295 replies to this topic

[Matthew Winn]

On the 27th March, me and my family went to see Avenue Q in the evening

I was at the same performance.

So the show started and of course you had everyone there ,then it went on to one of my favourite songs' If you were gay', and Simon Lipkin was so funny during this, but he was not on stage for the rest of the show after that song so we had Luke Evans as Trekkie, Nicky and bad idea bear. He was so good and definitly deserves the right to perform in a main role at some point,(but not in this as i love Simons Nicky, he just so sweet). It wasnt till after the show , i found out that Simons voice practically went after 'If you were gay'. So although we didnt see Simon for the whole show what im trying to say is if it says Luke Evans name up, hes amazing and definitly is a true proffessional and you should definitly be able to see at some point in this role.

Simon Lipkin's voice went completely; he was practically William-Shatnering* the end of If You Were Gay. He'd been fine up to that point, and it was just the last few bars that went awry. He covered it well but I wasn't at all surprised to see someone else in the role afterwards.

Luke Evans did particularly well considering that he had to take over so suddenly. A few years ago I was crew on a show where the director (a professional actor) had to step in to cover one role, and he said he didn't mind whether he went on or not; the difficult bit was if he was expecting to do one thing but had to switch at short notice.

* If you've never heard William Shatner singing, I'm referring to that sort of varied-pitch speaking that people do when they haven't a hope in hell of hitting any notes. Search for "william shatner rocketman" for a (non-serious) example.

[musicalfan]

I reacently saw Kate Graham (Mrs W understudy) in Billy Elliot. She was amazing, she reminded me a lot of Haydyn. her Shine wasn't all that great but then her peformance just shot up!

[theatreboy06]

Just heard that Kaisa Hammarlund isn't continuing in Cabaret. I guess they wanted a 'name' for Sally (Kim Medcalf), but what a shame understudies don't get offered the roles in that way.
Does anyone know what Kaisa's doing next?

[armadillo]

It doesn't really make commercial sense to offer the take-over to an understudy since anyone who knows they are good in the role will already have seen them!

[theatreboy06]

If anyone's interested, Kaisa seems to be doing something quite interesting:
www.othertheatre.co.uk/feed
Perhaps we'll see if she can act afer all?!

[WillowFae]

In a lot of cases, when you are watching an understudy, you are actually watching a leading performer of the future. I have seen several understudies in shows years ago who are now recognisable musical theatre, if not household names.


Scarlett Strallen in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Summer Strallen in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Claire Moore in Phantom
Nigel Harman and Caroline Sheen in Mamma Mia
Laura Michelle Kelly was a cover in Beauty (although I don't know if she got on)
Jo Gibb in Chicago
Dianne Pilkington, John Owen Jones, Sophia Ragavelas etc in Les Miserables
Earl Carpenter in Witches.

There are loads - Watching understudies can be exciting if they have the potential to go on to bigger things. Relish it!

I agree.  I remember when Michael McCarthy joined Les Miz as the Factory Foreman and u/s for Javert.

[hitster]

That's amazing that so far into the tour this could happen. I thought that every so often they had understudy calls on a free afternoon to run them through the role as a refresher during a long tour. The resident director and company manager should ensure that understudies are rehearsed etc. I've often known resident directors who are performing in a show to sit out at least one show a week to get a swing on and to view the production from the stalls/circle in performance to make sure it is running smoothly. Also if they don't rehearse the U/S that's almost as bad as not taking into account each theatre's stage size and amending routines etc.

For example in the current Hello Dolly tour, the waiters daicing scene at the Restruarant must surely have to be ammended due to the varying size of the stages at the theatres it visits.

[JIJane]

I did a tour of a play 2 years ago and understudied the 2 female leads - and never had a single rehearsal. I would have had to go just "winging it" - luckily it never got to that point for me...