THE HAPPY ELF: the understudy
By House Manager, Michael WarrenToday Jared Gertner, who plays Eubie in Harry Connick, Jr.'s THE HAPPY ELF was home sick with the flu which meant his understudy, Paul Helm had to fill in. And to make matters more confusing, since Paul is already in the show, his understudy, Toddy Denning had to fill in for him.
And I have to tell you, they were awesome! A huge congralutations to Paul, Todd and the incredible kick-butt cast and crew for working together to pull off the understudy changes.
At one point "Eubie" is suppose to be buffing a doll so much that he rubs her face completely off - except Paul grabbed the wrong doll for the bit. Fortunately, young performer Alyssa Sylvester was quick enough to notice and in a second she grabbed the doll with a face from Paul's hand and replaced it with the doll missing the face so that the joke would make sense and no one was the wiser.
Again, great job to everyone today - the show was a hit and many children left the theater singing "The Happy Elf" song!
Photo by John Deighton Hemingway (left) Paul Helm as Eubie is giving a toy to Hannah Laird as Gilda
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And the unseen hero of the day was Company Manager Desi Rosas who worked late into the night on Tuesday with Production Stage Manager Sarah Hoffmann to prepare for Paul to play Eubie, and who worked backstage on Wednesday to help Todd with some quick costume changes!
-p.
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