Bayside Story: Josh Piterman (OW2003)
Posted 17 June 2011
During a break from his starring role in West Side Story, Josh Piterman is reflecting on his "lightbulb moment", the decision to pursue a career in acting.
At Wesley College, tennis and football were his passions, but when in year 12 he won a role as Tyrone Jackson in the school's performance of Fame and then as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar ("A good role for a Jewish boy," he says), his fate was sealed.
"It was the excitement of this epic spectacle. It was so much fun, I thought, 'This is it'," Piterman says. "I wasn't particularly talented, I'd never had singing lessons, but I loved delving into emotions. A lot of actors like to act because it lets them escape from their own lives. For me, it was all about fun."
Piterman then tailored his school life around his dream. "I quit maths halfway through year 12," he says. "I did theatre, politics, English and French. I thought I could use them as a performer. Not so much maths. I had a conversation with the maths teacher on the way to music school one day. I said, 'I'm not going to be coming to maths any more, I'm going to work on my singing'.
"She was a bit stunned but OK with it. I had this focus in my eyes that said, 'This kid knows exactly what he's going to do'."
That focus has always been there, whether it was playing his beloved football with the junior club, the Glen Iris Gladiators, or becoming a proficient tennis player. "Within a year of picking up a tennis racquet I was in the first-eight team," he says.
And now that focus is serving him well in his first leading role. After a six-week season in Sydney, West Side Story begins its Melbourne season on August 19.
It's been an intense time performing under American director Joey McKneely, whose production of this show has been staged throughout the world.
"He is very passionate and strong-minded and had a very good idea about what he wanted and how to get the emotion out of everyone," Piterman says. "There were tears on most days.
"Most musicals are fluffy, glitz and glam, tits and teeth. This one involves racism, violence and extreme love, and it requires such emotion in the performances. To convey such intense acting and intense plot you have to totally go for it."
There were no hints of a life on the stage when Piterman was growing up in Camberwell, where he spent the first 12 years of his life before moving to East St Kilda when he was in grade 6. It didn't take long for Piterman to witness the local colour.
"I remember unpacking boxes and there was a prostitute on the corner of my street. A man approached her, grabbed her arm and put money in her hand. For me it was 'Welcome to St Kilda'. I was 12. I was cool with it. I'm one of those people who get shocked in hindsight. It's not until six months later that I think, 'That was really odd'."
He's getting used to the fast-track nature of his life not feeling odd any more. Piterman says: "Everything has happened early for me." At 16 he was running over-age nightclubs in the city. "Everyone assumed I was 18. They thought, 'He wears flashy clothes, he's been around'."
And now, at a youthful 24, he's engaged, to Hayley Missen, 23, whom he met while studying in Ballarat. They will marry in December. "We've planned a big Jewish wedding," he says. "Way too many people. Hopefully I know them all, but I know that I won't. There'll be 275 guests. And that's a small Jewish wedding. I went to one with 550 people."
Piterman as West Side Story's Tony with Julie Goodwin, who is playing Maria.
In conversation, Piterman sounds confident, mature beyond his years and the product of a happy upbringing (he has a 27-year-old sister). His mother Hannah had always encouraged him to pursue what he wanted, and his father Leon eventually came to see that Josh could carve out a successful career on the stage.
"My mum has totally encouraged me always," he says. "She really does adore me and anything I want to do she puts her heart into. Too much sometimes. I have to say, 'Mum, you don't have to read every review, it's not that important'. We have a relationship that is very open. There are no secrets, nothing is hidden."
Leon Piterman, a professor of medicine, took a little longer to embrace some of his son's choices. "When I quit maths he was furious," Piterman says. "He'd paid all these years for a private-school education and thought (about acting), 'This kid doesn't stand a chance in hell'."
It was only when Josh won a place at the University of Ballarat Arts Academy and starred in several of its productions that his father changed his mind. " 'Yep, he's got it', he thought," the young Piterman says. "He came around. He never said it but I knew. I could just feel it."
Piterman's rise has been remarkable. After graduating from the University of Ballarat Arts Academy, he moved to Japan where he was lead singer in the Tokyo Disney Jazz Revue Big Band Beat. He then joined the pop-opera group the Ten Tenors, with whom he toured theatres, concert halls and opera houses across Europe.
"It was a fantastic experience," he says. "We sang in 25 countries in 18 months. It was an endless touring machine. And they were really good lads. It was a real boy's club – opera meets AFL. Between shows we would have kick-to-kick, taking pack marks, out on the turps at night."
When he successfully auditioned for the lead role of Tony in West Side Story – playing opposite rising star Julie Goodwin as Maria – Piterman was overwhelmed. "It's an indescribable feeling when you get that phone call from your agent," he says. "I was in rehearsal for The Drowsy Chaperone (the musical comedy in which he performed with Geoffrey Rush for the Melbourne Theatre Company earlier this year) and I was stunned. And then I just cried.
"It's such a huge role and there's so much stuff going on. It was a dream. I would literally have dreams about this. It's a life-changing role. I now have to watch what I say to people on Facebook. I have to have a website now. I feel a part of me is a business now."
It should have been the happiest chapter of his short life, but two weeks into rehearsals Piterman received devastating news. His mother Hannah was diagnosed with a rare cancer.
"All I could do was hope and pray and you sometimes couldn't help but think the worst."
After some gruelling rehearsals, Piterman would retreat to his hotel room and try to deal with the fear he felt about his mother. "I'm not a drinker, didn't have a Scotch or a red wine. I chatted to Hayley on the phone. She's a rock. She's always supported me."
Piterman took time out from rehearsals and flew from Sydney back to Melbourne and was there when his mother woke up from surgery. "She looked at me and couldn't believe I was there and I couldn't believe she was alive," he says. "Dad was in the room. He led me out and said, 'There's a tiny chance that we may have a miracle, it could be benign'.
A week later it was revealed that the cancer was indeed benign. It had been an emotional rollercoaster. "I was riding her wave," he says. And then, with the good news, came a massive sense of relief. "I could breathe," he says.
Piterman says Rush had been an inspiration to him. "That guy is a mastermind, so inspirational, so intelligent. I would watch him in the show and then later take notes about how he did it and tried to use it in West Side Story. Most people, when rehearsals are over, the character is still, locked away. But Geoffrey is always working on it, always changing. He's big on it never being the same each night."
The young actor witnessed Rush's famed desire to help up-and-comers. "He was very supportive and loving towards me," Piterman says. "When I got the role he said, 'Your life's going to change'. At the media launch I sang Maria and Geoffrey was crying. I'd watched him for so long doing amazing things on the screen and here's Geoffrey watching a nobody who's done no roles before and he's crying. He's a great guy."
Piterman might now be one of the country's blossoming stars but he remains grounded and is still in love with football, including the team he has followed all his life, the Western Bulldogs. "It's a passion and it's like a religion," he says of AFL. "I know my rabbi won't be happy with this quote, but I feel I am more passionate about AFL than I am about Judaism. I don't know why it is that I have to look at (the website) afl.com.au half a dozen times a day. It's a love like no other."
He is sorry for sacked champion Jason Akermanis. "I feel for him personally. To go in there and be told your services are no longer required would have been terrible." As for Big Bad Bustling Barry Hall, Piterman says: "Fifty-seven goals from 16 games answers the question. (Hall bagged seven more after our interview and received personal congratulations from Prime Minister Julia Gillard for his efforts). For a guy who was on his last legs 12 months ago, it's a big turnaround."
Piterman played – mainly at full-forward – for the Glen Iris Gladiators since the under-9s, with Righetti Oval in Kooyong as his home ground. "I was a much better mark than kick," he says. "I should have kicked a lot more bags (of goals) than I did."
While football and musical theatre might appear to be strange bedfellows, Piterman was recently involved in organising a football match involving cast members of stage shows Fame, Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys, West Side Story and Mary Poppins. Had she played, Verity Hunt-Ballard, the star of Mary Poppins, might have been tempted to use her parrot umbrella to soar above some packs for some ridiculous screamers on the rented Elwood oval, but the only miracle on the day was a long bomb from Piterman.
"I kicked one from 60 metres – it bounced one metre in from the line and rolled through," he says. "It was one of the heroic moments. I'll tell my grandkids about it."
He'll no doubt have many other stories to tell them, too.
For the original article, visit The Weekley Review.
