#hana stewart | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

six-costume-refs · 1 year

Note

I noticed Hana now has a US agent. Is it possible she’s joining the Broadway cast permanently? I always thought it was suspicious they flew her out and she only did 2 shows, they didn’t really seem to need her as cover. Perhaps she was there for other reasons - meetings, fittings, chemistry test with other cast members etc.

This got stuck in draft hell so we at least know she’s not joining Broadway now. But...I had already written 90% of a response and I think you asked a few questions that are ones other people might have shared and that the answers could be useful for future reference, so here it is.

-----

I don't expect her to, or at least not long term. There’s a few elements to this:

Unions and international actors Even with a US agent she still has to go through the process of getting approval from UK Equity + US AEA/Equity to be able to perform in the US. That permission isn't usually given unless there's a very strong reason for it. That's mostly because each union doesn’t want the other country to take away too much of their talent, leaving them without as many performers and without their most well known. And conversely they don’t want too many performers from outside of the country coming in when they could instead be employing actors from their own country/community. So they have a series of safe guards and agreements to prevent that, as well as the stipulation that AEA + UK Equity have to both agree to every instance. First of all, there always has to be a roughly equal number of actors from each country performing in the other. So if five UK Equity actors are currently performing in the US, roughly five AEA actors have to be currently performing in the UK. Second of all, the unions don't necessarily want to give up their "star" or well-known performers to the other country's theatre industry. They want to keep them in their own so that they can increase audience numbers in their home country! If they do let their well known performers perform in the other country, it's usually because they've either originated the role or because they feel like it could significantly increase the popularity of that show and their home country could still benefit.

Hadestown is a good example of both scenarios. AEA agreed to let several of the original NYTW/Edmonton performers perform in the West End production. That was partially because they were originating the roles, but it was also partially because a West End production and eventual Broadway transfer with the same cast could drum up more popularity and hype for the Broadway transfer before it even opened (which it did do).

The AEA/UK Equity agreement process is also why Sam Pauly wasn't able to debut as Howard on the West End. While she had approval to perform in Evita, Six wasn't part of that agreement, so she wasn't approved by the unions to do so (and visa issues there as well). Andrea Macasaet, as a Canadian actor who is a member of Canadian Equity and not AEA, also has special permission to perform in Six - there’s a note in the program saying that she’s appearing by special permission of Actors’ Equity, and that’s why!

That doesn't mean Hana won't ever appear in a US production of Six again! Clearly she's open to working in the US, and both her and Six management have clearly been open to her joining temporarily. In a scenario where they need a temporary cover or vacation swing, they might have a strong enough argument for why she should be able to join that they could work it out: she knows the show, she knows the Broadway tracks, they know she can fit in at least a pre-existing Aragon costume, and all of that is cheaper and easier than casting and rehearsing someone totally new who might only be needed for a week or two. But as far as a long term swing or even principal goes, I don’t think it’s likely that that would be worked out.

(note here that I wrote this before we had Marilyn Caserta as a universal swing. That significantly decreases the chances of Hana coming back even temporarily.)

As for why they might have brought her over:

- It’s going to be fairly difficult to predict how many covers US Six might need at a given time. The UK has required alternate shows each week and different rules about vacations/time off, so the UK actors typically get significantly more pre-planned shows off or on. Add that to injuries and illness and there’s significantly more cover shows all around. There’s also quite a number of former actors, NCL or WE/UKT, who could be put in the UK productions as emergency covers if absolutely needed, and plenty of costumes (alt and principal) to accommodate those sorts of emergency covers. But in the US productions, they have very periodic vacations and they’re usually built in at specific times (either via layovers for tour casts or via scheduled vacation seasons for Broadway cast). The rest of the time most absences are purely based on injury or illness, which of course is nearly always impossible to predict in advance. US productions can go from having one scheduled absence to three or four (or more) in the space of a day or two. And because the show is newer here (and Broadway has different rules about emergency covers than the West End), we don’t have the same number of former Six actors who can jump in and emergency cover at the drop of a hat, nor enough costumes to accommodate that (Note from Nov 2022: Bway do have more now, but in Apr when Hana was joining they had very few potential emergency covers). All of that just makes it MUCH harder to predict when issues might occur and deal with them if/when they do. And again, it takes a while to negotiate all the specifics of a new contract and unions and visas, so they wouldn’t have been able to bring over Hana at the drop of a hat if they suddenly realized they needed her.

- The period when she was covering Broadway was during scheduled vacation season. For at least one week of that, they had an alternate (Mallory Maedke and later seemingly Keirsten Hodgens) on vacation. That would have left only one cover for three of their roles. If the cast gets hit with injuries or illness (which did wind up happening that week with Abby Mueller) they might not have enough covers. Broadway system helps with that, but it’s still not a guarantee and still leaves things more vulnerable. Bringing in Hana to cover 2/3 of each Mallory and Keirsten’s roles at least helped have a backup as needed.

- From what Hana said this had been a discussion since probably Dec 2021/Jan 2022 (note that this is also when they brought Cassie Silva in). The US was right at the peak of a huge Covid wave during that exact period. Shows were having to cancel performances right and left; Six was also affected, and had to cancel 14 performances in late December. Numbers were very high (infections were 4x higher than at any previous peak), shows were calling in every emergency cover they could to try and keep doors open (again, Six brought in Cassie), and there was pretty significant concern that Broadway might have to shut down again. There were a lot of questions about how long that peak would last and if Broadway could even be affected by it through the spring. And while they had Cassie then, they knew she would eventually need to leave to join ANAT a few weeks before Hana joined. Many of the actors also had scheduled vacations in the spring and there were very likely concern that some of them could potentially get Covid or another illness while traveling for that. It was a very scary time for the industry and everyone was making contingency plans, and from what Hana has said it seems like that’s around the time they started talking about her joining as well.

- As far as performing less, she seems to have been meant as more of a standby. Her contract did stipulate that she’d get to perform at least once, but beyond that there were no guarantees. She had her first show scheduled as Aragon, and we knew that one a while in advance. Otherwise other alts were nearly always available to cover, and she didn’t have costumes for S/P which meant she would have HAD to be last priority. But that brings me to her second show…

- She DID have to perform her second show. Mallory Maedke and Keirsten Hodgens were out that day and Courtney Mack was on for Howard and Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert was on for Cleves. Hana Stewart was the only other alt available, and she found out less than an hour before showtime that she had to go on for Parr. Obviously we don’t know all the bts details but from what we do know it is VERY unlikely that they would have been able to cover that show if they didn’t have her. If they couldn’t, they would have had to cancel. Might not sound like the biggest deal to cancel one show, but it’s still significant; at that time one performance would have brought in close to 170k of revenue. Either way, it sure seems to have meant the difference between being able to do the performance and having to cancel it, and that’s a pretty significant argument for needing her as a cover. And yes it’s still one performance out of a month and a halfs’ worth, but again that’s one last minute cover that would have been totally unpredictable in advance; similar situations could have arisen at many other times while she was there.

TL;DR: There’s no easy way to have known if they would have needed her to perform for sure, but given the context and the potential they had for issues to arise from Covid/vacations/otherwise unpredictable illness and injury, it seems like they decided it would be smart to have her as extra coverage in case they did need her.

As far as everything else…. - Hana may have wanted to come over here to start auditioning for other projects. That could have been other theatre, or it could have been film/TV which has rules that are generally much more accommodating of UK actors than Broadway (she’s done some film/TV in the UK and her US agency is heavily focused on it as well). Working for Six may have given her the opportunity and stability to start auditioning for projects even if there isn’t potential for her to join Six long term.

- You’re correct that chemistry readings/fittings would be a reason to bring someone in early if they’re in consideration for a longer contract! So much so that I’ve checked on those timelines for her, but in this case when she was here doesn’t line up with other Six cast’s timelines for auditions/costumes so I don’t think that was the case.

**Back then there were very few potential emergency covers: Anna Uzele had left but was on set for a show; Aragon Tour queens if needed, but ANAT + Broadway have different tracks and Cassie Silva was the only one who knew any Broadway tracks at the time (she knew Cleves and Howard); and the handful of Bliss 3.0/Breakaway 3.0 queens who had gotten AEA membership since leaving the ship but would have needed to learn Broadway tracks and potentially new costumes (and again, very few extra Bway costumes existed at the time). Now there’s way more depth: Marilyn has become a universal swing, between the ANAT alts there’s at least one person who has learned every Broadway track (Cassie Silva B/C/H, Kelly Denise Taylor A/S/C, Kelsee Kimmel S/P), a full casts’ worth of former Broadway cast members (including four alts) plus a few former replacements, and quite a number of former cruise actors who are AEA. Still don’t have the same depth of potential emergency covers as the UK, but they’ve been able to cover shows when needed and shouldn’t run into major issues like they could have last April.

#six the musical #hana stewart #unions #six broadway #six west end #six musical

26 notes · View notes