Join CJ Greer as she travels the country in the Broadway touring production of Company – coming to a city near you! Each month she discusses the ins and outs of life on the road.
“Year after year…older and older…”
Being on tour while performing every night is a dream job! What a thrill to be employed doing the thing you love to do nearly every day. But just like everything else in life, there is a flip side. Believe it or not, doing eight shows a week for months at a time is exhausting! The operatic world doesn’t perform this often, but this is what is required in most musical theatre contracts and definitely at the highest levels of Broadway and National Touring contracts. 8 shows in 6 days, and 1 day off a week. Except, often your one “day off” is a travel day, so you can’t just sit around in your pajamas and shut down for a day; you must put on your game face, function as part of a team, and be where you are supposed to be and when as you travel to the next city.
Maintaining this schedule week after week wears a person down mentally and physically. And this doesn’t even include the tours doing split-weeks or one-nighters! Those are brutal on the body. Each show has its own unique physical and mental challenges. You must be healthy in your nutrition, but also in your body, mind, and spirit. Being strong, coordinated, flexible, and having muscular and cardiovascular endurance, accompanied by mental and emotional wellness, and the tools to maintain, are key components to longevity and continuing to work successfully in this industry. Regular physical activity is essential. For many people, the gym is a good place to start.
But how do you find a gym while traveling from city to city? Fortunately, most touring company managers provide their cast members with options for free or inexpensive gym memberships in each city. Every gym will vary in machines, classes, pool, etc. You can always access the hotel gym as well which are sometimes sufficient, sometimes not. For some people, it is the mental health aspect of leaving the hotel room that makes going to and from the gym so important. How often you need to “hit the gym” is up to your body and your physical requirements in the show. In our production of Company, there is a fight scene—complete with “throwing each other to the ground” choreography. Those two tracks require maintaining specific physical abilities, and a physical warmup before performance so they do not hurt themselves. In another scene, there are two characters who find themselves undressed to their skivvies in a bedroom scene. I can tell you that the cast member and the understudies hit the gym regularly.
To be very clear, I am not advocating for any specific body type. Our industry is going through a long overdue awakening to how it needs to present bodies of all types, sizes, shapes, and differing abilities, and it is gradually doing better about veering our casting towards representing body diversity. I am so pleased to see this happening! But no matter your body type, if you can’t sustain the physical rigor required, you will not regularly work. Worse yet, you may injure yourself and either need to step away from the industry to heal, or worst-case scenario, find yourself unable to perform anymore. Just ask the dancers who spent years and years performing in The Lion King; some of them still have healthy knees, but many do not. And it’s not just the dancers: the Pumbaa costume is one of several in that show that is extremely heavy and wears your body down. Any number of show specific elements such as costumes, choreography, vocal strain, etc. can cause you injury. It is amazing how unbalanced our bodies can become when they are required to do the same thing repeatedly. I can speak directly to years and years of wearing heels, especially on raked stages, and the toll it has taken on my lower body: feet, ankles, calves, hamstrings, and hips. Injuries abound and manifest in different ways. Some are acute, and some emerge over time. During the Broadway production of Sister Act, we affectionately coined the term “nun-neck” we all suffered from due to the incredibly long, heavy habits and our extensive arm and upper body choreography. Having access to a physical therapist who can offer healing strategies and exercises structured specifically to you and your challenges in the show is an important part of maintaining your overall physical health. It is no different than professional athletes and should be treated as such.
On many of the AEA (Actors Equity Association) touring contracts, there is a physical therapist associated with the production. This person will either travel with you, or the company will bring someone into the theater on your double show days. The appointments are usually only 20 minutes long, which does not seem long enough, but it is something to help your body stay mobile, healthy, and strong. They might do manual tissue work, dry needling, cupping, or any other number of techniques to keep your body moving easily and freely while also offering exercises for lengthening and strengthening. Our company travels a physical therapy box which holds a full length foam roller, Therabands, several balls of varying densities for rolling, grafting tools, a rolling stick, an angled standing board, and a massage table. We have access to this equipment in the theater.
Massages are great for upkeep. Many people think of massages as a luxury, but in our industry, they are a regularity if not a requirement for keeping your body healthy and capable. Budgeting and scheduling a massage every so often is very important. How often is up to your particular physical needs. Company managers will offer a recommendation near the theater or hotel accommodation. I also recommend asking the local crew at your theater; they often have great suggestions.
Being of “sound mind and body” is important to your health and well-being, but it is also important for the well-being of your entire touring company. Having tried and tested tools to keep you in sound mind is as important as maintaining your physical health. Our cast and crew of Company have many ways of taking care of their mental wellness including meditation, physical exertion, yoga, therapy sessions, song writing, hiking, meeting with friends/family, and in general setting daily activities that take them outside of the hotel or theater. Often our cast and crew book Airbnb’s rather than stay in the hotels because it gives them a sense of “normalcy” while on the road. One cast member loves to choose a different coffee shop every day that is a 30-minute walk from the hotel and make that her meditation time.
Some explore restaurants and local activities (I always love going to the local zoo!), and of course there are sometimes post-show social engagement activities. Though you might read “social engagement activities” as “headed to the bar,” that honestly doesn’t happen very often on this tour, and when it does it is usually only one drink and then to bed. Our cast and crew are a remarkable group of professionals who understand how alcohol affects your sleep, which affects your voice and body, which affects your ability to do your job, and so this cast has developed many healthier self-care activities. People grab a late night snack, share a pizza, play dice, do a puzzle, cook a meal together, or head straight for their bed. It might be the healthiest cast of mind, body, and spirit I have ever worked with.
Having projects outside of your theatrical responsibilities is another way of maintaining a sound mind. Tour can be a wonderful opportunity to take on a side project you have always wanted to explore, such as learning to knit or crochet, play an instrument (a portable one!), making jewelry, taking an online class or even working towards an online degree, completing a reading list and passing the book on once you’ve read it, learning to code software or design websites, writing your own songs or a book, managing a side business, or—in my case—visiting universities in each city to work with students and faculty. It has been such fun! We all have ways to decompress and find joy and inspiration outside of work to help keep up our spirits, an essential part of being on tour.
Only a few months to go! Coming up we’ll talk about vocal health, understudies and cast replacements, contracts, and do a wrap up of favorite moments on tour. Now that we are on the west coast you can catch us in Spokane, Sacramento, or our last two cities in Dallas and Ft. Worth Texas. Come join us for a joyful evening of Company!
