show veterans

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 9/10/04 at 9:49am

After reading a number of posts recently that start to go toward this topic, I thought it would be interesting to bring up in a thread of its own.

What are your thoughts on performers who remain in their respective musicals for a long time? For simplicity's sake, lets make "a long time" be two years or more, even though that's not all that long. Should actors leave a show once they are "going through the motions" and aren't quite as passionate as they once were? How long is too long, and what are the signs of that?

I have a lot of my own thoughts on the issue, but I'm curious to see the consensus of others here. I'm sure my opinions will follow shortly.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 9/10/04 at 9:52am

There are people who were in CATS for years and years. It's a dilemma - security is a wonderful thing, but it's not like an office job or being a doctor, nurse, teacher, etc., where you have to be on your toes all the time - eventually, the directors stop checking up on the show and it's easy to get bored and fall into lazy patterns. The problem of course is that the audience is new every time, and it's not fair that they're not getting what they paid for.

Jobs are few and far between on Broadway. If I was an actor, I could definitely see myself falling into the security of a long-running show. I don't completely fault the ones who do.

[dancinfan]

Posted: 9/10/04 at 11:22am

I agree. In the grand scheme of things, there aren't that many theatre jobs that allow a person to stay in one place for very long, so when an actor lands that plum Broadway show that lasts years and years, it is often difficult for them to keep their careers fresh and risky. After all, with rent and/or mortgages to pay, kids, bills, etc., why not stick around?

The problem that producers have is that when these "lifers" do get lazy onstage (and many don't, by the way), the producers have few options for dealing with them. Obviously, dance captains, stage managers, and other maintenance staff have to keep on them with notes and write them up if the notes are not taken. Once there is a paper trail on someone (written warnings, etc.), it becomes possible to try to fire them, but Equity's arbitration procedures are pretty stiff on this whole thing. The other option a producer has is to buy someone out of their contract - I think an actor receives a year's salary plus benefits or something like that. I can think of few producers who really have the dough sitting around to do that just to get one or two bad apples out of their long-running shows.

It's definitely a dilemma, and for as many actors I know who have stayed in their shows till the bitter end despute tremendous boredom and even lack of self-respect, I know a dozen others who have moved on by choice in order to keep themselves challenged and motivated.

By the way, I think the limit is different for every actor. Some actors are mostly interested in the process of rehearsing, so by the end of opening week, they are bored. Others can last years before they start to look tired up there. Just depends.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 9/10/04 at 2:56pm

I'm glad to hear both of you say that. It seems that a number of people on these boards think that boredom should equal the time to leave the show, and that surprises me, especially if these people have plans to get into the business themselves. While I'm not an actor, for some reason, I find myself putting myself in their shoes in situations such as these. As much as it may not be the best for a show to have someone who isn't as into the role as they once were, or even could be, I still can't help but defend the people who are in those roles. Chances are, they wish they could move on just as much, especially if their aren't using much of their potential in whatever role they are in, but there has to be something to move to. Not only that, but that new something has to support them as both an artist and a human being. So I sort of sympathize with those who seemed stuck in certain shows, because they really may be just that.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 9/10/04 at 2:57pm

Man, if I would have left my job when I started going through the motions I wouldn't have made it through training :) Updated On: 9/10/04 at 02:57 PM

[NoDayButToday2]

Posted: 9/10/04 at 6:39pm

rat and dancinfan make very good points... though I personally dont much enjoy watching someone 'go through the motions'... if thats what happens when people have stable jobs, then I dont really mind.

[Mamie]

Posted: 9/10/04 at 10:38pm

This subject brought to mind the firing of half the cast of Les Miz in (96?) and its reopening with a new staff a few months later. The change was attributed to a malaise that had come over the old cast. The change seemed to be just the shot in the arm that the show needed.

Now, all of that came from the official press releases at the time. As 'insiders' - what is your opinion?

[dancinfan]

Posted: 9/11/04 at 12:34pm

I have a close friend who has described the whole Les Miz buy-out/replacement thing as a necessary evil. He had been in the cast just before the whole thing went down, and the fact that it happened was not as bad as the way it happened. I mean ultimately the cast all got a good amount of money (more than was required of the producers, in fact) and at least one man who had AIDS was given health insurance for life. But basically the whole thing was dropped on the company like a bomb: one day after a performance, the cast was called to a meeting, told what was happeneing, and handed envelopes telling them whether they would be kept on, let go, or would have to re-audition for the new company. And if I recall correctly, it was not even the end of a week, so the cast had little time to deal with the news before they had to go back onstage again.

Certainly Cameron Mackintosh did a good thing for the show and its ticket sales. I think it was a wake-up call to Broadway performers at the time, but now there just aren't any producers I can think of who would be willing to put up that kind of dough at the request of their artistic staffs. The Weisslers? Disney? The Nederlanders? I just don't see it.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 9/11/04 at 12:38pm

I thought this thread was going to be about something else.

My answer was going to be Robert Goulet (CAMELOT)

Updated On: 9/11/04 at 12:38 PM

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 9/11/04 at 12:39pm

A bottom line issue here is that if you decide that you want a career in theater, you have to understand that it's not a secure life. People who want security should get out and find another career - that's the entire reason I didn't pursue an onstage career. So if you really need security badly enough that you can't leave a show when you are obviously not an asset anymore, then it is time to look into another field.

[timote316]

Posted: 9/11/04 at 5:19pm

As long as producers want me, I'd stay with a show. Afterall, its job security in a tough job market. There are very few jobs available, and so many competing for them. An ensemble member is very different than a star like Adam Pascal or Hunter Foster or someone similar. The elite stars have shows chasing after them, ensemble members are chasing the shows, so job security with one show is desired.

However, I can also see the other side of the arguement: audiences pay large sums of money to see you perform, so if your heart isn't in it, your not giving the public what they paid for.

This is really a good, thought provoking question lol

[lc1965]

Posted: 9/12/04 at 1:54am

I have worked on the FOH staffs for several long-term shows (so I saw then repeatedly over a long time) & can say quite honestly that, most of the time, audiences generally have not the foggiest idea when a performer is going through the motions. Cats is a prime example -- by the middle of the run, you simply couldn't understand what the performers were singing or why the audience was supposed to buy them as cats, other than the fur & makeup. As for the Les Miserables situation, I thought the replacement cast was terrible & couldn't figure out why they were supposed to be better than the cast that was fired. A long-time dancer in a major musical was recently fired for losing his edge & I felt he gave 100% every time (at least it looked that way to me). Simultaneously, another dancer from the same musical was let go & I felt he never should have been hired (couldn't dance sing or act, but was a friend of the director... aaaahhhh, I see.) But, as for whether they SHOULD ... that's an individual decision because every does what they do for individual reasons. Equity scale can pay a lot of bills.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 9/12/04 at 6:29pm

See, that's another thing I wonder about too. How often is it that the audience knows that certain actors have been in a cast for ages? How many of them pick up on the people who could be doing it better, and how many think they are doing it great just because that's all they've seen?

It's just such an interesting topic to me. I've seen some very great performances from people who have been in shows for a long time, and then come and found people knocking them for being boring or old because they have been in the show for as long as they have. So while I feel that something should be done about certain performers who don't give anything, for the most part, the veterans I have (knowingly) seen seem to do enough to get by and then some.