Alternates, understudies, standbys, covers - I need stories!

There's a good one about Mary Poppins during its original West End run. There was a lengthy show stop that went on so long that the show would have ended past the legal working time for the two kids playing Jane and Michael, so they sent on the shortest adults in the cast for the last few scenes in the show!

Not as interesting as the above story but I find the alternates at Six interesting. They seem to go on to cover more than any other alternates/understudies I know in other shows (I suppose it's an unusual format for a show) and each covers 2 queens, so you can go multiple times and never see the same actors as the same queens. I remember at the start that Grace Mouat (I think) covered all 6 queens, I wondered what would happen if more than one was off!

My friend Kara Tremel was dance captain in the US National tour of Jersey Boys a few years back. Once they were so short on cast she had to go on for one of the male ensemble parts in one scene. And since it wouldn't have worked to just let that role be female she went on in a regular suit with fake moustache and all. It was a speaking part, too, so I'm sure that did raise a few eyebrows in the audience that night.

Also Jason Winter (Kinky Boots - West End and now tour) has covered several ensemble parts at once in one show. I think he is the master of the split track by now.

We had once a girl (a tiny one!) going on a male track in The Sound Of Music! Love such stories.
I also remember Joe Davenport going on a female track in Memphis!

Do you remember Jason covering more than 2 tracks? Or was it 2 at a time?

Oh, thanks!


does someone remember more of the gender-neutral examples? Love it!

Also will serve as a nice example of a show with no ensemble and just leads!

Strictly Ballroon last year, one of the Dance captains broke her foot, she also covered 9 tracks, during the few months she couldn't perform they had to call someone from the Leeds/Toronto cast to cover one role, another girl became a third cover to a track she'd originally covered in the Leeds production. Then came the show that had so many covers she ended up going on with an air boot. The swings were doing split tracks all over the place, great fun to watch

Grease 2017 tour, they cut the ensemble down meaning there were more then a few shows with just 1 Male or female ensemble, they called in the associate choreographer to cover the female ensemble a few times and there were 2 shows with no female ensemble since they were covering leads

Ha! I saw Kara Tremel as all three women in Jersey Boys at various times in 2007. I had no idea about this story.

Track is the number of roles ensemble actor has during the show (like: Villager, Spoon, One of the Gaston's gang in the Beauty and the Beast)
If there are not enough people to cover all the tracks some tracks are split between other people on stage, meaning they are singing some other track's lines

One of Aladdin's pals who is usually a male has been covered by a female a few times in the West end.

There's the famous story of Gwen Verdon going off in the original run of Chicago only for an announcement to happen saying she would be covered by Liza Minelli!

I've seen a female Gavroche, Daisy Maywood. She was the best Gavroche I've ever seen!

Both the long-running Mischief shows occasionally have to gender-swap a character. In The Comedy About A Bank Robbery it's fairly minor, just one of the female ensemble members covering a male ensemble track. In The Play That Goes Wrong it's more interesting because Trevor gets gender-swapped to Tessa. I've seen this happen once & it was very interesting, though it does make the scene when Trevor has to stand in a Florence less amusing than it usually is.

In terms of a shortage of ensemble, I once saw a performance of Phantom where they were so short on ensemble members that ther was no-one to play Madame Firmin so in the short scene in which she appears there was a bit of re-distirbution of lines so Firmin & Andre could cover for her absence.

I don't know if you're interested in opera examples but the scheduled singer who has lost their voice acting the role while another singer stands at the side of the stage and sings is pretty common. I must have seen it a dozen times between the verious UK opera companies. I once saw 2 performances where the scheduled singer was so ill that she couldn't even act the role so the assistant director had to step in & act. She was a good actress, I don't know if she had trained as one before moving into directing or not, but it was rather unfortunate that she was very petite, one of the 2 roles was a trouser role (i.e. a woman playing a male role) & she was at least half a head shorter than the singer playing the (female) love interest.

Ahhh Alex Jay...how I loved she. ❤️