I’m currently the only male swing for Broadway’s “Amazing Grace,” a musical about the 17th century English slave trader who wrote the world famous hymn, and the understudy for the lead role of John Newton. Throughout my career, I’ve been an understudy for the Broadway productions of “Beauty and the Beast” as Lumiere, and as Prince Eric in “The Little Mermaid.”
Each show has taught me something completely different about the experience of being an understudy, and you may be surprised by what those lessons are.
1. Rehearsal does not exist. Aside from being a replacement in “Beauty and the Beast,” I had no rehearsal before I went on for Prince Eric, or for John Newton. You are responsible to know the role whether or not you get to do it on its feet. I ran lines in Denver for “The Little Mermaid” with the other understudies between tech scene changes, but when the show moved to New York, all of the lines changed and we had to start over! In Chicago, I was thrown on stage during the first weekend of previews of “Amazing Grace” when an accident happened to our lead actor. (Read my blog about the experience here.) As frightening as this
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