Student Blog: The Swing Project

There is so much happening this semester alone for our second year, and we are just barely over our half term. Our Autumn showing for our ‘new musical theatre’ project has just past us by and we move on to embark on our next endeavor.

In case our New Musical Theatre module was not exciting enough, we have another project this semester that is just as thrilling. We will be starting our ‘Swing project’, and as its name suggests, we will be understudying several ensemble tracks in the musical, Come From Away (2017). To explain how the module works, each of us will be covering four tracks, and each track consists of two characters as actors in the show often have double roles as a Newfoundlander and a character who has come from away. The piece has been shortened into a shorter preview consisting of four songs with scenes in between for our assessment, and in our score, we are assigned numbers according to our tracks for our harmonies. It’s a huge task to juggle but it is exactly the experience we need.

For the assessment, we will be doing two full runs. For the first, we will be told which track we’re doing days prior to the showing but for the second, we will be informed minutes before the showing; much like the experience a swing may confront on the job!

It’s one of the incredible initiatives our university gives us on this course. Much like our new musical theatre, this project opens us up to one of many opportunities we may want to consider and trains us with the experience of what it’s like to step all these parts as we step into the industry.

For our first session, we were introduced to the concept of what a swing does in a show so that we understand our parts better for this module. He shared a few experiences from friends who are swings in the industry as well as articles of those who have had to leap into their roles at the very last minute. He even mentioned the iconic ‘Witch Switch’ in Wicked in which the performer for Elphaba is switched out halfway through Defying Gravity. In addition to that, our teacher broke down the demographics of swings to contracted Broadway chorus members, and the percentage was only about a third of the overall members.

I do enjoy the more academic parts of our modules before diving into the actual work as it helps me work better having a much deeper understanding of certain underlying mechanisms in the industry. They do get quite hefty on top of all the practical work we get but it’s been a great help.

After the mini seminar, we moved on to recording our harmonies to learn outside of class. For this project, we will be performing a revue of Come From Away with 5 songs from the show which are ‘Welcome To The Rock’, ’38 Planes’, ‘Lead Us Out of The Night’, ’38 Planes (Reprise)/Somewhere In The Middle of Nowhere’ and ‘Finale’. I cover Bonnie/Martha and Oz/Joey for my first covers while my second covers are Beverly/Annette and Kevin T/Garth. It’s a broad range of characters so it’ll be quite the rollercoaster ride for me, however, our assessment only requires us to cover 2 tracks. We’ll get to know our first track 15 hours before the first run then for the second run, we’ll be informed 15 minutes before or probably less which stimulates a realistic scenario of a swing to see how well we take on the part.

We had a taster session with a few games conducted by our director who is a visiting lecturer. With our freshly spiked studio, we learnt about the Grid where the stage is practically a chessboard. It’s a much more convenient way for our director to map out the blocking for each number based on the coordinates arranged with numbers, colors and the directions of the stage. Our first game entailed searching for the right spot to stand on with a given coordinate to see how quickly we could understand and respond to the direction. For our second game, we were divided into groups and individually paired up with another member in a separate group to ‘cover’ them, essentially becoming your partner’s swing as we ran through a series of improvisation. The other games gradually added more tracks for us to cover in which we had to select another person, now within our group, to cover.

Our director was looking for precision and accuracy in the games to train us with the coordinates as well as having an eye for detail. All the while, we had to add our own personal pizzaz to the ‘characters’ too. The games really got the adrenaline pumping, and after that, we returned to the piano and continued recording our harmonies to bring home with us.

Stressful as it may seem, I have never been more excited for a project. Come From Away is one of my favorite musicals and it is incredibly special to me because it was my first ever West End musical. I saw it just a month after moving to the UK, and what I would give to have the experience of seeing it again for the first time. I wept as soon as I entered the theatre, cried more when the drums of the opening number began to play and proceeded to cry throughout the entirety of the show because of its beauty.

I’m confident I’m going to cry at least once during my assessment but for all good reasons.

I would highly recommend this musical to anyone who crosses my path and it’s the perfect one because, like Hamilton, it has a proshot! So, if you have the time, go ahead and give it a watch, or listen to the cast recording.

Now, putting aside my delighted fangirl rambling, I will have to embark on this crazy process for my assessment which is in about 4 weeks’ time. My process has been all over the place but I’m slowly starting to find my groove with the help of my shrine of scores, scripts, recordings, Google Drive folders, scribbles and pastel highlighters. The power of technology is truly a gift in our industry as my classmates and I have been sharing our notes and folders across several platforms to sort ourselves in the chaos.

Best of all, we have references on streaming platforms should we ever need to do thorough researching. There is still much to do even if I’ve seen the musical in person slightly more than a year ago now, and I look forward to sharing my process with you next time!