Appreciation for Understudies Thread

Jevon McFerrin was incredible as Hamilton. I preferred his performance to that of Javier or Donald. (Never saw Lin.)



Nycat63 said: Sean Montgomery (for John Sanders) as Ned in Groundhog Day

Jealous you got to see that. I'd also like to see Sean as Phil Connors.

I saw Jim Stanek as Bruce in Fun Home shortly before it closed, and it was probably one of the best performances I've ever seen, understudy or not. And I'm a huge Michael Cerveris fan, so Jim actually managed to win me over in spite of how disappointed I was that it wasn't Michael.

Jeremy Stolle is brilliant in the title role of Phantom of the Opera.

I've had the pleasure of seeing 3 of the understudies in CFA (Josh Breckenridge, Tamika Lawrence, and Tony LePage) and I thought they all did an excellent job!

I thought Laura Shoop did a great job as Amalia in She Love Me, very different than Benanti but I really enjoyed her performance.

Ali Ewoldt and Kelvin Moon Loh were great as Tuptim and Lun Tha in King and I. Their chemistry was so great and Ali's voice is amazing!

Updated On: 6/27/17 at 11:31 AM

I preferred Olivia Puckett as Zoe in DEH.

Lauren Patten as Medium Alison in Fun Home!!!

Oh! And I also saw Azudi Onyejekwe‏ as Dolokhov in Comet and Dom Simpson as Elder Price in Book of Mormon.

Updated On: 6/27/17 at 05:54 PM

I saw Colton Ryan as Evan at the DEH Sunday matinee and thought he was excellent. He killed it on Waving Through a Window, and got even better as the show went on. I love Ben Platt on the cast recording, but Colton seemed more like a real teenager in a way. I hope he takes over once Ben leaves the show.

Double post! :)

Updated On: 6/27/17 at 10:51 PM

Forgot to mention that I saw Kennedy Caughell as Marya D. in Comet this last weekend. My friend and I have been following her career for a while (me since I saw her in the American Idiot tour in 2012), so it was a pleasant surprise when we got to the theatre, She was great!

dramamama611 said: "Where is this vitriol the OP speaks of? This board has always been incredibly supportive of the understudy.



I may have overreacted, but I started my thread primarily after reading a DEH-related thread in which a couple of people were a bit melodramatic in their displeasure about Ben Platt and other principals being out, and then the board jumped on those people and so on and so forth - it got quite over the top. The people "complaining" were, like me, people who live out of town and come to NY hoping to catch certain people in certain roles (though I understand life doesn't work that way). At first I wanted to come to their defense because i do understand that feeling of coming all the way to NY and seeing that little white slip in the Playbill, but I didn't want to get mixed up in it (plus they were just awful about how they articulated their displeasure so I couldn't defend that).

I agree that this Board is typically supportive of understudies generally, but in the threads I've read recently, they are being less supportive of the understudy and more intent on bashing the posters who voice displeasure about leads being out. Yes, we should all recognize that actors are human, they get sick, they are entitled to vacation, etc., but it just gets a bit ugly on here sometimes.

So maybe a lot of this was aimed toward the DEH drama, but I thought it was time to praise some understudies in a separate thread and do something positive!

Hope that answers your question, but no offense was intended toward the Board re understudies - your point is well taken.

Jonathan Shew replaced Corey in Bandstand on Sunday. I won't say that he was the equal of Corey, but this was a tough role in which to make your Broadway debut. Acting, song, dance and on a moment's notice he had to sit down at the piano to play live (not recorded) and to play well. He was fine.