Holy Shit, Did Javier Ignacio Pick the Right Year to Be an Understudy!

It was a year ago this month that I talked to my old friend Javier for this website about his expectations as an understudy. He was six months away from beginning rehearsals again for the Broadway production of Company. The Delta variant subsided, and as the fall arrived, shows began to open, or re-open depending on how you look at it, and previews began November 15th. Sondheim himself caught the show in previews before passing only days later. 

I, like Sondheim, caught the show before it opened myself. It is a neon, energetic, dream-come-true of a show. 

Then, as the holidays crept closer, the Omicron variant began to sweep through the nation, city, and the Broadway community. Many shows closed for weeks at a time, and some just shuttered, deciding to wait out the whole thing and are only just now reopening. They simply couldn’t keep up – people were getting sick faster than understudies could rehearse and be ready. 

It’s like dominoes – if an understudy goes on in a lead – someone has to cover that track and then someone has to do all the little parts that person had and so on. 

Eventually you run out of people.

Most of the time, especially in musicals, the understudies for the leads are in the chorus and have small parts; “extras” if you will. Someone performing way in the back likely knows all the lines of a main character.

And as one company manager told me – the cost of testing every cast and crew member every single day was hugely prohibitive. Mrs. Doubtfire was one of the first to close before it even opened back in December saying, “We’ll see you in May,” which seemed like a lifetime, but here we are. Same with others like To Kill a Mockingbird which finally reopens next month. 

Company has only missed two performances, since it opened December 9, and those were because crew members were out sick and replacements could not be rehearsed for the complicated tracks of juggling the unique yet shiny scenery. 

Even stagehands have understudies.

Courtesy: Scott Brooks / Tawk of New Yawk

As other shows struggled to keep going, the understudy became the hero of Broadway – their skill and dedication and being ready to step into the lights in a role they have never played outside of the rehearsal room made them the poster child for New York’s can-do attitude. In Company there are two to three understudies for every role.

Here’s what it’s like when you are in a Broadway show during a pandemic: It used to be that every day you were tested, now it’s four times a week.  At 6:00 AM you get a text that says if you are positive or not. If you are positive, the stage manager, who also already knows, tells the understudy, “You’re going on tonight as so-and-so,” while you go into isolation in a hotel for ten days. Depending on how often you have rehearsed, you may have a chance to rehearse the role with the other leads – or you may not. You may perform opposite star for the first time in front of fifteen hundred paying audience members.

Javier has gone on in TWO of the three roles he covers this year so far.

The first time he got the call was for one performance in the role of Jamie. (Who does the show stopping favorite, Not Getting Married Today.) For the same performance, another lead had tested positive and Javier’s fellow understudy, Jacob went on opposite him; a fellow understudy and familiar face out there in the footlights. Javier has many glowing things to say about Katrina Lenk, who plays the lead of Bobby. “She came up to me and said what do you need?” She was welcoming and supportive and “lifts up her cast mates.” 

They got together to run their scenes and had to rehearse in the mezzanine lobby as ushers rushed around getting the house ready. 

Two months had passed, and Javier got the call to go on again when “Jamie” tested positive on March 29th. But for some reason Matt Doyle’s positive test didn’t come through until half an hour before the show. Javier, who isn’t even in the first part of the show, was having dinner in his dressing room when he got a call from the stage manager that he was going on as Jamie. 

Seconds later, the door to his dressing room flew open and there was a flurry of activity all around him as they moved his costumes to the character’s dressing room and he was giving himself what I imagine was a good pep talk. For ten days Javier played Jamie. In that week, understudies went on in four other roles that week – one actor burned sage in his dressing room in a moment of spiritual vigor. 

At least they say it was sage.

After his ten-day stint in the lead, Javier was settling into his usual role in the chorus and was getting a well-earned massage when his phone started blowing up – he had to go on that night… in the role of Andy! 

He rushed to the theatre – he had a question about a light cue – it’s not just lines and dance steps, the trickiest part to grasp he told me – the thing you can’t get by just studying the show from the audience – is hitting certain marks to be in the right place when a light will hit you just right or a piece of scenery will speed past, and you better not be in the way.

I asked him if he ever felt schizophrenic – suddenly uncertain who he even was.

He told me, yes definitely. There is a lot of complicated choreography including moving around a bunch of chairs in the titular number Side By Side. “One night I am on one side of the stage and my hand is on this part of this chair and the next I am on the other side of the stage trying to remember where to put that chair.”

“We all know all the roles so well at this point that we can cover the occasional glitch pretty easily.”

I asked him if this has brought the company of Company very close. “Oh yes.” He told me. “We are like family, and I am so lucky to be here.

The show has had the full company in their intended roles for two weeks as of this writing, and I wish them the best to continue that streak. However, with scheduled vacations Javier will be going on again and maybe finally tackle the third role he hasn’t gone on in – Peter. 

You still have until December to catch Javier and his friends in Company at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre on West 45th Street.

Courtesy: Scott Brooks / Tawk of New Yawk