Understudies

It all started on Wednesday, after our first school show ever in White Plains, NY. Shaun (Duck) had been complaining of back pain all day, but, after lunch, it turned into something more severe. As we headed out for dinner in New London, CT, Shaun started mentioning chills and nausea. I waited with him at the hotel so he could grab a few extra layers before grabbed dinner at an Indian restaurant. Where Shaun barely touched his soup, ate only a few pieces of bread and said next-to-nothing. We all gathered to watch the State of the Union (YES WE CAN!) and said our goodnights, very worried about what we might find the next morning. You see, Theatreworks does not provide understudies, only a "fall chart," and the hope that the other actors are swift enough to pick up the slack.

By 6:00am, Aaron was already looking over the Duck's big song, choreography, lines and blocking.



The fall chart for Click Clack Moo is heavily dependent on Aaron for all male roles, as his cow (Loretta) is the easiest of the man-played characters to lose. This, even though he has a huge song about midway through the show and many, many comic bits, so it's not really an "easy" track to remove. (Did I mention that this show is an ensemble piece? It is. Even changing one role throws a lot of stuff of) The bulk of Aaron's usual song, "Loretta's Anthem," fell to Claire, and Grace picked up most of his dialogue. It was decided that, to save Aaron the confusion and challenge of adding extremely-fast costume changes to his already-exciting new track, the role of Chicken #1 would be cut and absorbed by myself and Colleen. We set up at lightening speed, put everybody through their paces to make sure we had some idea of what we were doing, threw on our costumes, scanned scripts and got ready for whatever was going to happen.

What happened was a miracle. I have very little interaction with anyone besides Colleen, so I had the pleasure of standing backstage and watching the antics unfold. Aaron's Duck was outstanding -- very different from Shaun's, but wonderful in its own way. He had me rolling as he danced across the stage in his orange high-tops. Claire rocked out on "Loretta's Anthem" and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing at Grace's antics as the now neurotic and skittish Darlene. For my part, I enjoyed "clucking it down" with Colleen as a chicken duo during our face-off with the cows (even if our attempts to reduce our choreography fell flat on its face). And, on a whole, the fact there was no time to think, much of the show was "on the fly" and we were all trying to stifle laughter made this a high-stakes, ultra-connected, and super engaging show. The highs were high, the lows were low and we earned every second, even if it wasn't quite right. I was reaffirmed in my belief that this cast is ridiculously talented, and will be able to weather anything touring can throw at them. It is moments like this that remind me why I love to be an actor: absolutely anything can happen.

However, we have all agreed that this is a once-in-a-tour experience. As an ensemble show, we need everybody to make it work out the best. Shaun appears to on the mend (he joined us for lunch and looked better, if not 100% back to normal), and we're all praying that he'll be set for tomorrows shows. The show we did today was a version of Click, Clack, Moo (and a very good one, considering the circumstances), but it's not a version I'd feel good about doing for the next six months, as much fun as it was to do once. I'm eager to get the full ensemble back together, and keep "moo-ving" our way along the tour. So, get well soon! And no more sickness!!

Oh, and we got on our first marquee today. Thanks Bob's Discount Furniture!



Call tomorrow: 6:50am, 108th and Amsterdam. Whew! TOO EARLY!!

Kid quote of the day: When I sang, "The cows say..." and listened for typing sounds on the track, the kids appeared unsatisfied. So they answered: "Moo!"