DATE: Saturday, September 20, 1997          TAG: 9709190086

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER

                                            LENGTH:  123 lines

A COAST-TO-COAST PURSUIT OF STARDOM

TORREY RUSSELL was 21 when a swirling in his soul said it was time to fly.

The months of introspection had subsided. At the Greyhound bus station in Norfolk, he slid his last $89 across the counter for a one-way ticket to Los Angeles.

A few days later, he was standing in front of the accordion doors of a westbound bus, and almost everyone he cares about was standing there too. His aunts and uncles passed him an envelope with $300 inside. His church gave him $120, and other friends pressed folded $10 bills into his palm.

Torrey kept smiling; he was going into show biz after all. He smiled until he saw his Aunt Rebecca crying. Then he saw his friend Jon Uranski crying. Then he cried, too.

I've got to do this, Torrey thought as he stepped onto the bus. He slid into one of the high-backed seats and leaned his forehead against the window.

``Why are there 30 people out there saying goodbye to you?'' asked a traveler across the aisle. ``Are you a star?''

Sixteen months later, the answer is ``not yet.''

Torrey has no affinity for film. Theater is his passion, a live audience the staff of his life. He's never considered college or any other career. Not even on those endless bus rides to North Carolina, New York and L.A. Not even when greatness seems to move in and out of his grasp like lunar tides.

``Theater,'' he said, ``is basically my life.''

In high school, Torrey Russell was a big name in a little theater company called the Norfolk Public Schools Performing Arts Repertory. As a chubby seventh-grader, he arrived at the director's door and pleaded for a position when he knew full well that only high school students were eligible.

Director Connie Hindmarsh saw a ``spark,'' something precious and rare in a boy from Torrey's background, something not to be doused by protocol. She called Torrey's principal to see whether the rules could be bent.

``Torrey had already set it all up,'' Hindmarsh recently recalled, still impressed after all these years.

Torrey endured a difficult childhood. There was abuse, sometimes not enough food and usually not enough money. His aunts and uncles helped teach him the difference between right and wrong with love, family dinners and a litany of wise words.

Don't keep people waitin'. Never hold a grudge. Keep God first in your life.

Still, Torrey bore the marks of the street.

``I was a proud speaker of Ebonics,'' Torrey said, with the diction of a CNN anchor. Hindmarsh quickly let him know that just wouldn't do.

``A person who is self-confident, a person who speaks clearly will always get a job,'' Hindmarsh told him, ``in business or at McDonald's.''

Torrey would eventually test Hindmarsh on both accounts.

Torrey graduated from Lake Taylor High in 1994. A few months later, he was bungling across the Chrysler Hall stage as Wrong Arm Roy, a misfit dancer in ``A Chorus Line,'' a show that got dismal local reviews. But that part led to an assistant directorship with a production of ``Five Guys Named Mo'' in Raleigh, N.C.

Torrey's trajectory seemed set. When that job ended, his Chrysler Hall contacts called for help casting a local children's choir for an April 1995 production of ``Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' starring Sam Harris. He arranged transportation and hot meals for the children. There were no footlights for him, but he was inside the theater.

Then the lights dimmed further. Torrey began working at the ticket window at the Wells Theater. Always the optimist, Torrey believes it was an opportunity to ``learn the mathematical part of the theater.''

That spring, his favorite aunt, Rebecca Archer of Norfolk, sat him down. She sensed that Torrey was fixated on his career but that he had neglected the spiritual. ``There's one main beam missing,'' she said. ``Do this and then your life will start moving forward.''

Torrey joined New Calvary Baptist Church in Norfolk. A week later, he was on the bus to L.A.

Torrey moved in with his Norfolk Repertory co-star Dee Collins, who was in L.A. earning a living dancing in MTV videos. Torrey got work at McDonald's, where he spent four weeks singing Broadway tunes to patrons at the drive-thru. He was named employee of the month.

The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is a mecca for theater buffs in the land of film. Torrey got a promotions job and did other odd tasks. Chloris Leachman, who was starring in ``Showboat,'' heard Torrey singing and helped him get an ensemble role as a slave hand. He was back in the footlights.

Always searching for the next role, he auditioned in March 1996 for Da Voice in ``Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk,'' a musical now on Broadway. More than 150 men auditioned that day. Torrey was one of 50 called back for a second audition

But the audition was in New York. It was time to move East, nearer the hub of the theater world.

For 4 1/2 days, Torrey rode a Greyhound bus, wondering as the wheat fields whizzed by whether he was doing the right thing. After all, he made enough money to pay his $750-a-month rent in L.A., to eat and buy clothes. Everything Torrey had had been stolen from his apartment, but he had rebounded from that. Now he was giving up security for a five-minute audition in New York.

In Norfolk, he spent the days before the audition practicing endlessly. Three days after the audition, the phone jangled. Torrey was one of three finalists. The dream was so close. It seemed real. And so soon.

At the final audition, Torrey listened as the others sang for choreographer Savion Glover and director George C. Wolf.

``The audition is the hardest part of performing,'' Torrey said afterward. ``It's absolutely terrifying. It's like being a prostitute. You have to look good, sell yourself and hope someone will buy it.''

Throughout the audition, Glover and Wolf stared at Torrey's resume, not at him.

``Then they said: `Thanks for coming. You have a great voice. Stick with it. We think you're too young for this part, but if you're going to be in town, they will be holding auditions for ``Grease'' across the street. Thank you.' ''

And that was it. The dream receded.

``Rejection is part of this life,'' Torrey said. He's lifted up by the fact that he has auditioned for a Broadway show in front of people who had won Tony awards and they liked him.

After the audition, Torrey stayed with an aunt, Racine Willis, in the Bronx, doing as many auditions as possible before boarding the bus back to Norfolk, where he has been watching videos of his shows, trying to detect flaws in his performances.

Come back to New York, Aunt Racine offered. Stay with her while going from cattle call to cattle call to cattle call.

It's taken some time to decide, but this week Torrey boarded a bus bound for New York, this time with all his clothes, a few contacts and a dream that he just knows will come true. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Torrey Russell has his sights set on a Broadway theater career. KEYWORDS: LOCAL ACTOR PROFILE

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