The Tony Nominees Reveal Their Worst Survival Jobs!

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. We're at the Sofitel NYC, which is the official hotel of the 2019 Tony Awards

And we're here at the Tony Honors Cocktail Party, where I asked many of this year's nominees what their worst survival job was, and this is what they had to say

I was a janitor before I went to grad school. I got up at five in the morning and I would scrub the floors and the toilets in the group showers of a male dorm

Probably the worst job I ever had other than performing was chopping cotton in the cotton fields of Oklahoma

I worked as a waitress and I learned how to carry eight plates on my arm

So all is not lost if art fails. I used to answer phones for Eartha Kitts agent

I used to play cocktail piano at the Westwood in Garwood, New Jersey, while people ate fried calamari

I worked the puppet theater at Macy's as an elf, and that did not mean that I was actually doing the puppetry

I was just shuttling kids in, handing out candy canes, and singing Christmas songs

Okay, the worst job I had was working the cash register at Barney's New York

just dealing with very ornery, old, rich, white women. I was a singing telegram for a year and a half of my life A lot of the time they were apology telegrams and the people did not want to receive that gesture from that person I worked for the U of M Telefund and I would just make calls to alumni and say

Hey, it's Celia and I'm a freshman at the University of Michigan and I know you paid $50,000 to go to school here

but we were wondering if you had a little bit more to spare. When I was first starting out, I worked as a cashier slash waitress at the U.S. Steakhouse in the Time Life Building

But it was a union waitress job, which was good. I was finishing college, and I was cutting everyone's hair in the dorm for $5

Not $5 footlong, $5 haircuts by Pope. I worked at various diners

I worked at one that was an all-night, like the 24-hour diner

The vibe was like always crazy, but the tips were good at that hour of the night

I had to work as a receptionist at a gym, and we were getting paid like minimum wage

and the only reason that I did it was so that I get a free gym membership, but I didn't even have any time to work out. It sucked

I would say the worst non-theater job I ever had was being a promo chick for a sports company

being a shill for a company that I didn't have an allegiance to

There was a New York City work program for minimum wage which at the time was an hour You would have different jobs So I worked for the Environmental Protection Agency testing the air for pollution I worked the front desk at Martha Graham Dance Company and I worked in Bryant Park picking up trash

with a stick with a nail on the end. I had to dress as the Lizard King for a corporate event

I had to dance with corporate executives who didn't want to be with me

It was a Star Wars bar-themed event. I first walked into Abercrombie and Fitch on Fifth Avenue

I see all the models there, and a friend of mine was working there. I was like, I can get you a job. I was like, oh, that's going to be cool

I get there and I get the job and I'm thinking I'm going to be a model. They're like, no, take your little butt to the back and help me fold these clothes

I had to decorate cookie cakes and I don't have any skill in decorating cookie cakes

And I was yelled at by customers because I was so bad. I used to be a babysitter

I had a couple of terrible toddlers that I had to wrangle

I worked at a place called The Pop Shop and the only thing they sold was juice, canned beverages, seltzer, etc

And when I knew I was going to leave, I took a month and tried every single flavor

I'm so sorry. I worked in a cherry factory where I sorted cherries 12 hours a day

I took out the bad cherries, put them in a little garbage, and then took out the unripe cherries to make maraschino cherries with later

It was like a waitress, but we weren't getting tips. We were in a senior living home and I spilled coffee on an elderly person in a lap I worked at a deli and I had to get there at like five in the morning and put together all of the potato salads and the macaroni salads and then make sandwiches for horrible people and just sweating and feeling rage

So it really prepared me for preview periods in New York City

The worst survival job I ever had was like those people you see in Times Square inside the costumes

I did that at the Javits Center for a game show. It was horrible

I worked in the back of a dollar store, and my job was to encase fake gold teeth

And I got paid a dollar per box that I did, and each box was like 30 teeth. My worst job was a rollerblading leak in a shopping mall

I was promoting vegetables to English people. I didn't have armholes, so when I needed the restroom

I had to fall against the wall and slide out of my costume. Thank you

I was a waitress at Marie Callender's. I was terrible at my job. You never knew what food you were going to get or when you were going to get it

The worst tip I ever got, I thought it was great. It was a dollar bill, but a patron ripped it in half

They were willing to ruin money to let me know how bad I was as a waitress

I'm not cut out for that business. But I did it all to do theater

But it was not, how do you say, enjoyable. And now I'm on Broadway. It all paid off

And now I'm at the Tony Awards. Now I'm making magic in the theater

So stay in line, kids. Now here I am, sucka