Directing: Emergency Understudy

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Emergency Understudy

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Directing
Forum Discription: For questions about handling shows, actors, crew, board members, children ...or do we repeat ourselves?
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3152
Printed Date: 5/17/24 at 2:00am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 8.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Emergency Understudy

Posted By: tonyboling
Subject: Emergency Understudy
Date Posted: 5/01/08 at 5:11pm

I'm not directly involved with the show but the last show of our season is Seussical The Musical. What happened was that the kid playing Jojo the Tuesday before opening night (a friday) got laryngitis. The director (who was just cast as Billy Bigelow in next years Carousel on the West End, we're all proud) pulled aside a "Who" who played superbly, Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker a month prior to be Jojo for the first weekend. She was told on Wednesday and took off Thursday and Friday to learn all the lines and did extra rehearsal. The original Jojo was on stage for Thursday preview but the director sang the songs from off-stage (all falsetto!)

Well come Friday at call, the stage manager tells the Jojo understudy that she won't be going on because the original got better.

Now I heard from someone who has been on the board of directors for the past 15 years that in situations like this they give the understudy a show as thanks for the hard work and hustle done in a very short amount of time. This time however the stage manager called it and instead of a show she'll get a "thank-you" bow.

Now I haven't been involved for that long but does that seem right to anyone? I get that once opening night happens it's not the director's show anymore but wow.

I guess it's also important that the stage manager also happens to be the current president.

Replies:

Posted By: chel
Date Posted: 5/01/08 at 9:39pm

The only time I've seen understudies guaranteed a show was for The Sound of Music and they had an understudy for each of the children's roles. Since they learned everything they were given their own performances for one weekend.

In all other understudy scenarios, if the lead gets better then everything goes back to normal. No special performance for the emergency understudy. Bummer. Nice of the SM to give a thank you bow.

-------------
chel

www.windhamtheaterguild.org

Posted By: tonyboling
Date Posted: 5/01/08 at 10:38pm

Under other circumstances I might agree, but in the past 20 years our CT has always given 1 performance to an understudy. It should be known that understudys are never cast or set. They rarely ever need one.

It just seems sort of crappy after this poor girl killed herself to save the show and she get's squat....What's also sad is that she was actually better than the kid that was originally cast.