Understudies:biggest disappointments/best surprises — Page 2

A week after winning the Tony, James Monroe Iglehart was out of Aladdin for the weekend. Michael James Scott was on, and he was phenomenal. He's just as talented as Iglehart, if not better!

Best Surprises: Billy Thighe as Lewis in Pippin. Emily Rozek, Victoria Matlock, and Nicolas Dromard in Wicked (which I went into expecting the worst, as all 3 leads were out)

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I always get a bit worried when the little white papers fall out of the program. When I saw Bullets Over Broadway Zach Braff was out. I never looked at the playbill until after the show. I had no idea Andy Jones was an understudy. He was fantastic!

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Mine is also from a recent trip to POTO. Norm Lewis was out (not one of the scheduled days). Laird Mackintosh was on as the Phantom. At first, I was pretty sad & wished I had picked another day. But by the end of the night, I was Laird's newest fangirl.
And I still got to see Norm eventually, so that worked out well.

Updated On: 9/17/14 at 09:39 PM

"Sutton was out of Thoroughly Modern Millie! Big disappointment! Sandy Duncan out of Chicago- the only reason I went back again! And of course, poor Stockard!"

You seem to have a comprehension problem with the thread topic/question...

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I never really had any understudy disappointment. At least none that mattered much. For surprise, I saw Rent twice during Mel B's run. Both times she was out and I got the joy to see both the understudies. The one was pretty good but the other was FANTASTIC. Bonus for dodged the Scary Spice bullet not once, but twice.

Adding this in because it's where my real disappointments were. Replacement disappointment. Those times that I bought tickets far in advance, only to have someone announce their departure before my ticket date. Had that happen twice. First time was Spamalot with Tim Curry (though in the end that worked out because that was the performance that got delayed because of the transit strike and Eric Idle showed up to entertain us... http://www.playbill.com/news/article/idle-chatter-spamalot-creator-ad-libs-while-actors-battle-transit-strike-tr ). The second was for the 2004 La Cage aux Folles Revival. God Love Robert Goulet he's a legend... but I happened to end up at his second performance and man oh man it was a struggle. He only knew about 75% his lines and he was constantly looking to the conductor for blocking directions. Singing voice was great but he needed about another week (or two) of rehearsals to get him comfortable in the show.

Biggest surprise? Seeing Sheryl Lee Ralph's understudy go on as Deena Jones around five months into the run of "Dreamgirls." She was brilliant. She was then known as Phylicia Ayers Allen. She was soon known as Phylicia Rashad. I once met her and told her I'd seen her as Deena and she said "you DO go back a long way with me, don't you?". (I later saw Sheryl, and Phylicia was much more impressive.)

Biggest disappointment? I do not recall her name, but early in the run of "Miss Saigon" in London in the fall of 1989 I saw an understudy for Kim. There is so much about the show I did not like I do not know if seeing Lea Salonga would have made much of a difference, but so many people did love the show and Lea did become such a major theater star based on the performance that I have often wondered.

"Do they? It is consistent with the "biggest disappointment" theme (an additional question was best surprises, but clearly this person has decided not to answer that component)."

Yeah, no--The topic is obviously about understudies, not merely Taking Loud Personal Offense For Cast Being Out.

Per topic, (I haven't experienced this myself personally) but when Idina Menzel was out of IF/THEN due to illness particularly around Labor Day, those who stayed have said via social media that her understudy Jackie Burns' performance was still great, and as close to Menzel's performance as possible. Some may prefer her voice over Menzel's too. I expect tourists would be most disappointed in seeing an U/S compared to New Yorkers who can easily see shows multiple times, but this is just a reality of live theatre...

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Like another poster mentioned, I was due to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels right after Norbert Leo Butz won the Tony and the announcement came that we had the understudy, which annoyed me. It turns out that Joe Cassidy was fantastic in the part and I did get to see Norbert in another Tony winning turn later in Catch Me If You Can. I missed Marin Mazzie in Kiss Me Kate and got Patty Goble instead, who was also good. Probably the most amazing instance of pleasant surprise was in the first touring version of the Chicago revival. Charlotte d'Amboise was injured and Belle Callaway replaced her for a few weeks. Callaway was near flawless as Roxie - she could dance, sing and act the hell out the part and was age appropriate to boot. She made co-star Jasmine Guy look like a foolish amateur in comparison. We raved about her to friends and returned a few weeks later with some of them to see the show. Alas, Charlotte was back and could not hold a candle to the understudy, which utterly left us all shocked.

Disappointments: Took my mother to see The Music Man, one of her favorite musicals, largely because of Craig Bierko's rave reviews. He was out and we got Jim Walton, who was pleasant but no where near dynamic enough to carry the show and we left thinking the show was lacking. We returned a few months later and got Bierko this time and the difference was palpable and the stage version ended up becoming one of my mother's favorite stage experiences. Also disappointing was when we had tickets to see the revival of West Side Story on its way to Broadway. I had heard Matt Cavenaugh sing on albums, the internet and TV before and was really interested in what he would do with the role of Tony, since I have been cursed never to have a particularly good Tony in any version I have seen. Unfortunately, Cavenaugh was out due to an injury suffered by a runaway piece of heavy scenery the night before and we got Matthew Hydzik, who was good-looking, pleasant and seemed like the very definition of a placeholder understudy. In this case, I did not get to see Cavenaugh to see his version.

I wish I could have seen Matthew Hydzik. I thought Matt Cavenaugh was miscast.

I have to mention her because no one else did yet: Donna Vivino as Elphaba (she was the Broadway standby for 3 years.) HOLY SH*T. The girl can sing and riff like nobody's business. And her acting... so subtle and nuanced. During No Good Deed she would flip her hair (the "toss toss" from Popular.) She's one of my favorite Elphabas ever and definitely the best out of the three I saw - Lindsey Mendez, Teal Wicks, and her.

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In roughly 1990 I saw a production of Big River at the Walnut Street Theater in Philly. They announced before the show that the actor starring as Huck Finn was unable to appear and that his replacement (it wasn't made clear if he was the understudy) had not rehearsed with the cast and did not know all the lines. He would be performing with the script in hand. I was pretty disappointed because I had been looking forward to seeing the original star and the whole script-in-hand thing felt second-rate.

It took maybe eight minutes into the show to completely forget that the script was on the stage. The actor was mesmerizing, in beautiful voice, and adorable. I'll never remember the name of the actor I had hoped to see, but I'll never forget his replacement . . . John Cameron Mitchell.