Yesterday I worked with the understudies, who are all lovely people and wonderful actors! With a show that’s so dependent on each stellar performance, it is great to know that we’re all in great hands in case of emergency.
There are four actors who work as the understudies for this show, and each of them understudies two actors: Colleen Quinlan understudies Grace (Julie White) and Caroline (Arija Bareikis). Ben Hollandsworth has learned the roles of Kenny (Tobias Segal) and Charlie (Will Rogers); Amelia Jean understudies Kate (Jenni Barber) and Lauren (Aya Cash); and Baylen Thomas will cover Daniel (Brian Hutchison), Mr. Goldberger, and Officer Stevens (both roles are played by Joel Van Liew). It’s a lot of work! Aside from learning all those lines, the understudies have to learn every piece of blocking exactly, so that if they do go on, the rest of the actors onstage aren’t thrown off by the new performer. It’s a delicate walk to walk - how do you exactly follow the pattern that another actor has created but still find your own artistic process?
The Stage Manager is usually responsible for rehearsing the understudies and our Stage Manager is the Amazing David Lurie. Okay - I know everyone says their Stage Manager is “amazing”; but seriously folks, this guy is in a league of his own. I capitalize the word “Amazing” because I truly believe it’s an official part of his name. It’s like his first name, of three: Amazing David Lurie. Anyway, David has worked with the understudies about five times over the past few weeks - not a lot of time compared to a full rehearsal period - and he has done really excellent work with them.
When the understudies run through the show, they have to do a lot of scenes twice, since each understudy covers more than one actor, and the Assistant Stage Managers read the lines for the other roles. If you think this process sounds confusing, you’re right!
Last week Leigh and I came in to see the understudies run the show and to give them some notes. It was a strange experience watching the run. I hadn’t been to any of the other rehearsals, and suddenly there were four excellent actors doing a show that I’m so used to seeing with the original cast. It was like I had landed in some parallel universe. Everything was the same, and yet it was different. But once I got over that initial shock, I watched how Leigh gave notes to them, helping each of them to understand the character from a deeper perspective and pushing them to think about the larger reality of the story now that they had all the basic moves down so perfectly.
Yesterday was my second day with them, and we had a lot of fun. Since I don’t get to work on the show too much now that it’s opened, it was a great joy to get to re-visit it. I was so impressed to see the way they took notes and implemented them immediately. Obviously they’re all pros, which I knew, but great actors never cease to fill me with a sense of wonder.