The company of Broadway’s A Beautiful Noise has had quite an eventful week last week. September 14 saw star Will Swenson, who was out on a scheduled break, having to journey back to the city after his standby, Nick Fradiani, took ill (alongside multiple other company members).
Then on September 17, 13 different cast members had to call out of the production. Such a large number of absences led to the productions associate director, Austin Regan, making his Broadway performance debut as Fred Weintraub/Tommy O’Rourke.
On social media, the company of A Beautiful Noise has openly acknowledged the continued worldly presence of COVID-19 and its impact on the show. The production’s swing and co-dance captain Robert Pendilla shared the production’s September 17 call board on social media, to memorialize the feat carried out by the swath of understudies and swings that performed at the matinee
Not sure how much of this is a real trend and how much of it is just me pattern-matching, but everyone I know has also been getting sick. And exactly 1/5 of the actors in the show I’m doing now got COVID (although thankfully they got better by tech week).
Just because Covid has receded as a threat in most people’s minds (including my own), doesn’t mean it’s still not out there. New variants like EG.5 and BA.2.86, against which the current crop of boosters are less effective, are circulating. That said, it’s probably a mix of column A and column B.
I would not have believed this story if Robert Pendilla hadn’t posted the call sheet. A Beautiful Noise has a cast of 27, including 9 alternates, standbys and swings. With 13 actors (nearly half the cast) out, this would have meant they were at least 4 on-stage performers down. And, indeed, the call sheet shows several swings split-tracking (covering several tracks - or roles - at once). I imagine it must have been hectic backstage and unusually bare onstage.
It reminds me of a performance of Les Miserabes that some friends of mine saw many years ago. Sickness had hit the company and the ensemble was severely depleted, especially the female ensemble, to the point that the actress playing Eponine had to go on in Marius and Cosette’s wedding scene as a guest. This was back when Marius had the line “When I look at you I remember Eponine, she was more than you deserved, who gave her birth”, and he sang this as Eponine was literally waltzing around behind him.
