(upbeat music) Recently, my colleague, Mary Gamba, in our sister series, "Lessons in Leadership," sat down with Mary's son, Joey Gamba and they were just like, "What, are we interviewing everyone's kid?"

No, Joey is a talented young actor.

He just got accepted into NYU, their School of the Arts over there, the drama class, the Tisch, NYU Tisch, drama class of 2027.

Why is it relevant?

We talked to Joe about the field of acting.

We talked about rejection and grit and staying in the game because we're doing, as part of our "Arts Connection" series, on One-on-One, interviewing young artists who are getting into the business at a very challenging time and so, we kick off our "Arts Connection," young artists mini series with Joey Gamba, Mary's son, but a lot more than that.

Check it out.

- Lessons in leadership.

Mary Gamba, it is not "Take Your Kid to Work Day".

It is not, it is time to have Joey Gamba on the show.

Mary, why don't you introduce that kid who you've known for 17 years.

- That's so funny.

Yeah, yeah, 17 years.

He's gonna be 18 on May 5th, so right around the corner.

Fun fact about Joey, he was born on May 5th, 2005.

So 05/05/05.

But unfortunately he was born at 5:03 PM so he couldn't have waited two more minutes, Joey.

That would've been another fun fact.

- That's on you.

Don't blame that on me.

(laughing) - Why don't you guys work out your stuff at home?

But here's the thing.

Joey is not on the show because of the birthdate and all that information.

Mary, tell everyone why we have Joe on.

- Yeah, so we've been doing a whole series on One-on-One, our sister series, it's called the Arts Connection, but it's also about leadership.

It's about youth leadership in the arts.

Joey just recently accepted an offer.

He committed to belong to NYU Tisch in New York City.

So we're super excited about that.

He is gonna be studying drama, so that was a really long process, and as Steve and I were talking, we said, Hey, you wanna know what let's do a feature, just, you know, on Joey, but about really what young artists are going through and the challenges they face and really why adults especially need to be supporting the arts.

- And it will be a whole range of younger folks in the arts as part of our Arts Connection series that our executive producer Georgette Timoney will lead the effort.

Joe, let me ask you, you make this decision to go to NYU, but there are a whole range of things Mary and I were talking offline.

We talk about you and your brother and our kids, my wife and our kids.

We talk about you behind your back all the time.

So here's the thing.

We know that in addition to filling out applications there are a lot of video auditions that had to be sent all over the place.

You've performed in all kinds of stage plays, all kinds, right, all kinds of things, yes.

The most recent include?

- So the most recent show I just finished up was Sunday in the Park with George, which was at my high school.

When did you know, Mary's tired of me here, and Georgette is as well, one-on-one.

I always ask actors, performers, artists, when did you know that the arts, that performing would be a part of your life?

- That's a great question.

I didn't begin actually doing theater until eighth grade which wasn't that long ago.

Only a little over four years ago.

But I had been doing little performance type things throughout my entire life.

But one thing I'll never forget is in my seventh grade yearbook, my public speaking teacher wrote in my yearbook 'cause he was also the director for the shows: "You better come do the show next year."

And so that's what motivated me to go and audition for that first show.

And also one other thing is for my birthday that year, my mom, thank you mom, got me tickets to go see Hamilton, which was the first Broadway show I remember seeing.

I saw The Lion King when I was like six.

But-- - What did Hamilton do for you?

- What was that?

- What did Hamilton do for you?

- When I watched Hamilton, I had a moment of just knowing that I wanted to do what they were doing.

I saw them and I am sitting in a seat in the mezzanine of the Richard Rogers Theater bawling my eyes out next to my mom in a theater of 800-plus people who are all being connected and brought together around this story that really occurred hundreds of years ago yet it still can impact us today.

- Well Joey, Joey put it in perspective just so people know.

So when you apply to go for a BFA, a Bachelor's of Fine Art and Acting, so just share how many applications, I mean just quickly, of course, 30 seconds or less, applications, interviews, pre-screens, et cetera.

- So I applied to 21 schools, which the normal amount is between 20 and 25 is normally the aim for BFA students.

I applied to three schools academically.

The other 18 were audition based.

So for all 18 of them, I had to audition for 15 of them.

I had pre-screens, I passed 14 of them.

So then I had 17 live auditions to go to.

I think about seven were of them were virtual and about 10 of them were in person.

So there were multiple times where I would take the train into the city by myself, go audition in front of a panel of four or five people, and then take the train back home.

- Joe, real quick, you mentioned the arts, you mentioned acting.

Rejection.

I ask every actor, every performer, listen, I tell Mary all the time, I lost count on the number of networks that fired me or told me, they're like, don't come back tomorrow.

- You're fired.

- Yeah, my contract wasn't, rejection.

A huge part of that world, you're ready to do this, Joe, to be rejected.

I'm not trying to be negative but rejection is part of the business.

It's not the exception.

It's the rule.

- It is.

And my answer to that would be, now I am.

You can ask my mom and she will attest to this.

When I was in eighth grade and I auditioned for my first show, I got ensemble.

And when I auditioned for my second show, I got ensemble.

And both times I'm bawling my eyes out that I didn't get a call back.

This is the end of the world.

Also, to be fair, after auditioning and getting ensemble twice, I tried convincing her to let me go to a performing arts high school.

But that's besides the point.

(laughing) But that rejection, and I know you used the word grit a lot, is what helped me build my own grit.

- Hey Joe, thank you.

We'll be having a whole range of conversations with other young artists.

We wish you nothing but the best and we're looking forward to seeing you wherever you're gonna be performing down the road.

You got a very bright future young man.

Thank you, Joe.

- Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for having me.

- That's Mary's kid.

That's Mary and Bill Gamba's kid, Joe.

- I made that.

(laughing) - Leave it alone.

All right, we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Let'’s be healthy together.

PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

New Jersey Institute of Technology.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Johnson & Johnson.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

PSC.

And by The North Ward Center.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

How do you create change?

By cultivating hope.

And we see that every day, in the eyes of our preschoolers, in the souls of the seniors in our adult day program, in the minds of the students at Robert Treat Academy, a national blue ribbon school of excellence, in the passion of children in our youth leadership development program, in our commitment to connections at the Center for Autism, and in the heart of our community, the North Ward Center, creating opportunities for equity, education, and growth.