Jaquel Spivey Sick/ Continuing to Miss Performances — Page 2

Agreed, and doing Summer Stock, Regional Theater, Non Union tours, etc, a lot of the times you don't have an understudy or the luxury of calling out and just have to "figure it out."

Not pointing blame at either people here, but I do think it's a matter of proper training.

Same goes for people who said it's too emotionally demanding. I, personally, don't think that's a thing when you take in shows like Caroline, or Change, The Inheritance, Angels in America, etc. All much bigger, emotionally heavy and demanding shows.

Again, as a seasoned performer, you learn how to deal with these emotions. I remember being in college and seeing an upperclassman do a production of "The Seagull." The lead actress was in tears during the final scene, and all through curtain call, and then again backstage after. I remember years later playing George in "Our Town" and the director telling me you have to control your emotions because you might be having a huge breakdown in one scene, and then next scene is 5 years later and you're fine. So, sure, it might be emotional and heavy, but as an actor you should not be putting that on your shoulders. It's ACTING. You're pretending to take on that emotion. Just my thoughts.



Xoxo Gossip Girl

I was at the show tonight and Kyle was excellent, you’re on great hands if you see him.


However, there are pictures of the cast, Spivey included, at Broadway Barks today. Call me crazy, but if you’re not able to perform, you probably shouldn’t be at a big event like that.


Imagine if Beanie was at Broadway Barks today… the board would be talking about it for weeks!

PegasusOasis said: "I think younger performers feel less pressure to perform if they're not up to it compared to generations prior."

This. I know it's hard to believe, but once upon a time, worrying about missing a lead performer as you walked into the theatre lobby and peeked at the call board wasn't a thing. And not that long ago.

And I'm sorry, everyone here says "so and so's understudy is sooo good, you're not missing a thing!". Nope. Unless it's a known star's replacement (where sometimes fame-to-sell-tickets has more to do with the original casting than talent), an understudy performance is just that. Someone who wasn't good enough to get the role and is second best, thus a cheat to the audience.

Are there some wonderful understudies who have gone on to show how amazing they are? Of course. Swings and understudies are wonderful ways to showcase new talent. But the original casting is the original casting for a reason. The leads have been vetted again and again through multiple auditions.

Two other things. What happened to Larry Owen's who originated the role of Usher at Playwrights?

And Sutton Ross knows EVERYTHING about being a dick.

Owen22 said: "an understudy performance is just that. Someone who wasn't good enough to get the role and is second best, thus a cheat to the audience"



I understand what you're saying, but I think the flaw in your logic is the assumption that only one person was good enough to originate the leading role. It could very well be (and in fact I'm assuming this is quite frequently the case) that there were multiple people whom they would've liked to pick, but they ultimately can only pick one. Even if someone is "2nd best," the margin could be so narrow as to be unrecognizable to most audiences. Because when you're dealing with a large pool of professional-caliber talent, even 2nd, 3rd best, etc. has the potential to be very, very good.

Not to mention: replacement casting would also be considered "cheating the audience" by your logic, because those actors were likewise not chosen to originate the role. Same with tour casting.

But of course millions of audience members happily pay top dollar to watch non-original cast members, in a wide range of shows, year after year. Because they don't care. Because the people they're watching are perfectly capable of filling the roles, and in most cases (including A Strange Loop), most audiences are paying for the show more than the actor. And the fact that original understudies are often chosen to replace in the role just illustrates that point further: that they are perfectly capable of playing the leads.

Not to mention there's a vast amount of anecdotal evidence to suggest that understudy performances are often just as good. Maybe not always the case, but it sounds like it's the case here.

JBroadway said: "I understand what you're saying, but I think the flaw in your logic is the assumption that only one person was good enough to originate the leading role. It could very well be (and in fact I'm assuming this is quite frequently the case) that there were multiple people whom they would've liked to pick, but they ultimately can only pick one. Even if someone is "2nd best," the margin could be so narrow as to be unrecognizable to most audiences. Because when you're dealing with a large pool of professional-caliber talent, even 2nd, 3rd best, etc. has the potential to be very, very good."

Anybody working as a performer on Broadway is good enough to perform in the show, and I'm not at all suggesting an understudy is going to be bad. But they're still the second best in the role (at least in the production's opinion) and so audiences do have the right to feel like they're not seeing the best while still paying the same price as those who are seeing the best. Every backup quarterback in the NFL is better than 99.9999% of kids who every play football, but they're still second best and fans will rightfully be disappointed to be seeing them play.

Regarding Spivey, obviously I can't at all speculate on his health issues and if he's too ill to be doing the show, that's that. But Broadway is not about how well you can do a role, it's about how well you can do a role 8 times a week, and when you sign up to do a Broadway show, you're making a commitment to do it 8 times a week. And if you repeatedly can't, then frankly, maybe Broadway isn't for you. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there are thousands of people who can and who would love to be the lead in a Broadway musical right now.

You beat me to it, Jordan.

Alright, it seems like things have cooled down a little, so I just wanted to jump in with a couple general thoughts.

Re: understudies, I absolutely believe there are multiple people capable of originating pretty much any role. So I don’t think an understudy is necessarily inferior in any way. However, I do wonder at what point producers have an obligation to their audience. Of course, you are not guaranteed to see a specific performer when you buy a ticket. But, if there’s a point where it becomes clear that a lead performer will be missing certain shows, at what point do you need to be transparent with the audience? There have been several recent shows (School of Rock comes to mind) where an alternate schedule was announced once it became clear the lead role was too taxing to play 8 times a week. It seems there is a point where it’s beneficial to both performer and audience to do this.


An understudy performance may be as good as a lead, but it’s not the same. If the lead is a big name, you almost certainly have people coming specifically to see them. If the lead is unknown, you almost certainly have people coming because they want to watch a star be born.



I’ve honestly never seen this forum take the position that attendance it totally irrelevant. I think the whole Beanie Feldstein situation has turned into a joke because the general consensus is that her standby is exponentially better than her. But what if that wasn’t the case? Can you imagine the outrage if someone like Hugh Jackman was missing almost half his performances?

Beanie Feldstein should not even be part of this conversation about this particular situation.

Of course Jaquel is not the main draw of A Strange Loop. But he is a draw. He got excellent reviews, has performed on the Tonys, multiple talk shows, a Tiny Desk Concert, etc. He has a lot of buzz, and a portion of the audience is almost certainly there to see him.



Going back to School of Rock, Alex Brightman had never originated a leading role and was relatively unknown, but generated a lot of buzz through reviews and word of mouth. Again, *some* of the audience was there because of that buzz.



My question is: to what extent does that matter? Obviously, audiences aren’t entitled to see a certain performer, and illness, emergencies, etc happen. That’s fine. But if Alex had started quietly not doing matinees once he realized the role was too much to do 8 times a week, would everyone be cool with that? In my opinion, no. I think the production did the right thing by officially announcing an alternate and telling the audience who they were buying tickets to see. From that standpoint, if Jaquel is unable to do matinees for the foreseeable future, I think it would be responsible of the production to say so. Do they have to? Obviously not. This is all a matter of opinion, it’s a question of “should they” not “must they”.



Now, I understand that you can quibble about whether someone’s famous or has enough buzz around them for their attendance to matter. And everyone will draw that line in a different place. Some people will see a show and not even notice the understudy slip in their program, someone else could see the same show and be extremely disappointed.

TaffyDavenport said: "When someone makes the generalization that all understudies are second best and weren't good enough to get the role, how could you NOT bring up Beanie Feldstein?"



Obviously I disagreed strongly with the person who wrote those comments (I wrote a long post about it) - but to give credit where it's due, even that poster admitted that they weren't talking about cases of star casting. Feldstein may or may not be considered a "star" by people here, but the fact is that the circumstances of her casting more closely resembled Hugh Jackman than Jaquel Spivey.

Fair enough. I re-read that post, and I can see where the FG/Beanie situation could be excluded from the comments about understudies.