As Broadway fights virus surge, unsung heroes find spotlight
06.01.2022 - 20:47
/ abcnews.go.com
coronavirus surge has been the unheralded performers ready to step into any role in an emergency. Then there’s Carla Stickler, who had actually left show business but returned to rescue “Wicked.”Sticker, who had launched a new career as a software engineer in Chicago three years ago, canceled her winter vacation and returned to New York to star as the green-skinned Elphaba while the cast was ravaged by illness.
She may have been playing a wicked witch, but Stickler's effort was all good.“It was like riding a bike,” she says. “I got out there and I was like, ‘Oh, I remember this.
This is really special, and I’m just going to try to enjoy every second of it.’”Her effort is just an extreme example of the work Broadway's understudies, standbys and fill-ins have made to keep shows open, often learning multiple roles with little formal rehearsals.The stress on companies has been enormous, with many shows kept open by the skillful folk listed deeper in the Playbill. Hugh Jackman, who before he contracted COVID-19, took a moment at a curtain call to honor the multiple understudies who kept his revival of “The Music Man” open for as long as it did.“It’s been such a really exciting moment to see understudies and standbys and swings get this kind of recognition for the hard work that they do,” Stickler says.
“I think they sometimes get overlooked. And so it’s been really emotional to see the outpouring of love for all what they do.”Stickler wasn't the only former performer pressed into service.
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