From the The Union Leader news.

January 28, 2002 John Clayton: Bill Hartery lives his dream By JOHN CLAYTON In the City There’s an interesting duality surrounding “Cats.” Not the four-legged variety (although I must admit there is a serious love ’em or hate ’em thing about the feline kind that we shall bravely address at a future date). Today, we are referring to the upper-case “Cats,” as in the play. The duality exists in the minds of the audience. Mention “Cats” to hoity-toity theater types — snobs who favor ascots, smoking jackets and boring plays by Harold Pinter — and it triggers a violent physical reaction akin to coughing up a hairball. Then there are the rank-and-file, once-in-a-while theater-goers — Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, if you will — who’ve taken to “Cats” the way a cat takes to tuna; with a visceral, voracious embrace that has, to the tune of two billion dollars, outpaced any show in the history of musical theater. Those are the folks who will be out in force tomorrow (and for the three weeks to follow) as “Cats” comes to the Shubert Theatre in Boston. For our purposes today, foremost amongst the vast cast of “Cats” is Bill Hartery, the 1997 West High graduate for whom a Boston engagement is like a long-awaited home stand. “I’m counting the days, believe me,” he said, when I caught up with him by phone in Fort Lauderdale a while back. “We opened in July and there was a month of rehearsal before that, so it’s been eight months on the road. “When we get to Boston, it will be crazy for me,” he added. “It’s going to be like ‘Bill Hartery! This is your life!’ I’ve got van-loads of former teachers going all the way back to elementary school who know I’m in the show and they’re all coming to see me. I know I won’t have a minute’s rest, but I won’t mind a bit.” Now a bit about his part. It’s anything but a bit-part. Bill plays an old cuss named Gus. The character — originally crafted by poet T.S. Eliot (from his book “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”) and honed by playwright Andrew Lloyd Webber — is everything Bill Hartery is not. Gus is a fallen star, a world-weary, has-been of an actor kind-of-cat. This stands in stark contrast to Bill who, at 23, is just a kitten. “But that’s the challenge for me,” he said. “Gus is amazing. Without a doubt he’s one of the most in-depth characters in the show. In human years, he’d be about 85 years old, so as a 23-year-old, I’m not only portraying the physical and vocal traits of an 85-year-old, but I’m also trying to play a character who has this deep, rich history.” Stories of Bill’s precociousness are just as rich. “He wasn’t even two years old yet,” said his mom, Donna Hartery, “and when I walked by his high chair, I swear he was humming the National Anthem. His father (that’s Andy Hartery) would watch every sporting event on TV, and I think the first tune that stuck in Bill’s mind was ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ “By the time he started at St. Anthony’s,” she added, “Sister Muriel put him on stage with a microphone and we couldn’t get him off. It wasn’t even a real stage. He was on a table, but he had an audience. He’s wanted to sing as long as we can remember.” Bill remembers a sixth-grade role in “Pinocchio” as his epiphany. “It was the first time in my life I felt whole, where things really clicked into place — the people I was with and the things I was doing,” he told Steve Wildsmith, a reporter from The Daily Times of Maryville, Tenn., during a less-than-glamorous November tour date. “I said, ‘Yeah, this is what I need to do.’ ” He’s been doing it ever since, learning the ropes with local troupes like the New Thalian Players at Notre Dame College, the New Hampshire Performing Arts Center, Stage One Productions in Manchester, the Theatre Knights at West High and with the Seacoast Repertory Theatre in Portsmouth. It was there in Portsmouth, during a Seacoast Repertory production of “Fame,” that Bill met Richard Stafford. “Somebody said to me, ‘Did you know Richard was involved with ‘Cats’ on Broadway for 14 years?’ All of a sudden my perspective on ‘Cats’ changed. I only had a small part in ‘Fame.’ I didn’t even sing, but with the little Richard saw me do, one day he pulled me aside and said, ‘What are you doing here? How come I haven’t seen you auditioning in New York?’ “He asked me to keep in touch. He said he was going to be doing a production of ‘Cats’ once it left Broadway and he thought I’d be a tremendous Gus.” Richard Stafford was right. In city after city — from Atlantic City to the City by the Bay — reviewers go out of their way to cite Bill’s performance as one of the show’s highlights. “William Hartery was a winsome Gus,” said Providence Journal critic William Gale — (incidentally, “winsome” means “having an engagingly attractive manner”) — while Carol Cling, a critic for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, told readers that “William Hartery demonstrates notable vocal range as the doddering theater cat Gus.” Like Richard Stafford, Richard Maynard can say he knew it all along. “I’ll be there at the Shubert Tuesday night,” said the West High choral director. “What a combination when you have the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the poetry of T.S. Eliot. Then you put in Bill Hartery? You’ve got the cream of the crop. “It’s very exciting to have a former student make it to this level,” he added, “but I think this is just a step. He has a great future, but to realize it, he had to get in the door and this is getting him in.” Your chances of getting into the theater in the weeks ahead? They may be slim. “It’s hard to say,” his mother explained. “Originally, they told Bill the show was going to be at the Wang Center and he was bouncing off the ceiling, but now it’s going to be at the Shubert which is much smaller. When they were in Atlanta, they were just about sold out every night in a theater that held 4,000. The Shubert holds 1,600, so it might be a tough ticket.” The ticket may be as tough as the row Bill has to hoe if he’s going to follow his dream all the way to Broadway. “Being a non-union actor,” he explained, “one of the big steps is to join the union. If I were to get cast in a Broadway show, I’d automatically get my equity card, but the logical progression is to do a non-equity tour like this, do some off-Broadway then some New York regional theater. Those are the little steps that lead up to getting cast in a major show.” Meanwhile, what he’s doing is . . . well, it’s the cat’s meow. “For the life of me, before I was in the show, I couldn’t understand the appeal,” he said. “I had never seen nor heard the show and to be honest, I had no interest. I had heard ‘Memory’ — as has everyone — but I didn’t know what the big deal was. “Now I know,” he added. “Now that I’m in it and doing it every night, a big part of the appeal is the sheer spectacle. It’s so grandiose in every way. It’s the lighting, the outrageous costumes and make-up, the dancing and the music, all of it.” In short, it’s the fantasy. Bill’s had enough fantasy for a while. “Playing in Boston is as close as I can get to playing in Manchester,” he said. “To see my family and friends again will be a wonderful dose of reality.” (John Clayton’s newest book is a collection of veterans-related stories entitled “New Hampshire: War and Peace.” His Web site is www.johnclayton.net)

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