On Understudies & Swings

Roger Allam & Susan Fleetwood
"Much Ado About Nothing"
(Royal Shakespeare Company, 1990)
Ms. Fleetwood does not appear.

One of my favorite theater experiences was when our school group was in Stratford-Upon-Avon in late 1990. A blizzard socked the area, and the roads were impassable.

The plan for the morning was a matinee of Much Ado About Nothing starring Roger Allam and Susan Fleetwood. We were staying at an inn right in town, but anyone who was driving in from anywhere to see the show were out of luck. So few were in attendance they announced it would be general seating, so instead of the balcony some of us chose the third row.

The stage manager came on stage to address the audience, looking bemused. She explained it may be an RSC record, with no fewer than six actors assuming roles for those performers stranded in the outskirts, and several members of crew. But the show was going on!

And it was marvelous. We saw actors whispering dance choreography to each other during the party scene, and I noted one time someone said a line twice. Other than that, they nailed it, including the comparatively young woman who stood in for Ms. Fleetwood as Beatrice.

This was when I learned a very important lesson: Without the understudy, there is no show.

Once upon a time we said, “The show must go on!” And actors with fevers and vertigo would pump themselves up with antihistamines and pain relievers would muscle through. It was expected. COVID has changed all that, and rightly so.

This does mean that, unfortunately, smaller theaters may need to close a show due to illness, and this has happened many times. Last year, as the Omicron variant was rising, theaters right here in Cleveland closed their holiday shows early, one after another.

Today, our professional theaters make more time to prepare understudies and also budget for swings.

“While an understudy is usually a smaller or ensemble role within the main cast of a production, a swing is an offstage performer who only goes on if someone in the ensemble is unable to do so. A swing most often does not cover principal roles in a show.”
- Dramatics Magazine

Desmond Sean Ellington crushed it.

Attending a show and discovering that an understudy is going on has become more and more common. I myself have made pre-show announcements this season, more than once, that someone other than listed in the program will be going on.

Last Tuesday, the family went to see the touring production of Hamilton at the KeyBank State Theatre. That night Burr was played by Desmond Sean Ellington who usually plays Mulligan/Madison (that role assumed by John Devereaux) and this was exciting to know; that something different was happening that night, just for us. He delivered a beautiful rendition of “Wait For It” and ferociously stuck the landing in “The Room Where It Happens” which are absolutely my two favorite songs in the show.

Opening weekend of the world premiere of The Land of Oz at Dobama Theatre, my good friend Sarah Blubaugh went on as Mombi the Witch. It’s exciting when a friend goes on, and others show to support them. In the past, I have made understudy announcements at the Hanna and there are cheers from supporters who attended just to see them.

I myself decided to attend opening night of Oz, which I did not have on my calendar, when Sarah gave me the word that afternoon that she was going on. Unfortunately, the power went out ten minutes into the performance. If you live in Cleveland Heights, you know. I did, however, get to see the entire show, with her in it, that Sunday night.

It’s a delightful show, Sarah was delightful in it, and if they didn’t have her as a swing, the entire first weekend may not have been possible.

Next time you hear there is an understudy, give a cheer! Because otherwise, you just wasted all that money on the babysitter.  

Source: “Swing Time, Nailing the role of the offstage performer” by Skye Pagon, Dramatics Magazine, July 21, 2020

Staging Success: The PlayhouseSquare Story

 What I am truly thankful for.

One week ago, Thursday, November 15, WVIZ ideastream aired a one-hour documentary chronicling the history of theaters built during the 1920s on the north side of Euclid Avenue. Today the district is known as PlayhouseSquare, but in the intervening time Cleveland went through its steep decline from sixth largest city in America to where we are today ... which is where, exactly, I don't know. But it's not the late 1960s, when these opulent play houses were in terrible disrepair and on the verge of being torn down to -- literally -- put up a parking lot.

Throughout this blog I have told short stories about Cleveland in the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s ... research for me, but also my own education of this saggy metropolis into whose orbit I was born, and where I continue to live and thrive today. Understanding where we are and where we are going requires a knowledge of where we have been, otherwise nothing makes any sense. It's also pretty interesting stuff.

Got an hour? Watch the video. There are moments I actually cried. I miss the past I never experienced, but I more thankful to be where we are today.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

We all have loved you, Rael.

Cleveland has always been kind to Peter Gabriel and to Genesis. When few in the United States even knew who they were, they would attract sold-out crowds here. I found a review of their 1973 gig at the Musical Hall in my high school newspaper.

In 1974 they released their most ambitious and ill-fated album to date, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. "Concept" albums were already a worn-out phenomenon, and yet the band created a two-album set that weaved out an utterly bizarre tale from the mind of Peter Gabriel, following what we would call a "Nuyorican" kid (of whom Gabriel knew none) named Rael, who is transported to an "Alice In Wonderland" type underworld in pursuit of his lost brother John.

He is frozen in space, is forced to confront his first, humiliating sexual encounter, is made love to by a mythical beast, has his penis surgically removed, and finds out he and his brother are actually the same person.

I love this record.

Unfortunately, the album had not yet been released when they began their world tour in America. Imagine paying good money to see your favorite band, but they refuse to play anything you have ever heard before. Some may have been thrilled, most were not. This "performance event" also involved over 1,000 slides and many large, unwieldy costumes which Gabriel had designed with no thought given to how to get the mic anywhere near his mouth.

As you can imagine, there were plenty of "Spinal Tap" moments. The show closes with a strobe on Rael and his doppelganger (a mannequin) at opposite sides of the stage, making it look like he's in two places at once. Closing night the dummy was missing and in its place a nude roadie. And after 120 performances, it was never filmed.

According to manager Tony Smith, the day came, early in the tour, when Gabriel announced that he was quitting the group. The fact that he decided to tell his manager this news in a hideous, orange-paneled hotel room at Swingos makes yet another notable moment in Cleveland Rock and Roll history.

In 2005 (Jesus, really? Six years ago?) I took Josh to see The Musical Box, a French-Canadian tribute band that recreates the Gabriel-era Genesis tours in exacting detail. They brought The Lamb to the Allen Theatre. I had asked my father, but he was going to be out of town. He was pretty interested in Genesis around the same time I was, during my high school and college years. This time around, however, he asked me, and I was only too delighted to accept.

So last night we saw The Lamb in the State Theatre. Myself and a 76 year-old man. The median audience member was a guy somewhere between mine and my father's age. There were assorted wives, but also other women who looked like they actually wanted to be there. I noticed this time, as opposed to five years ago, a number of teenage girls with their fathers. The father-daughter combo seated behind us were cute, she was really interested in the program they'd bought, and he was only too happy to share his insight.

It's a great show. I mean, it's a tribute band, but I would much rather see this than, say, 1964: The Tribute because once you get beyond the "Whoa! They sound just like ..!" factor, what do you have? Why pay to see someone impersonate the Beatles when you can just listen to a CD or watch a movie?  

Watching these guys is like seeing a play or something, rock storytelling, there's a lot to look at and listen to -- with a crowd of like-minded creeps who applaud and whoop and cheer. And, if you are the guy sitting in front of me, light up a marihuana cigarette.

For an encore, they played Watcher of the Skies and, yes, The Musical Box.

Sources:
Genesis: Chapter and Verse (Collins, Banks, Gabriel, Rutheford, Hackett)
Peter Gabriel: An Authorized Biography (Spencer Bright)