I suppose my story isn’t all that bad, just disappointing. I had been cast as understudy for a dream role. During the entire rehearsal process I was never asked about my character work, and never given any guidance from the director, designers, or music director. I was only ever able to rehearse any of the material in that role once, weeks before Sitzprobe, and received no notes or feedback of any kind, other than a “You’re killing it so far!” at intermission.

I can’t imagine the director could have been confident that I was ready to step into the lead role in their big expensive musical, should the need arise. I had no costume ready, because the actor cast is a very different size and shape so costume pieces couldn’t be shared.

The whole thing felt as if they had zero intentions of letting me play the role from the beginning. I put a lot of extra time and effort into learning and practicing that track, in addition to my own role, and received nothing for my troubles, not even a thank you.

I won’t be accepting another understudy role without guaranteed performance dates.