March 12, 2003

It's no accident that a drink special being offered during the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's production of "Fully Committed" at the Stackner Cabaret is called "Midori Surprise." In fact, the mixed drink is named after an accident.

John McGivern has moved from his starring role in "Shear Madness" at the Marcus Center to "Fully Committed," a comedy that focuses on the reservation taker at the hottest restaurant in New York. He's the only actor, playing all 40 characters in the show.

Like so many actors, McGivern's other career has been waiting tables, and he has deep experience in the restaurant business. For several years he worked at Hat Dance, a now closed upscale Mexican-Asian fusion eatery that was in the trendy River North neighborhood of Chicago.

Among the unusual drinks sold at the restaurant was a frozen margarita that contained Midori, a green-colored watermelon liqueur. While serving one, McGivern accidentally spilled it on a customer's blond bouffant hairdo. For the rest of the meal, the woman had green hair.

"She went into the women's room to try to repair it, but her bouffant was combed over in a shade of green," recalled McGivern, who loves to tell the story.

"It was John's most stellar moment as a server, and as soon as I knew he was doing 'Fully Committed' here, I knew we would have to have a Midori special," Kristen Olsen, the Stackner's general manager, explained. The drink won't be a margarita because blenders can't be operated during a performance in the cabaret. The show opens Saturday.

The waiting game There is an obvious reason why actors have historically gravitated toward restaurant work. They have chaotic schedules, performing nights and at matinees, and they have to run off to auditions during a normal work day. Working as a waiter or waitress has the flexibility needed to pursue a job and a career.

"Some people say waiting tables is acting," Olsen said. "You are pretending to like everyone you deal with."

McGivern pretends very well. He was a waiter through the 1980s and early '90s in Chicago, where he starred in a long-running production of "Shear Madness." Thousands of people saw him in the show, so it was inevitable that some would be seated at his tables in the restaurants where he worked.

"They would say, what are you doing?" he recalled. "I had bills to pay.

"Something in the personality of many actors works for waiting tables," he continued. "You have to deal with a mass of people in a moment and make them feel comfortable. There is a connection between theater and restaurants there."

The ebullient McGivern was tipped for his acting while waiting tables at Hat Dance. On several occasions a regular customer who was not seated in the actor's area had his waiter give McGivern an envelope containing $100. A note with the money explained, "you give a lot of joy to people."

When other Hat Dance servers suggested McGivern share the gift with them, he said he replied, "But you don't give joy like I do."

Second act "Fully Committed" is McGivern's performing debut at the Stackner Cabaret, but he waited tables there for six months in 1990, shortly after being released from treatment for cocaine addiction. He had come home to his native Milwaukee to kick his habit, and had to continue his outpatient treatment here before returning to the Chicago "Shear Madness" production.

Olsen was his boss. "He was just as good a waiter as he is an actor," she reported. Olsen added that McGivern's gift for comedy onstage transferred seamlessly to his ability to keep diners happy.

That became especially evident a few years ago, when Olsen was exceedingly short staffed one night. Knowing McGivern was in town visiting his family, she called and asked if he would fill in for a shift.

"He hadn't waited on tables anywhere for several years, but he went home that night with more money than anybody else. He had his customers in stitches," Olsen recalled.

Not all theater people adapt well to waiting tables. McGivern rose through the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group, which owned Hat Dance, to become a divisional trainer. In that position, he hired and trained waiters, bartenders and hosts for a number of eateries.

"I hired the director of 'Shear Madness,' " he said. "He wanted a lunch job. He was really bad at it. At lunch one day, I found him at the wine cooler, bawling. You have to be able to keep a lot of balls in the air, and he couldn't do it."

No peas, please Boulevard Ensemble founder Mark Bucher believes his 20 years of waiting tables at Mader's prepared him for running his own theater company. (Bucher never turned anyone's hair green, but he did dump peas in Sen. Herb Kohl's lap.)

"I learned so much about being an actor and director at Mader's," he said. "It taught me discipline. With eight to 10 tables to serve, you have to know how to see and manage the big picture. Like comedy, waiting tables is all in the timing. I learned multi-tasking before that was in. As a director and producer, you are always doing 16 things at once."

Bucher, who twice was named the Shepherd Express waiter of the year, used his restaurant job to plug his theater company. A notoriously chatty guy, he would steer conversation with his customers around to the Boulevard Ensemble and leave a promotional postcard with the bill.

"I wasn't selling sauerbraten at Mader's. I was selling personality, the experience," he said.

"Fully Committed" is the term some New York restaurants use to say the reservation book has no openings, and that also comes close to describing the ticket situation for the show. Only scattered singles and bar seats remain for the entire Stackner Cabaret run.