Video: A Declassified Understudy Survival Guide with Kayla Pecchioni

Like, yeah, this is the rush that I come here for

This is why we come to the theater. And it was really fun. Hi, my name is Caleb Peckyone

I play Mrs. McKee, and I'm in the ensemble of the Great Gatsby, and I understudy Daisy Buchanan

So I started my first Broadway show covering Jacquina Calacango and Paradise Square

and she won the Tony for playing Nellie and that. that I got to understudy her and I think I did it twice and then I was a swing and some

like it hot and I understudied sugar and then eventually understudied Sue and altogether I covered

10 people and I think I did sugar 86 times and I never got to do Sue so now I do Daisy B. Cannon

so I've kind of made like a little career of being an understudy and I'm very proud of it

Oh man, rehearsals it was interesting because when I joined Gatsby specifically, the production had already done

its time at Paper Mill, and I was new to the Broadway cast, and so I had a lot to learn

just in terms of what the show had become and developed into over time, so I really was

focused on my part and the ensemble because that where I needed to strengthen myself most to familiarize myself with most And then my understudy role stuff kind of came after that But along the way I definitely made sure to watch Eva as much as I could and take note of who Daisy was as much as I could

But it's hard because in that process, we were separated as ensemble and principals a lot

so I never really got to see her work until we all came together. and I would just kind of soak in her energy and hope to kind of embody the same thing as I continued to learn about Daisy

I mean, the first thing that I do when I'm learning a track, especially when you're learning an entire show and not just the understudy part

I have a habit of making cheat sheets. It is like the best tool that I have discovered for myself

I essentially take the main role that I'm covering. I take it and I squish it all down to maybe four or six pages of dialogue, basically a mini script of just all of their stuff

And looking at that, it makes the role much more digestible for me

And so I get to see that it's not as intimidating as it looks in the grand scheme of the show

And so I make these tiny little sheets where like my scenes look this big

And that's super helpful because if there's ever a moment where they need me in an instant

and it early on in the beginning of the process and I haven had a lot of time to focus on it then I get to study that really quickly and you know execute regurgitate There you know two different sides to the coin

If you're the understudy, there's constant preparation that needs to be done behind the scenes just to make sure that you stay fresh with your material so that it doesn't feel brand new when you go on

But also when you're in the ensemble every single night, you have to be conscious of like not exhausting yourself so that you can be that backup and you can be on

standby. My friends always joke that I am 100% Kayla. Like I do my shows 100% and I never

change them whether I'm in the ensemble or playing a lead. And I have to remember sometimes

to not overdo it when I'm in the ensemble just so I can make sure that I'm that sturdy backup

Being a good company member in the sense that you know that in the back of your mind you have

another role that is not just doing your regular show eight times a week and really sparsing

your energy so that you don't exhaust yourself and that you can give your full self to

the understudy role when you get those chances to step in, which are always very exciting

If I don't have time to prep or if I find out that I'm going on in a short notice, the first

things that I do are a lip trill, tongue warm up, and then I start plowing water

And then I the most important thing that I learned specifically with this show too is that that eventually once it comes time for the show to begin my voice will be there I just have to give it time

So I try not to force it. I try not to go push really hard at the top to make sure that I have it all in that moment

I let myself gradually warm up and trust myself that I will be able to do it in the moment

The first time that I had to do a mid-show swing on in this show, we were, I mean

one number and I think Eva had made it through one number and she was feeling compromised so

which is totally fair and she did the healthy thing and she called out and I by that point had done

roaring on and new money which are two hardest dance numbers for my track at least and they told me

that I was going into literally her next scene which was the next scene I was already dressed for that

next scene and I somehow whipped into shape got my costumes on

The show didn't even have to hold for me, and I was backstage ready to go on in that next scene without announcement

And I just remember being backstage and going, all right, here we go. And I had my baby, and I was ready to go out on stage, and the show held anyway

But it wasn't for me. But I just remember being ready so quickly and feeling like, yeah, this is the rush that I come here for

This is why we come to the theater. And it was really fun