Tuesday, January 04, 2022
Meet the understudies and fill-ins who are saving Broadway
nypost.com: During the curtain call of “The Music Man” on Broadway, star Hugh Jackman brought Kathy Voytko, standby for his absent co-star Sutton Foster, to the front of the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre and sang her praises. Foster was out with a positive COVID-19 test result, and Voytko stepped in for the librarian lead at the very last minute.
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Reading the stories that this article gave of the understudies and swings who are truly holding up Broadway during this challenging time of delays, postponements, and cancellations really made my mind spin. On the one hand, I'm glad that at least a little recognition and appreciation is being given to an often overlooked group of talented artists, even though they deserve much more celebration than this, especially since being an understudy or swing is already a hectic and unpredictable job, even without COVID being a factor. However, it also shows a fatal flaw of Broadway in today's theatre climate. To put it simply: Broadway needs to learn to adapt and change. Yes, COVID has presented a nearly unrivaled challenge on normal theatrical productions. For a time, it even fundamentally changed the way we approached and worked on theatre. However, as soon as it could, Broadway went right back to the old norms, just with some added health precautions in COVID testing and distancing. Throughout the country, regional theatres and theatre companies that did not have the funding and means to go back to the "normal" were forced to adapt, innovate, and change to continue working. They proved that change was possible, even if it was extremely challenging. We shouldn't be having a situation where Broadway is scrambling on a daily basis to continue to put on shows, leading many theatre workers to suffer unpredictable and stressful schedules (even more so than normal). We don't have to. Theatre can, and should, be done differently, especially in these unprecedented times.
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