Okay so I know I haven’t been active on here in forever (most because rw/by is out of season), but I’ve had a lot of shit happen in the last few days and I need to rant and this is the only place I can do it freely. So here we go (and apologies for the long post, I’m on mobile so I don’t know how to do the “read more” thing)
So back in November, I was cast in a production of Newsies which I’ve wanted to be in for years and had a dream of playing the female lead, Katherine. So I worked my butt off on her songs and lines and such, as I usually do for any audition. The big problem here was that Newsies is a very dance heavy show, and I am mostly known at this theatre for being a dancer. I have seven years of ballet experience plus being in musical theatre for 11-12 years, so whenever someone needs a good dancer in a show, they go to me. I knew I’d have to knock some socks off in order for them to cast me as Katherine and not just default me to the dance team.
Well, auditions went perfectly fine at first. I did great on my song and in the dance auditions. The director didn’t really do any callbacks which was fine. After we were done, my friend Mary and I hung around for a little bit and watched other people audition from the balcony. It was almost over, but then we see two people going up and stage and they start practicing the song between the two leads. Now, the guy here (who I’ll call Daniel) is the golden child of the theatre. Don’t get me wrong, he can definitely sing and act well, but he’s everyone’s go-to for a teenage male lead. He really doesn’t even have to try. The girl (who I’ll call Katie) hasn’t been there for as long as Daniel and I have (the two of us actually joined the theatre at the same time), but she has definitely become a favorite as well. She has a good voice but most importantly she’s very pretty and has the “Disney Princess” factor. So as soon as I saw them singing together, I knew I wasn’t going to be Katherine and that I was going to be on the dance team. Surprise surprise, the cast list came out and I was on the dance team, but I was also casted as Katherine’s understudy.
They put a lot of understudies in the show due to Covid. One of the last shows they did almost ended in disaster because nearly everyone in the cast had covid over the course of the 3-week run and they had to keep pulling in people to play the roles on really short notice. So, very explicitly, the understudies were cast in Newsies because it was a genuine possibility that the leads could be out with covid at one point or another. This is important for later.
So rehearsals start and I’m mostly doing dance team stuff - and don’t get me wrong, I love dancing so I’m having a great time - but I’m also going to any rehearsals that Katherine is called for because all of the understudies were specifically required to be at all of the rehearsals for their understudied role. They start out blocking scenes (aka figuring out how to place people and how they should move throughout the scene) and once they have a set blocking pattern, they would usually let me run through it as Katherine once or twice. So everything is start out good there because I’m actually getting real practice in my part. I also get to practice any songs several times with the music director.
And then we start getting to rehearsals on stage. I’m still showing up to every rehearsal that Katherine is called for, but slowly I’m starting to get less and less time on stage. Katie is getting to run through scenes four or five times under explicit direction from our director (who I’ll call Bianca), and I get to just sit and watch for three hours. The other understudies are no different. We show up, we watch, we go home. No one is even giving us a second glance, and I start to get worried. Why aren’t we getting any rehearsal time? Like I said before, we are understudies because we may have to go on as these parts sooner or later. I want to be as prepared as possible and I’m sure all of the other understudies want that too. And it’s not even just figuring out our blocking in scenes and how we can all work together. There are several scenes in the show with fight choreography that the understudies have never even practiced. What happens if they have to go on and do those fight scenes? Someone could get seriously injured. Some of the understudies are also in charge of moving set pieces. What happens if they aren’t there to help? If our director wants us to be prepared, then she needs to start preparing us.
Flash forward to maybe two weeks ago. I’m talking with a couple of my friends who are also understudies and we’re all venting about exactly what I’ve said above. We all have legitimate concerns that we feel like are being completely ignored. Well, apparently someone overheard us and told our director. Let it be know that we were only voicing concerns, we were not bad mouthing any actors or the director. So she comes out and starts talking to us. She says that she’s only angry because we didn’t just talk to her about it (we didn’t go to her because shes kinda a difficult person to work with. She doesn’t shy away from being mean and will essentially tell you to shut up if what you’re saying isn’t what she wants). But she also is telling all of us that she sees how hard we’re working and how she wants to give us more time, maybe even a performance, but she wants to see us take more initiative. And so, I take initiative.
I email all of the understudies in the cast about getting together one evening to run through lines, blocking, songs, etc. It is literally like pulling teeth to get these people to reply, so I start going to them in person at rehearsals. I tell them to send me their availability but none of them do. Finally by some miracle, I get a plan together that works for most people. CUE SNOWSTORM. Now I don’t know if we can meet because the roads might still be bad. So I try to email everyone again to see if we can schedule a Zoom meeting instead. I sent that email three days ago and have gotten one reply. And I know that they check these exact emails because they are the same ones that all of our rehearsal schedules are sent to. I’m trying to take that initiative and make sure we’re prepared in case something happens, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else is concerned and I’m feeling very ignored.
Then, we get to rehearsal last night. I get there and see that the understudy for Jack (the male lead, who I’ll call Ethan) and for Davey (the secondary male lead, who I’ll call Steven) are running through a scene on stage. So I start asking around, why aren’t the leads here? I don’t even see Katie anywhere. Well, apparently, they’ve all tested positive for Covid, including the director. This is also right after Bianca the director decided to let them go unmasked on stage. So maybe it’s a bit selfish, but I get so excited because this means I finally get to be able to do at least one run of the show as Katherine which I’ve been dying to do for months. So we start our address a few little spots in a couple scenes before we start our run…..and then they tell us to go home because the roads are getting icy. So that’s no run for me, Ethan, or Steven which we desperately need. But you know what, I get told that the leads will be out until Monday, so we would get both Saturday AND Sunday to rehearse. I also just want it to be known that everyone LOVES the way that Ethan and Steven play their roles. Daniel is trying too hard to be Jeremy Jordan (the guy who originated the role of Jack on Broadway) and the guy who is playing Davey is the directors favorite. I’ve know this guy for a while and he never plays characters in shows - he plays himself in a costume. No real acting going on there. I also have my own feelings about Katie’s acting. She is very emotionless and monotonous. She never reacts to anything going on around her and always forgets any notes the director gives her. Daniel and Katie are playing love interests and they just have no romantic chemistry. It’s very awkward to watch.
The only problem is, we’re heading into tech week and our show opens next Friday. Our production team is freaking out because they don’t know what to do without their leads. I just want to scream I TOLD YOU SO because I had been warning them of this exact thing happening for weeks. Even last night, someone who isn’t even an understudy and is playing an important role tried to tell them we need a backup plan and got completely ignored. But I’m ready, and I know all of the other understudies are too if they have to be put in. Our leads have been practicing the full show for like two weeks, I’m not worried about them at all. We could definitely have the show ready by next Friday with the leads coming back on Monday - no problem.
Our stage manager sends out an email saying that the executive board is going to be meeting to decide what to do. THEY WANT TO MOVE OUR OPENING BACK A WEEK. Literally throwing everything and everyone into chaos for three people. She wants to know if we would be available for new show dates. I email her back and tell her that I am, but also give her this long paragraph about how I will do every single thing I can to make sure that the show is ready and that everyone else is ready too. I know that the understudies can handle it because this is what we’ve been preparing for. This is WHY they have understudies in the first place.
Well, I get another email this morning and they not only MOVED THE SHOW BACK A WEEK but are also CANCELLING THE NEXT FIVE DAYS OF REHEARSAL UNTIL THE LEADS ARE BACK. They would literally rather do all of this bullshit than let the understudies do what they are meant to do. I saw Ethan and Steven run that scene last night and they were AMAZING. I 100% genuinely think they are better than the leads. Look, Katie is like the nicest person I’ve ever met and I have nothing bad to say about her as a person, but tbh she is such a bad actress. Very emotionless, very monotonous, and very bland in general. I’ve had numerous people tell me that I’m doing amazing the few times I’ve been able to run things as Katherine - and I am seriously not making that up. There’s one scene I did the other day where Katherine only has two lines, and after I got off stage and I had two people tell me how great I embody the character. FOR TWO LINES. My script has notes all over the place. I’ve spent hours upon hours going through all of the scenes and deciding exactly what I want to do in every moment. The amount of character analysis I’ve done is insane. I have worked so f*cking hard for the last 3-4 months to make sure that my performance would be flawless. Both the director and stage manager KNEW that I was getting the understudies together to practice. They KNEW that I was doing everything I could and then some - not to mention perfecting the dances (there’s a tap number that Katherine is in and I have never taken a tap class in my life. The director has seen me practicing it over and over at rehearsals so that I can get it right). I WAS READY. WE WERE ALL READY BECAUSE THATS WHAT WEVE BEEN EXPECTED TO DO.
This is such a gigantic slap in the face to all of us. They say they appreciate all the work we’re doing. They say we’re extremely important. They say they casted us as understudies because they knew we’d do whatever it takes to help the show go on. The director told us to our faces that she wanted to give us a performance. Now they won’t even let us have one rehearsal. They didn’t let us even run scenes, and the few times they did, we were able to run it once with improvised blocking and little to no direction while the leads got to do it 3-4 times with explicit notes from the director the entire time. We were ready to go on for these roles because we NEEDED to, but they decided they didn’t want that. They have NEVER thought about us or how we’re feeling. We came to EVERY rehearsal. We learned EVERY line and EVERY song. We wrote down EVERY note given. We practiced and practiced and practiced on our own to be ready. And we get absolutely no recognition of that work, much less any reward for it.
ALSO THIS IS THE MOST BULLSHIT THING. I was talking to a friend earlier today because they are also an understudy. Apparently the other day they overheard our director Bianca talking to the executive director of the theatre, Lily (I have worked with Lily in nearly every show I’ve been in. She has relied on me multiple times because she knows I’ll be organized and get shit done. I’ve sacrificed a lot to please her). And my friend overheard Lily say that me, Ethan, and my friend just “didn’t look the period”. Now, that doesn’t sound like much there (and honestly is stupid in its own way) but get this. Both Daniel and Katie are white. I’m white and Ethan is black, so we don’t “look the period”. And my friend is a trans woman playing a traditionally female role. Apparently they don’t “fit the period” either. Not only is that extremely racist and transphobic in itself, but just simply Newsies is NEVER about race at any point. It’s about social and economic inequality and f*cking child labor, not race OR gender.
I’m just stuck on what to do. And this isn’t the only show I’ve been screwed over in during the 7-8 years I’ve been with this theatre. The last show I was in, I didn’t even audition for. Lily brought me into the cast two weeks into rehearsal because they needed a strong singer and dancer. Well, let me just say that show put a whole lot of pressure on my mental and physical health. I’ve always been very skinny and like right on the edge of underweight. That show caused me to lose 16 POUNDS. I went from 112 to 96. I’ve been screwed over for roles, I’ve been treated like I don’t matter, I’ve been ignored and manipulated more times than I can count. Why do you keep going back there, you ask? Because I love performing so much. I can’t even begin to explain the happiness I feel when I’m on stage. It’s like ecstasy.
I don’t know how much more I can take. I so desperately want to email the director and stage manager and tell them just how much they’ve hurt me during this show. I’m just afraid that they take it as me complaining that I’m not getting my spotlight and being bitter that I didn’t get the lead. Do I want my time to shine? Absolutely I do. But I also know that I’m an understudy, not the lead. I’m not gonna try to push Katie down the stairs so I can go on. All I want is some recognition. And I want just one run so that they can see the work that I’ve put in. They’ve made me feel ignored, unimportant, and worthless. And based on what I’ve heard from several other people, I am FAR from the only person who feels this way.
I just needed to get all this out. Give advice if you want to. I’ve just been a mess all day and I know this is going to send me into a depressive spiral. I really want to know how all of the understudies are feeling, especially Ethan and Steven. I sent an email to both and a Facebook message to Ethan, but I’ve had no reply on either. I’m at a loss.
