Understudies being forbidden to reveal their dates

Nope.

So sorry about that. I find it difficult to phrase and compose sentences properly. A lot of people say I write like I speak. Makes life difficult.

carrie, it's not your sentence construction, it's more the content of some of these posts! I just don't get the idea of tweeting/following etc understudies at all...! I know it's done quite a bit, but to some of us oldies, it's just crazeeeeee!

Ahh okay in my case I'm a fan of actors & performers. I always have been. In some cases actors who aren't well known don't have the publicity that bigger stars do. So a platform like twitter is vital. They might do a big show like Mis POTO Wicked etc get becoming fans. Then go into smaller, fringe or tour
shows which in some cases don't get publicity & rely on fans to turn up not just family & friends.

A good friend of mine is MT grad and she been doing tours for the last two years. Just prior she did a 2 week run of a play. Where I went twice first time was me about 10 other people in the audience. I posted every where for her. Aside a few odd people that turned up it was pretty much family / friends at the last show. Having her in twitter it was a link back her profile spotlight page.

The same thing with many of the understudies if you follow them you're there endlessly trying search on the thing for them. Tweeting them some respond to answers some don't. I am just fans of actors.

Judging by Mark Shenton's article in The Stage today it was (as I suspected) already a policy for Cameron Mackintosh which is just being enforced now. It'll die down.

RE: the above quoted tweet, it was really easy to find out what those days are.

With Cam Mack it's all about the show being the star. I can understand this to a point in that he does not want a long running show to be dependent on "star names" (look at the recent Sheridan Smith debacle) but I do find it a little disrespectful to actors who deliver night after night. I always check the cast board in the theatre as I like to know who I am seeing in the lead roles and applaud their particular efforts.

However, I have noticed in re-visiting shows recently (Kinky Boots and Les Mis for example) that the cast perform like animatronics - move here, raise arm there, look up here, the parts notated from the original performances/direction and reproduced. Clearly there cannot be an artistic free for all from actors as the show eventually would bare no resemblance to the original creative teams vision. But clearly the tracks are very strict which allows performers very little artistic license.

So as far as CM is concerned it matters little who is performing as long as they are following the track and delivering the required vocal performance. It makes a dispiriting case for being a professional actor in musical theatre, they are merely puppets on a string and a tight one at that.

I suspect 90% of the audience that attend Les Mis on a nighty basis have no idea or interest which actor they are seeing as long as they have a good experience.