Doing a Broadway show is one of the greatest achievements an actor can have. It’s the epitome of stage work and the feeling you get from the audience each performance is indescribable. But make no mistakes about it…it is a job! A hard job. One I love, but one that takes a lot of discipline and energy to do.
Each show on Broadway has its rewards and hurdles. Many times, the rewards are pretty similar across the broad (the gratification from the audiences, the glitz and glamour (yeah ok) and all the other plusses that come with being on Broadway), the hurdles can be as well; however, each show has its own set of specific challenges for the Broadway performer. I want to talk briefly about HAIR’s. I call them…THE HAIR EFFECTS!
So first there are illnesses. In a show with a cast this large, someone is always sick.. Trying not to spread your germs (and not receiving others’ germs) is a dance we do daily. During any given show, someone is coughing on you, spitting on you, sneezing by you (all inadvertently). But nevertheless, folks are on meds that range from antibiotics to Echinacea to ibuprofen. Yet the show must go on. In our show, we share cigarettes, passing them from mouth to mouth, so uh…germs will be passed. You just pray that your cigarette buddy is feeling well that day or thinks enough beforehand not to touch it if they aren’t. If you’re sick, you fight through it til you just can’t anymore. You may take a day off or five, depending on the illness, but as soon as you can get back out there (many times before you should get back out there) you are back at it.
Then there are the pains. Body pain in our show just radiates. It moves from one body part to another, weekly, daily, sometimes, hourly. We stay in physical therapy to help with some of the major issues, but you kinda just gotta push through it. We’ve seen it all at HAIR. Busted knees, back spasms, scoliosis, TMJ, cuts and bruises, elbows to the face; if it can happen, it’s happened to someone in our show. When you have that many people on stage throwing their bodies around at high velocities eight times a week, the wear and tear in inevitable. But again, you tape it, ice it, cover it, grin and bear it, and rest it when you can. But the show must go on.
Then there is the voice! Attacked by everything from allergies, to acid reflux, to fatigue and overuse. Yes we have microphones, but we still have to sing, and doing it eight times a week for two-and-a-half hours (five hours on two show days) is a lot of work and strain. The audience doesn’t pay for “singers who sound tire,” so we must do what we can to deliver the goods every show.
Well, “how in the hell do we maintain?” you may ask. Across the board for most b-way performers its simple: Discipline! It means vocal rest when you can (not going out after a show and resting on your one day off a week). It means stretching daily and warming up before a show. It means taking a lot of medicine sometimes. Eating well (which is hard to do and a whole other blog!). There are so many things that happen behind-the-scenes that we must do just to have one good show. And WE DO THEM.
Don’t get me wrong! I am not complaining at all, just sharing. We LOOOVE our jobs, but sometimes people forget that they are just that. Some punch a time clock, we sign in at a call board, but it’s all work. So the next time you see a show, take this into consideration: If the show moves you, you love a particular performer of the way a particular song was sung, think about all that the actor might have gone through to give it to you and clap EXTRA HARD at the end!!!
Tags: behind-the-scenes, Hair, lawrence stallings
