the beaming boy actor strutted on stage to perform with Bryner before an audience.
FAME -- THE MUSICAL
On stage: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays; 7:30 p.m. Sundays March 28-April 8; and 3 p.m. April 3
"Well, he had never seen me before," Tramon said. "He looked down at me and shouted: 'Too short, too short.'
"I was devastated; I sobbed my eyes out. There had even been a party planned for me for my Broadway debut."
But Tramon was fired immediately.
"I quit the business, like, for an hour," he said. "I went weeks without auditioning for anything."
And no, Bryner never apologized.
"This is the least forgiving business of them all," Tramon said. "But if you decide that performing is something you want to do, then you have to go for it with all your heart and focus everything in that direction."
That's one of the many messages of "Fame: The Musical," the story about the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a group of students at New York's High School of Performing Arts on 46th Street. The musical recognizes how fast everyone wants to achieve their goals.
"It seems like we're getting closer to a microwave society, wanting instant gratification and instant success," Tramon said.
"True success comes from the work and dedication you put in something that you love. "The journey, I think, is far more important than the destination."
Tramon, who says he's in his "mid-20s," has been on that journey since age 5. His credits include numerous Broadway, off-Broadway, national tours and regional theater. He's appeared dozens of times on television, including a recurring role on "Saved by the Bell," "One Life to Live," "Growing Pains," "Saturday Night Live," and more than 50 national commercials. He's been in "Fame" for 15 months.Tramon's brother and sister and even his mother graduated from the Juilliard School in New York.
"But not me!" he says, laughing. "They were all playing the piano at home where we had three, but it was the last instrument I wanted to play.
"I saw a picture of a violin on TV and that's what I chose."
Tramon played the violin for two years before losing interest because "I was way too cool for the violin."
But by then Tramon was doing TV commercials and singing and dancing professionally. He attended the Professional Children's School in New York City and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Tramon can't pinpoint his big break, but recognizes a few memorable moments in his young career. "I was 6 when I did 'Oliver' with John Carradine shortly before he died. Then I did 'Gypsy' with Angela Lansbury."
Aspiring performers always ask him about the failure factor.
"The way fear controls people's lives is enormous," Tramon said. "People want to do something, but they just sort of go after it because they're afraid to commit.
"You can't do that in this business and succeed. You have to really, really love it."
He compares performing to being in a relationship.
"You think you have this wonderful relationship but then find out the person has been disloyal to you and you hate and despise them," Tramon said. "Then that feeling creeps back in that you just have to see them again, and you don't understand why you're being so stupid, because you know you're just going to get hurt all over.
"That's the intense love you must have to be on stage and accept it."
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