Musical veteran Marc Ginsburg was born in Philadelphia and raised in nearby Bensalem, Pennsylvania.
Imagine your job entails going to work every day not knowing exactly what task will be required of you, or doing nothing but watching others work.
Welcome to Marc Ginsburg’s world.
The Philadelphia-born actor is a musical-theater veteran whose credits include a four-year-stint in the Disneyland production of “Aladdin” and tours of “Oliver!” and “The Band’s Visit.” He’s now touring nationally with “Beetlejuice,” a musical version of the 1988 film that checked into the city’s Academy of Music recently for a six-day, eight-show run.
You may very well have seen Ginsburg there. Then again, you may not.
His job in the musical – cutely titled “Beetlejuice The Musical! The Musical! The Musical!” – is that of “swing” performer, meaning he fills in for the actors portraying supporting characters, as well as the lead. Ginsburg may also be called on to be part of the ensemble.
“I come to the theater every night,” he explained in a Zoom call from Toronto. “I sit in my dressing room if I’m not on, and I make sure I’m listening, paying attention, just in case, because it’s happened before, where we’ve gotten a call on the PA system either immediately before a show or even during a show saying, ‘Marc, come to the office’ or ‘Whoever come to the office’ and we go in, find out that somebody is sick, injured, whatever it may be.
“And we’re on.”
While swing performers may not know what’s required of them until they show up at the theater, uncertainty isn’t necessarily the norm, according to Ginsburg, who was raised in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.
“They usually are really great with letting us know at least two hours in advance if somebody’s going to be out,” he said. “But that’s just if somebody can’t (make that performance). We also have a big old sheet of vacation days and personal days that they try to block out. So, there are times when I’ve had guaranteed performances during (someone else’s) vacation or personal day.
“But normally, my day is, I wake up and I get ready to go as if I’m going to be in the show.”
It’s an immutable fact of show business that healthy egos are common in any performer, regardless of medium. So while it can’t be easy for Ginsburg to arrive at work knowing he won’t set foot on stage, he insists he’s made peace with that facet of his professional life.
“When this was offered to me,” he recalled, “my agent said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to perform every night?’ Because I had never been a swing before. I never just had to be in the building. And I said, ‘No, I think this is going to be a great learning experience. This seems like a really busy, energetic show; I feel like I’m going to get my reps in.’
“And I was right.”
Ginsburg’s daily routine is to prepare for being on stage.
“I wake up every morning and I try to prep like I’m going to be on every day,” he noted. “I’ll wake up, I’ll have my vitamins. I’ll do some warming up. I take some electrolytes just to make sure that I’m properly hydrated and … warm up my body, warm up my voice.
“And if I’m on, I’m on. If I’m not, I’m not.”
Ginsburg, who earned a bachelor’s in fine arts at Penn State, has long paid the bills by working in musical theater. But his earliest forays were in dramatic works, so he approaches all of his roles – even in musical comedies – from that perspective.
“While musicals have always been my first love,” he pointed out, “I’ve always considered myself an actor who sings well. I was never someone who … just blew the roof off the place. I was never that guy. I always thought I was more of a song interpreter.
“My favorite stuff is heavy drama,” Ginsburg added. “I love digging deep. I love playing villains, but not as villains. That’s the fun part, because I don’t think anybody believes that they’re bad, that they’re a villain.
You have to make them relatable in some way and find a way to convince the audience that this person doesn’t believe what they’re doing is bad.”
Ginsburg is happy to occasionally play Beetlejuice, the seemingly malevolent spirit at the story’s center.
“I try to bring a lot of that to Beetlejuice, because he’s an agent of chaos,” the actor related. “He’s a demon. He messes with people. He’s setting things on fire and doing a full-on exorcism on one of the characters and what have you. But he’s fun. He’s a blast and everybody loves him.
“But there’s something about him that from the very beginning says, ‘I’m invisible and powerless,'” Ginsburg continued. “And toward the end of the show, he says, ‘I’m tired of being alone.’ (The character of) Lydia calls him the loneliest guy she’s ever met.”
Ginsburg likes to explore the inner lives of people he plays.
“Whether it’s a good guy, a bad guy or a funny guy, I try to find out why these people are doing the things that they’re doing,” he said. “It sounds artsy-fartsy, but what’s their motivation? What makes these characters act the way they do and be the way they are?
“That’s what makes it interesting to me.”
For tickets and information, go to ensembleartsphilly.com.
