I don't think there's anything wrong with that speculation, either. I also don't think people should act like it's the first time any of this has happened. As you seem to be pointing out, newintown, people get jobs all the time through nepotistic connections, and especially in this industry. Many have gotten jobs through their lover, or a parent, or a well-connected mentor/teacher.
Actually, I seem to remember an interview with Channing from the Off Broadway run where she mentioned that the initial understudy dropped out, and Risch was given the job at the last minute. I'm sure it didn't hurt that he's lovers with the director and a close friend of the star, but still, it's hardly the first time.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
