Swing it, Brother! Swing!

Recently I was pleased when producer Ken Davenport featured Arbender Robinson, a Dance Captain/Swing on his blog. From reading this account, I am inspired to share my own experience approaching such a heavy job!

First off, many of you might not know what a Swing is or does! Often when I tell people I'm the Male Swing on Beauty and the Beast, they say "I don't remember that character in the castle!" :)

Essentially, as Swing I am an on-call actor. If someone can't do the show (due to illness, injury, or conflict), I fulfill their performance, or track. My job is to cover the eight tracks of the male ensemble. I was also hired to understudy Lefou. In an emergency situation, I also cover the eight female ensemble tracks in the town scenes!

Requirements:
Arbender spoke very accurately when he said swinging "requires a ton of homework to remember different vocal parts, blocking, choreography, and acting intentions for each character. This includes everything they do offstage, too: costume changes, prop shifts, entrances and exits, etc."

Swinging requires a person to be very organized and detail oriented to document and implement every nuance of a role. In addition, one has to delineate what is critical to the show vs. an individual's artistic choices. One has to be able to fulfill ALL the critical requirements AND adapt/adopt the artistic choices.

Tips/Tricks:

It's easiest to get everything down first! I choose to work digitally through videos, notes, charts and tracking sheets. Once in the computer, it's easy to clean up and implement changes. Digital notation makes it easy to record future notes, modifications and discoveries as well as preserve the work for future generations!

While I'd love to elaborate on my methodology of digital notation, it is my hope to find freelance work after this tour teaching my process to stage managers, dance captains, swings and any directors/choreographers interested in preserving or selling their work. Swinging is a very difficult job and I am hopeful that my process can be further refined and perfected to become useful to others.

I will say that if one finds themselves in a Swing role, begin by WRITING THINGS DOWN. Many of your questions can be answered by returning to your own notes! Look at the big picture. Find the patterns first, and then notate the myriad variations with MAXIMUM specificity.

Hint: Think about movement in terms of US/DS (or upstage and downstage!) as well as towards center or away. (It will help you to quickly reverse things!)

Pitfalls:
You get MANY days off!
Inevitable anxiety...

Positives:

You get MANY days off!
You get to play MANY parts!

I really enjoy my job because every day is different! Performing the same role everyday in a long run has its advantages and disadvantages. However, Swinging Beauty and the Beast has taught me things about myself and theatre that I would never have garnered if I didn’t get to observe and do so much!

I am grateful and proud of this show and hope you'll get the opportunity to see it--with or without me in it! :)