C.J. Wilson jumped at the prospect of playing on Broadway opposite Hugh Jackman. Too bad he spent the entire time backstage.
When "A Steady Rain" ended its run over the weekend, Mr. Wilson, the understudy for Daniel Craig (film's latest James Bond), had spent every performance waiting in the wings. His theater training did come in handy: When he would occasionally run into Mr. Craig in a stairwell, he'd try to act natural. "I didn't want him to think I was going to push him down the stairs," he says.
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C.J. Wilson understudied for Daniel Craig in 'A Steady Rain.' He never got to appear.
While some new shows limped along at the box office this season, a handful of star-driven productions prospered. Jude Law helped "Hamlet" gross just over $1 million in its final week on Broadway. "A Streetcar Named Desire" starring Cate Blanchett at BAM in Brooklyn, N.Y., sold out almost entirely within two weeks. Soon after "A Steady Rain" began performances, producers of the two-person drama, which co-starred Mr. Jackman (from the "X-Men" movies), announced that it had broken the record for weekly box-office grosses for a Broadway play.
As audiences seek out Broadway shows just to see their favorite celebrities, journeymen actors working as understudies are finding it a mixed blessing. The actors are paid a salary for standing by, and they say the roles look good on their résumés, but they know they're not likely to perform much. Celebrities know the stakes: People will demand their money back if they don't drag themselves onstage.
Robert Cole, a producer of "A Steady Rain," says he and the other producers might have canceled the performance altogether rather than put in Mr. Wilson or Mr. Jackman's understudy, Danny Mastrogiorgio. The team put off that decision, he says, preferring to make the call closer to the performance if the situation ever arose, which it did not.
Understudies can't be caught unprepared. The replacements for "A Steady Rain," both Juilliard graduates, worked on their characters' Chicago accents with a voice coach and listened to a CD of non-actors from Chicago reading the script. They were backstage during each performance, often rehearsing blocking and running lines (or, as Mr. Wilson put it, "talking to a shower stall in our dressing room"). Even a few days before the play closed, Mr. Mastrogiorgio says he and his fellow understudy were feeling anxious: "Both of us got a wave of, 'Oh my God, imagine if both of us had to go on in the last week.'"
Debbie O'Fee, from New York's Queens borough, who rooted for Constantine Maroulis during his run on "American Idol," says she was "really annoyed" when she opened the Playbill at a Saturday matinee of Broadway's "Rock of Ages" earlier this year only to find that she'd be watching Mr. Maroulis's understudy. She enjoyed the understudy's performance, but she wanted the former "Idol" contestant. "You want to get your money's worth," she says.
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Joan Marcus
Daniel Craig in 'A Steady Rain.'
A "Rock of Ages" spokesperson says Mr. Maroulis missed fewer than 10 out of nearly 400 performances, adding that the show offers refunds and exchanges for people who don't want to see an understudy.
If a star who's billed above the title cannot perform, Broadway theaters typically allow audience members who don't want to see the performance to refund their tickets or reschedule for another night.
The new musical "Fela!" does not tell theatergoers ahead of time which actor will be performing in the lead role of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti—a demanding part played by Sahr Ngaujah or Kevin Mambo. (It's not advertised, but if one actor plays the matinee, there's a better chance the other will perform that evening, and if one plays a Friday night, the other is more likely to play that Saturday night, according to a spokesman for the show.)
On Sunday, a performance of "Fela!" was canceled when three dancers were injured. The replacements tried to rehearse while patrons started showing up outside the theater. The show was called off less than an hour before curtain. "We just didn't feel we were going to give the audience what they deserved to see," says lead producer Steve Hendel.
When Jeremy Piven (HBO's "Entourage") dropped out of the David Mamet play "Speed-the-Plow" on Broadway last year, citing illness, the door opened for Jordan Lage. The actor, who now understudies James Spader and Richard Thomas in Mr. Mamet's new Broadway play "Race," filled in for eight shows before the role was turned over to Norbert Leo Butz and later William H. Macy.
At the understudy's last "Speed-the-Plow" performance, he says cast member Raúl Esparza quieted the applause at the curtain call and told the crowd how grateful he was that Mr. Lage had come through. "It was obviously a very proud moment for me," says Mr. Lage.
Source:online.wsj.com/
