Hill singer/actor on ‘Law and Order’ next week

by LEN LEAR

If you stop by a certain house on Mermaid Lane just off Germantown Avenue almost any Friday night (unless they have a paid gig), you will find members of the rock band Bigger Than Plastic partying with friends. (The band’s second CD was the hottest self-produced CD seller for The Wall chain of record stores [now called FYE] in 1999.)

If you’d rather not crash a party, however, but you’d still like to meet the band’s handsome lead singer, composer (they write all their own songs), pianist and guitarist, Joseph Halsey, no problem; you don’t even have to leave your living room. Just tune in to the episode of Law and Order on Wednesday, April 21, 10 p.m., on Channel 10, entitled “Vendetta,” and you as well as millions of other viewers will see him.

Halsey, who grew up in Trenton and moved to Palm Bay, Florida, where he caught the acting bug in high school musicals, moved to New York to attend the legendary Actors’ Studio after graduating from the Florida College of the Arts in St. Augustine. After a few years of living and working in New York, he moved to this area for financial reasons and to maintain his sanity. A member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Recording Artists, Joe often goes to New York two or three times a week for auditions.

“There’s a place called Breakthrough Studios in New York,” he explained, “that offers sessions with casting directors. There I met Claire Traeger, an associate casting director for Law and Order. She interviewed me, and I did a Sam Shepard monologue. A few weeks later they called me in to read for the role of a Mafia character.”

Halsey went to audition for the role with several other actors, but he was eventually rejected because of his size. He is 5 foot, 11 inches, and weighs 155 pounds, not exactly a menacing presence. They hired an actor who was much taller and more than 50 pounds heavier. Joe insists he has lost many jobs because his physical appearance did not match the requirements of the character. In fact, he once lost a six-figure job acting in a cigarette commercial because he did not look old enough. (For beer and cigarette commercials, it’s a custom for companies not to use actors who look younger than 25.)
“I was not crushed, because if I were, I would not be able to last in this business,” said Halsey. “More than 95 percent of the actors face this kind of thing all the time. I learned long ago not to get excited until the contract is signed.”

Two weeks after being rejected by Law and Order, Joe got a call from the same producer asking him to come in again for an audition. This time they were looking for a working class Brooklyn guy hanging out in a bar. This audition had a much more gratifying result.

“They called me and said, ‘You have the job.’ Wow, that was exciting. That was the most exciting thing that has happened to me since I was on The Cosby Show. On The Cosby Show they treated me like a star. I started out with just three lines as a pizza delivery boy, but they liked me, and I wound up in the show’s biggest scene.”

Joe will be in Law and Order’s trademark opening scene April 21 when two or three people have a conversation and then just happen to discover a dead body. (Apparently this is a commonplace occurrence on the streets of New York City.) Joe spent an entire day shooting the scene, but he does not know how many of his lines will wind up on the cutting room floor.

“You never know,” he said. “Once I shot a whole day shooting for America’s Most Wanted. We did a lot of improvisation. But I wound up with just two or three lines after all of the editing. That’s just a part of this business that you have to learn to accept.”

Joe, who is also a martial artist, has appeared on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. He has done television commercials, including one for Saturn automobiles, and lots of regional theater, summer stock and off-Broadway plays. His first role ever was as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, after which he concluded there’s no business like show business.

Joe’s band, Bigger Than Plastic, used to be a three-man punk band, but now it’s a four-man rock band. One of their songs, “Prom Queen,” was first runner-up in the Grammys’ songwriting contest in 2003. They have played locally at clubs like Pontiac and Dreams, as well as Q-102, WMMR and WYSP radio events. They recently signed a management contract with Philadelphia-based American Artists Entertainment Group, which is trying to get them a recording deal.

Like so many other actors, Halsey has often had to wait on tables and tend bar to pay the bills. He concedes that many performers burn out after years of financial uncertainly, almost constant rejection, disruption of personal life and inability to plan for the future.

“You can be on a national TV show one day, and the next day you’re working in a restaurant, and the manager yells out, ‘Hey, you, clean the coffee pot.’ Believe me, if you are not humble, you are done in this business.”

In addition to his upcoming appearance on one of TV’s top-rated shows, Halsey will be interviewed about his show business experiences on Friday, April 16, at 10 a.m., on Channel 10’s “10” show. Does Joe think he will be an eventual burnout, or will he be one of the few who make show business their life’s work?

“I will definitely be doing this 25 years from now,” insists Halsey, “even if it’s dinner theater or making documentaries or doing commercial jingles or producing. There are certainly highs and lows, but the creative process is just so much fun and so exciting.

“I admit I love the attention and showing what I am capable of doing. I did the show Picnic in college, and some people came backstage afterwards in tears. That’s why we do it in spite of everything, because of the chance to move people. I just want to make a living in the arts, one way or the other.”