Chris Perfetti might be burned into your brain as an anxious history teacher at Abbott Elementary, but his heart, and his apartment, is in New York. The actor moved to Brooklyn in 2011 after graduating from SUNY Purchase and assumed he’d work day jobs in restaurants while slogging through auditions, but he was cast in Sons of the Prophet at Roundabout just a few months after he got here. “I would take TV jobs to support my theater habit,” Perfetti says, now filming in Los Angeles. But he comes home to New York “as soon as they call cut,” he says. While between scenes on the latest season of Abbott Elementary, we talked about his first Bed-Stuy apartment, the rise and fall of exposed brick, and being the guy who brings his bike on the train.
I have a pretty small existence. I grew up in upstate New York, near Canada, and I went to drama school in Westchester at SUNY Purchase, so moving to New York seemed like the natural progression — I was getting closer and closer. When I graduated, my only options were to either go to New York or L.A. I wanted to do plays, but I didn’t want to be a narcissistic squirrel. So, New York seemed like the only option for me.
I moved to Brooklyn right after drama school in May of 2011 into the heart of Bed-Stuy, which truly is as far from a train as you can get, with my best friend, Sophia. We were on Madison between Lewis and Stuyvesant. We got this apartment that would be considered the steal of the century now, but it seemed like so much money at the time. I remember telling my mom what half of the rent was and hearing her gasp. I think it was $1,600 split between two people, definitely less than $2,000, sub-one thousand per person. It was more money than I had ever spent on rent.
The apartment was gorgeous, with two bedrooms on opposite sides of the space. We had a skylight, and we thought that was so dope. We spent a lot of time on the roof. We ended up having some parties up there, but it was tricky because half of the roof was over our apartment, and the other half was over our neighbor’s apartment. We had to sort of wrangle cats and make sure that people didn’t walk on the other side of the roof. The apartment had that thing — what some might consider tacky now — of being able to market itself as having exposed brick because they had chosen to not finish one of the walls. It served us very well.
It was right in the center of the triangle of Bed-Stuy, and so it was like a real hike to get food, do laundry, or get to the train, but it was a beautiful part of the neighborhood and a great space. And everybody who moves into New York kind of figures out a new routine and a new rhythm anyway — so you do it all at once, or you borrow somebody’s car, or life just becomes easier. I remember in the early days of us moving in, we made burgers and we went up to the roof to eat them, and the sun was setting. Some random fireworks started going off. Not that I needed an overly cinematic moment to make me feel welcome in New York, but it certainly seared itself into my mind.
I knew I wanted to be in New York before I had ever visited New York. Every time I visited a place that was slightly more progressive than where I grew up, I just became hungry for more. When I was in college, we would come into the city on weekends or if we didn’t have rehearsal or something. Drama school was close enough that you could take the Metro North in. New York always seemed like the end all be all. I remember my parents dropping me off and being terrified that I was living in the city. They didn’t come much, usually when I was in a play. Dad would rarely spend the night; he’d drive down in the afternoon and return that evening. I was probably a bad son and didn’t really invite them much. It was the perfect distance for us.
I went to school with people from all over the country, but a good handful of them grew up in New York City, so I had them around me to show me how to live. Nobody really moved to L.A. after school, so we just stuck together. I would meet new friends outside of Playwrights Horizons or in the Signature Theatre lobby, or late-night queerdos, people who who slept until noon. I just wanted to be around people who were around my age and let the city sweep them up. My friend Emily used to bartend at this bar called Midway in Williamsburg, which is a real dive. I ended so many nights there. There was really nothing special about the bar other than her and the fact that I’ve been there at 6 in the morning so many times. That’s not true. There are pinball machines. Twinkly red lights in a photo booth. I think some of my fondest memories are there. The real meeting point for my friends was Grassroots Tavern — not to be confused with Glass House Tavern. We would have every birthday and every major event there. There was cheap beer and free popcorn. They all blur together, but I spent many nights in Bushwick warehouses. Before living in New York, I went to House of Yes. It was like going to the circus. It was so fun.
I had a friend of a friend who had hooked me up with this job at a theater-adjacent restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. I remember serving Tony Kushner crab cake within the first month that I had moved to New York. That was such a surreal moment for me. I mean in the early days I was on a serious budget. So it was the staff meal at the restaurant — sometimes that was it and brown rice and sardines. And Green Symphony — because it’s Green Symphony. I could never remember which day they were closed, and I think it’s Mondays because they’re on a theater schedule, but I used to always go there. I only worked at the restaurant for a few months because, in July, I got my first part in New York. I quit the restaurant job immediately. They weren’t thrilled, but I think they were used to that sort of thing, employing mostly actors. I didn’t realize that the show wasn’t going to start for a couple of months, so I starved for a little bit. The play was Sons of the Prophet, by Stephen Karam, at Roundabout Off Broadway. It was a huge deal for me. It really kind of set things in motion for me. That first play was incredibly validating in terms of feeling like I belong. I wasn’t expecting to get something that quickly. One of the beautiful things about being an actor and working from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. is that the majority of the world is on a different schedule, and so you get to kind of exist outside that. You get to see shit that other people don’t.
And I never took cabs. Just the train and biking. My bike was partially stolen the first time I locked up outside the Utica train station. That day, I learned that you need to lock both wheels. I think I got another bike, which became the easiest way to get around. I was that annoying person who would bring their bike on the subway, and everybody just wanted to strangle him. I am sorry for those people who lived between the Roundabout Theatre and Bed-Stuy.
I found out that I got that part when I was at Lincoln Center. Whenever I am near there, I always receive a phone call with either horrible or amazing news. That place holds a lot of good and bad memories for me. I used to spend a lot of time at the Lincoln Center Library, reading something or watching a play from the archives that were before my time or. I’ve seen so many things at LCT3, which produces shows by new playwrights. Lincoln Center is a beautiful space where so many rich people intermix with not rich people to see things, and anyone can be there. It feels magical to me.
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