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[0:04] Joshua Kobak: Sent phone, stage manager. We need you on stage tonight. Go to dressing room, learn the costumes and if you can understand me speaking, as well as anyone can if you'll watch that. Thank you for providing us real. Super sing and sing and the single advice. Sounds are coming from all around me. Super sing, same and the same and listening. There you are. Welcome to Realto. Follow me. The show's about to stop. Keep your headphones on for the most immersive experience. Super Swings and Same and Last.

[0:58] Katy Pfaffl: Hi, I'm your host, Katy Pfaffl.

[1:00] Joshua Kobak: And I'm your co-host, Joshua Kobak. We're grateful that you're here with us to learn more about what makes a swing super.

[1:10] Katy Pfaffl: We are here today with one of my favorite people. Do you want to tell me your name?

[1:14] Evan Alexander Smith: Sure, my name is Evan Alexander Smith.

[1:16] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, and Evan has been a student of mine and a friend, and someone that I've been able to watch on stage and often developed as a very, very beautiful artist over the time that I've known you. And we wanted to have you on here today because you've had quite a year. Um, do you want to tell us a little bit about what you've been doing this past year?

[1:37] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, sure. Thank you first. Um, getting to know you and work with you has been, you know, just an incredible part of my life, and especially I first started seeing you coming out of the pandemic when I wasn't sure I was ever gonna be able to sing ever again. Um, and you just helped, you know, bring that back into my life and give me confidence and find my instrument again. And I was so grateful, but um this year. Well, that led to him singing beautifully and wonderfully, and there was not even a question because his voice just came back loud and proud, so much so that you got cast as the vacation cover for Seymour and Orin in Little Shop Before is off Broadway. And I did that for about a year before I joined the off-Broadway production of Merrily We Roll Along at New York Theater Workshop.

And there was about seven or eight months between our off-Broadway run and the Broadway run. So, after we finished at New York Theater Workshop, I went back to Little Shop for a little while and was there quite a bit before we went to Broadway. Um, was really lucky to get to be an on-stage swing at Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway, and I understudied Jonathan Groff as Frank. Um, and then got the sort of like surprise gift of being offered the opportunity to play George McFly in Back to the Future shortly before the end of Merrily's closing. So, um, left a little bit early to go there, and that's where I am now.

[3:00] Evan Alexander Smith: Before the pandemic, I had never swung. I had been in the ensemble of a musical once or twice, but had been playing principals in national tours and around the country and regional theater, and I certainly had this sort of what I'll say, like a kind of prejudiced idea about swinging that it was where somebody begins their career. And I think it's been a really interesting evolution over the last couple of years of understanding that it's part of people's journeys and that there are people at all sorts of different stages of their career who swing shows in various capacities. I do often feel like it's important to kind of dispel the idea that a swing is a beginner or a novice. They can be, and certainly it's a wonderful way for somebody to start their career, and it's something that I think everybody in theater should get to do once.

Yeah, because it's an illuminating job, but I don't think that it is a jumping off point necessarily. I don't think it's where somebody's career either begins or ends. I think it can be part of ideally a fully fleshed out career. So I feel really lucky to have had the opportunity to do it for a little while.

[4:10] Katy Pfaffl: Not everybody has that kind of brain, yeah, where you can really understand and function on many levels and also handle the anxiety and just the extreme nature of being shot out of a cannon into a show. And I know you had that a lot with Little Shop, yeah, right, because you were sort of the COVID swing.

[4:30] Evan Alexander Smith: It had its own kind of pressure, especially given the people that I was covering, like, you know, the impossible task of stepping into Christian Borle's shoes for a night. Right. Or when I joined the show, I remember very quickly I started having the opportunity to go on, unfortunately, because I joined just before the Omicron outbreak.

[4:48] Katy Pfaffl: Right, I remember.

[4:48] Evan Alexander Smith: Um, and so there were various points during the run of the show where I was the only person left in the building who could play that part because everybody was sick. Right.

[4:58] Katy Pfaffl: Right.

[4:58] Evan Alexander Smith: And I remember Jeremy Jordan was my first Seymour full-time. And the first time I went on, I remember seeing somebody in the front row with a new Sees t-shirt. Uh, and I remember walking out and just feeling like such a disappointment. Feeling so sorry for this person um who would come to see Jeremy and uh and did you see them at the stage door?

[5:20] Katy Pfaffl: No, I didn't. I probably ducked out the side, which is crazy.

[5:25] Evan Alexander Smith: Oh, so you didn't do the thing.

[5:26] Katy Pfaffl: Well, we didn't really have a stage door at Little Shop.

[5:28] Evan Alexander Smith: That's an Omicron.

[5:29] Katy Pfaffl: Right, right, right. So I mean, at least it saves that.

[5:31] Evan Alexander Smith: But that's the code, so you didn't get that kick in the case.

[5:33] Katy Pfaffl: I didn't have to do that. I didn't have to look them in the eyes and see the disappointment. Um, but I forget where I was going with this story.

[5:43] Evan Alexander Smith: No, but it is something like you've actually swung for really huge names, which is also very different too, because there is an expectation that fans have when they're coming to see a Christian Borle, a Jeremy Jordan or a Jonathan Groff. You know, that's the ticket that they bought. And I think one of my favorite things as an audience member is to watch them begin like pissed off and all disgruntled and then watch them end, going like, who's that guy? Yeah, who is that person? Because it really does happen. I watched it happen when you went on at Merrily. We'll talk about that. But you know, it does happen.

[6:17] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, and I think that's like the most highest success that you can have is to be like, wow, I made this person forget that they didn't see Jeremy Jordan and they actually enjoyed the show regardless.

[6:29] Katy Pfaffl: Well, that's largely why we wanted to make this podcast, is because I think people are aware of understudies, and I think they're less aware of what a swing is, you know, what a swing does. I know I went to college for musical theater with Josh, that's where we met. And um, I didn't really know anything about swings. It wasn't a thing that we were taught and or talked about. And when I got my job offer to be a swing in Rent, you would have thought after four years of schooling that it would have been like, oh yeah, swing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it was like, uh, wait, what is that?

[7:00] Joshua Kobak: Yeah.

[7:01] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[7:01] Evan Alexander Smith: It's a what was nuts to me the first time I did it is I remember thinking like, okay, so I've accepted, I've said yes to this job, and now I'm gonna be able to like reach out to my network of people who've done it. And there's gonna be, you know, a swing Bible. There's like a waiting, some kind of yeah, and I remember there was just none of that, and I remember being in the room with the other swings at Merrily, and it was just like we're all figuring out how to do this all on the fly, you know. It's like, do I I bought an iPad? What do I do with this? Do I have like do I have to get the stage right? Do I oh yeah, there's nowadays there's all these different help, yeah.

[7:37] Katy Pfaffl: So, what is your process when you like first come in? What is your first thing that you go like? I need to learn this first, and this like what is your process?

[7:48] Evan Alexander Smith: Well, it was a little bit different for Little Shop than it was for Merrily with Little Shop because it was really just covering those principles. I learned them the way I would learn, or you know, I prepared for that job the way I would prepare if I was playing those roles in any theater. So, you know, you learn the lines, you learn the music as much as you can before you start rehearsals for me. I do think it's important um when you're an understudy or swing to bring as much of yourself to it as you can, but there is a template, and I think it can be jarring and difficult to stray too far from what has been set. I mean, the staging is the staging that's always set, but the you know, the journey through Little Shop was saying, okay, so my Seymour is this way when I'm covering Jeremy, and then um, and then Conrad Ricamora comes in.

How does that change his dynamic in the cast? And how I have to then adjust what I have been performing to now match the new tempo, the new energy, the new relationships that have been established with this configuration of casting, and so that was just an interesting process of watching and doing and watching and doing. It can't be the same for two years if the cast is constantly changing, you know, and there was a lot of opportunity to see how the show could be an evolving, organic living thing, you know?

[9:10] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[9:10] Evan Alexander Smith: And that's what it is.

[9:11] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[9:12] Evan Alexander Smith: That is what it is. And that's so cool that, like, you know, you're going into this organism and figuring out how to meld with it so that it works the best it can.

[9:22] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah. Well, and if you remember, when I saw you go on was a very funny experience because I had actually gotten a ticket to see Matt Doyle go on because Matt is also my student. And I got a text from Matt a few hours before the show saying, I have COVID. And I just found out, and I am not gonna be at the show. I'm so sorry. But guess what? You're gonna see Evan.

[9:47] Evan Alexander Smith: And I thought that you weren't even in the show anymore.

[9:49] Katy Pfaffl: I didn't you I mean, were you?

[9:51] Evan Alexander Smith: I was, I had just rejoined like three days before, and I was out of the city.

[9:56] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, you were like in the Adirondacks or something, right?

[9:57] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, I was in upstate New York with my wife. Uh, there was a snowstorm. Uh, we were more or less stranded, and I woke up at uh like 7:30. Uh, well, I really woke up at five o'clock that morning because I ate too much chili the night before and I felt sick. Um, but I'd sort of stumbled off the couch um and looked at my phone and saw text messages from both the full-time understudy and from Matt saying uh we have COVID. Um, and then question marks. We had, you know, it was a group chat in the dressing room, and then question marks about whether or not the show was gonna happen at night because technically I was still on a rehearsal contract. I hadn't officially rejoined as a full-time performing cast member yet.

And I was four hours away and there was a snowstorm. And so about a half an hour later, the stage manager said, Is there any way you can be back in Manhattan in you know five or six hours? So we, you know dug ourselves out of the snow and drove back to the city. And so it was this crazy week of being, you know, rushing back to the city, all of a sudden, you know, having to sort of be put back into the show.

[10:58] Katy Pfaffl: Well, when I saw you, had you had any rehearsal?

[11:03] Evan Alexander Smith: I'd had one rehearsal.

[11:03] Katy Pfaffl: So that was what was remarkable to me is that I knew you had been out of the show. I knew you had had very limited rehearsal, I knew you were not in the city.

[11:12] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[11:13] Katy Pfaffl: And there you were. And Matt said, well, you know, Evan's gonna come save the day. So congratulations, you're gonna get to see Evan. And I was so I was thrilled actually, because I didn't had missed you, so it was just a wonderful thing that I actually got to see you, but I was also just so impressed at how amazing you were, and how it had seemed as if you had been completely rehearsed and not like you had driven four hours through the snow to come to the city to get on stage to save the day, which was just really incredible. Um, and I feel like that's that's why we are calling this super swings, because that's a super swing moment.

[11:42] Evan Alexander Smith: That's right.

[11:42] Katy Pfaffl: That's a super swing moment.

[11:56] Evan Alexander Smith: If you had been woken up at 5:30 in the morning feeling sick, and you were on contract, you might have called out.

[12:01] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, maybe like, you know, really, yeah.

[12:04] Katy Pfaffl: Right.

[12:05] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[12:06] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah. So these are the extraordinary things that happen.

[12:08] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, yeah. And I feel like I always get to witness them with you.

[12:13] Evan Alexander Smith: Which I feel really excited about because who knows what's to come, and hopefully I'll always get to be there.

[12:20] Katy Pfaffl: Super Swings.

[12:24] Joshua Kobak: Super Swings.

[12:28] Katy Pfaffl: One of the extraordinary things that I want to talk about that I got to witness with you was you going on for Jonathan in Merrily We Roll Along.

[12:36] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[12:37] Katy Pfaffl: Which is a story that I will tell to my students for years to come about how inspiring it was to watch you be brilliant and watch the audience do exactly what we were talking about, where they started going, "Oh, it's not Jonathan," and at the end we're giving you a standing ovation for being who you are and doing what you do, which was just such a magical. I mean, I can it was magical for me. I was crying and I wasn't you, so I can't even imagine how that experience was for you.

[13:09] Evan Alexander Smith: I mean, so a few questions to start back. Do so was that a planned performance for you?

[13:15] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah. It's my suspicion that Jonathan maybe took that vacation so that his understudies would have an opportunity to go on.

[13:20] Katy Pfaffl: Because Jonathan—

[13:22] Evan Alexander Smith: Which would be very cool.

[13:23] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[13:23] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah. Because he never uh he never missed a show. He uh he was able he was uh uh just I mean, incredible on the park, but absolutely a machine, you know, had figured out how to do that role in any variety of vocal circumstances. He was incredible.

[13:40] Katy Pfaffl: Well, were you covering just him or were you swinging just him or did you swing ensemble too?

[13:44] Evan Alexander Smith: So off Broadway I was off stage and I covered five on stage ensemble members, and then uh in addition to covering Jonathan.

[13:51] Katy Pfaffl: Okay.

[13:52] Evan Alexander Smith: And then uh when we moved to Broadway, um, they created these two uh what we would call uh on stage swings or partial swings. So um uh a male presenting and the female presenting ensemble member who um could be cut from the show um should there be a coverage emergency. Um that never luckily ended up having to happen. There were two tracks that didn't have any solo lines and that could be placed in different places on the stage so that if uh if we'd had to cover somebody else and there was nobody left to play those parts, they could disappear from the show and nobody would notice. Off off Broadway it was it was five plus one principle. Um and then when we moved to Broadway, I had my own track and was still covering those five plus Jonathan.

[14:35] Katy Pfaffl: Wow.

[14:35] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[14:36] Katy Pfaffl: Wow, wow, wow.

[14:37] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, which was a lot.

[14:38] Katy Pfaffl: Well, I mean, I mean Jonathan's role alone is just so much.

[14:43] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[14:44] Katy Pfaffl: I mean, he's just in every I mean almost every scene, he's just he's the lead heartbeat of the entire show.

[14:51] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[14:52] Katy Pfaffl: So I can imagine Yeah, he never has a moment in the dressing room for sip water or go to the bathroom.

[14:56] Evan Alexander Smith: No, no, no. You know, it's uh it's yeah, nonstop the whole show.

[14:59] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah. So did you get a ton of rehearsal for that track?

[15:02] Evan Alexander Smith: No, not really. I mean, not um cumulatively over the course of you know, the two or three months off Broadway and the I guess six months leading up to when I went on on Broadway. I felt like I had a lot of time sort of absorbing Jonathan's performance and watching um, you know, from the house whenever I could sneak out. Uh and certainly off Broadway, I was out watching the show just about every night.

[15:26] Katy Pfaffl: Well, I know often too when they rehearse you for a lead, it's not with the other leads, right? It's usually with other people. So and with this show was I think particularly um special in the sense that the three of them were so connected and so tight as a unit, and I know that they worked together really beautifully, and that was just so did you get how much time did you actually get with Daniel and Lindsay? Any?

[15:54] Evan Alexander Smith: Uh like two minutes in the dressing room before the show. We ran a song called Opening Doors, uh, just to make sure that we got the lyrics, but no time to aside from like the dynamic of getting to know each other in the workplace a little bit. You know, not a little bit, but you know, over the course of six months, um, no rehearsal time at all. Um So that's something really w and interesting, I think stepping into a dynamic where it's like built off of the three of them.

[16:20] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, yeah.

[16:20] Evan Alexander Smith: What did you want to especially when they're at the level that they are.

[16:24] Katy Pfaffl: Right. And so I was gonna ask you like, can you take us to the pre-show? I remember I was dealing with really terrible seasonal allergies that week. And because I had that to focus on kind of helped, yeah. It helped me be hyper um I had this this incredible sense of clarity that I've never had any time I've had to perform any role for the first time. Whether it's a role that I've been rehearsing for three months that I'm playing full-time or an understudy track. It's so funny because often when I go on for the first time, I remember the off stage. I remember before the show and I remember after the show. Everything that happens on the stage is a blur. But it was the complete opposite uh when I went on for Jonathan.

I remember I remember every moment on stage. It was uh it was incredible. I mean, it I I feel emotional talking about it, but it's okay. It uh it was it was uh it was special and they they have an incredible chemistry between the three of them, but the way that Dan and Lindsay welcomed me into that space and trusted me and um and just instantly helped me feel part of that family that they've built. It wasn't like there was anything specific that they did other than allowing themselves to stay open, you know.

[17:44] Katy Pfaffl: Well, that's a generosity, yeah, right. They're not approaching you as a celebrity, right? They're not approaching you as an outsider. They're welcoming you.

[17:56] Evan Alexander Smith: Right, right, right.

[17:56] Katy Pfaffl: Which can happen sometimes.

[17:58] Evan Alexander Smith: Oh, yeah. Oh, I mean, all of those things could have happened and and do happen.

[18:01] Katy Pfaffl: Well, it's interesting we were talking earlier about the idea of winning over an audience, and not that a cast it I I think this what I'm trying to say is I think the same thing can happen with a cast a little bit.

[18:13] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, you're right.

[18:14] Katy Pfaffl: And it's not that anybody's sitting backstage with their arms crossed and like, let's see what the understudy can do. But there is, I think, a bit of a trepidation of sort of like, okay, like we're about to do this incredibly intricate thing that we've been working on for six months. Like, can I trust this person to lead it?

[18:31] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, to lead the ship.

[18:33] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, and like not only to stand in the right place and say the right words, but also to um to to carry the show in that way. And yeah, but I think luckily because I had been doing this for 10 years before I became a swing, you just you start to understand a lot about the world of a show and how all of these pieces build the whole, and um and so your cast is looking to you to see can you be all of those things, all of those things.

[19:02] Evan Alexander Smith: Can you, you know, can you the thing that I was most just thrilled about and also just noticed right away was I did not feel that from you at all. You walked on stage and it was just confidence, and you were so dropped in. It's so dropped in to the point that I I just lost myself in your performance too, and I wasn't watching you and the things that I normally would watch as a teacher of my student, which you know sometimes when I watch a show I'm watching with both heads, right? I'm watching you perform and I'm watching you all these things, but I'm also going like, yeah, that's the stuff we've worked on or these are the things that I know he's afraid of. You know, like that was the high note that we were scared, you know.

[19:42] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[19:43] Evan Alexander Smith: But I didn't have any of that with you. You got lost too.

[19:46] Katy Pfaffl: But the thing that I want to tell everybody listening that blew me away is at the end of the show everybody goes and they take their bows and people are standing and screening and then there's the red bucket moment. And Evan comes after the red bucket moment and he's saying the things and he stumbles over his words a little bit and he goes I'm sorry this is this is my first time and the entire audience just gets up and starts screaming and yelling and gives him another standing ovation just forever.

[20:17] Evan Alexander Smith: Just forever.

[20:20] Katy Pfaffl: And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen I was sobbing. I was just so because it was like entirely for you. And it was well deserved example. It was it was but I have never seen anything like that ever before usually the swing stories are not that no I have chills. I have all my goosebumps like all over again because it was just so honest. It was such an honest reaction of the audience. They were so there with you and still supporting you and wanted to give back to you which I think is something that we forget about sometimes as performers is how generous an audience can be and the importance of that generosity and connection that we have with them. And there was that example of people really holding you up in that moment too to to give back to you for all that you had given back to them.

And it was it is a story I will tell my students and people to come for many, many years in this business because it was one of the most beautiful things and well-deserved things that I had ever seen. I mean, what did that feel like for you in that moment?

[21:21] Evan Alexander Smith: I mean that uh unbelievable. Um it's I mean, that is when I say that I had complete clarity during the performance and then the blur afterwards, that's where the blur started because it just started to become so overwhelming.

[21:34] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, yeah.

[21:34] Evan Alexander Smith: Um again, and it I think like beginning with that moment.

[21:37] Katy Pfaffl: I I like it that must have surprised you.

[21:40] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[21:42] Katy Pfaffl: I uh so wait, so you're there. You you say, oh sorry, this is my first time being and you what you meant was did you mean the speech for the typical from here in the Broadway?

[21:52] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah.

[21:52] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, but the audience was like, No, we know what you really meant.

[21:55] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, right.

[21:56] Katy Pfaffl: The audio was just like, Well yeah, you know props from the cast. Did you uh Yeah, I mean like Dan and uh Lindsay were still on stage with me at that point, and like I think the three of us all started crying together. Yeah, like we they were so lovely with about you behind you, you couldn't even see it. They like pushed you forward, yeah, you know, to to take your moment, yeah.

[22:16] Evan Alexander Smith: I mean without them, which I thought also was just so lovely.

[22:20] Katy Pfaffl: Well, and I I again and I I I will take every opportunity on every platform I can find to like scream from the rooftops about the the incredible lesson that it was learning uh the generosity and leadership and kindness from the three of them from Dan, Lindsay and Jonathan. I mean that must have been just such an incredible night.

[22:41] Evan Alexander Smith: We got to celebrate with him afterwards. Um he had a lot of people there, so we got to have a little champagne and some cries, some hugs, some laughs.

[22:51] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, but it was really beautiful to also watch you um step into your greatness. And I say that because I think there is a moment for all of us as an artist where we have that opportunity to step into our greatness, and that doesn't mean our ego, it's very, very different. He just said it exactly generosity, leadership, and kindness, right? And if we can step into that situation, boom, yeah, okay, you're gonna be good. And I think that there's that's often confused with ego is the p thing that sort of corrupts and gets in the space of everything, you know, it can make something very toxic or can be very confusing for people when they uh have experiences like that. It can inflate um parts of you that don't have anything to do with any of that.

But I I watched you say step into your greatness that night as a performer, but also as a person, and also watched you do that backstage with humility and kindness, and that's just who you are, and uh I think that's is such a gift to any cast that you're going to step into because it's not just because of those people that you got to witness being that way.

[24:00] Evan Alexander Smith: I mean, you were also inherently that way as a person.

[24:08] Katy Pfaffl: Super Swings.

[24:12] Evan Alexander Smith: Don't you think that being a swing kind of exercises that release of ego?

[24:17] Katy Pfaffl: Oh, yeah, because you can't have an ego as a swing, really.

[24:21] Evan Alexander Smith: No, I and I mean it it you yeah, you I mean you have to let go of um of so much just to again because it none of it is about you.

[24:29] Evan Alexander Smith: I mean, it feels like and I mean it's what I've found to be important in a lot of why I've been able to stay in the business as long as I have is understanding that like being of service to your fellow artists and to the work is so much more important than trying to make everything come to you.

[24:51] Evan Alexander Smith: Uh but yeah, I mean being a swing it's that service job. It's the you it is so not about you. And the more you make it about you, the less fun it is, the less good it is, you know. Um yeah, it really is an exercise in humility, I think. Um it's I this wasn't my experience on Marily. They it was a wonderful group, but I think you know, swings aren't always treated the best. Um it's not always a position that is respected even within the company, you know. Um yeah, I think that that it's interesting. I think a swing is absolutely expected to show up and be amazing, and there is no return expectation for any gratitude for that.

[25:38] Evan Alexander Smith: And I think that is the problem within companies is if you don't come in and save the day, then you didn't do your job. Yeah. But nobody gets there's no requirement to say thank you for coming in and saving the day. Yeah. And no large acknowledgment of that. Yeah. And I think if you haven't done it, I just don't think people understand necessarily what a tall order it is.

[25:59] Evan Alexander Smith: Oh yeah. Especially when you're a swing who's being asked to go on in previews. Or um or a dance captain. And Marile, we rehearsed every week that we could. I mean, and that the associates will have talked about this as well. There was so much to do, and because our show wasn't a standard um I it wasn't what I would call like a standard ensemble where you have a group of people who are doing similar choreography on maybe different sides of the stage.

[26:25] Evan Alexander Smith: So you're learning the same choreography, but you're doing it on your left leg or your right leg, you're in a formation. Right with Marilee, um what they liked to say is it was an ensemble of principles, so they were these ten small parts, and what was really difficult was we had these party scenes in the first and second acts that were just kind of impossible to learn and impossible to rehearse because you can't rehearse them without the full company, and we only as swings only ever had a third of the amount of people who'd be on stage, and you're trying to like imagine going to any of the parties you've ever been to in your life, where there's somebody at the corner smoking a cigarette and somebody walking around with a beer, and then that person stops and talks to this person and then continues.

[27:07] Evan Alexander Smith: There's no choreography, it's all this kind of um repetitive movement that the cast had an opportunity to get used to in the rehearsal hall. Okay, yeah, but that is impossible to teach out of context. That's so interesting. So we were in rehearsal every single week, and so you live at the theater. You know, you really don't you don't have much of a life outside of the show, and your brain, when you're swinging, never really leaves the show.

[27:36] Evan Alexander Smith: Uh I think that was a journey that I am now starting to understand a little bit coming away. I didn't understand why I wasn't sleeping very well for eight months. And it was because of this low simmering anxiety, I think I had through the entire run because my brain could just never not be. I would get home at 11 o'clock and I'd think, okay, well, um, so and so told me that they were feeling a little sticky in their throat. Right. And so and so I know uh has personal days this weekend, and if this person's throat doesn't get better while this person's on their personal days, who how does it and you you just you never have an opportunity to sit back and relax into a show, and I think there's this idea, especially for people who are off stage covers that like you learn your tracks and then you're backstage watching Netflix the whole show.

[28:20] Evan Alexander Smith: And while that certainly can be true, I would say for the majority of people, you're either reviewing a track or learning a new track, or you're doing a split track. So maybe you're not on stage the whole show, but they're gonna have you come up and do some choreography in the second act to fill in a gap. We have that quite a bit at Back to the Future right now, where you're sort of building the show around who you have in the building.

[28:40] Evan Alexander Smith: Um and so the swings just never really get that opportunity to sit back in their tracks the way that people who do the show every night do. Oh, it's completely different. You never build that internal rhythm, you never get to a place where uh you're ever truly able to be calm. I think my swing experience, like I can hear some differences that have happened and and growth has happened, good growth has happened.

[29:04] Evan Alexander Smith: And that's what I'm really um excited about this podcast becoming a podcast so that we can stimulate more growth for swings. It would be so cool if there was just like a little mention for somebody who saved the day like you did for Marily. Would have been really cool if if somewhere during the Tonies, somebody could have said, Hey, you know, maybe you don't get a Tony, but at least a mention.

[29:26] Evan Alexander Smith: Sure. You know, yeah, if shows could nominate in their swings to get to get some sort of recognition, even if it was just like here are the people that are behind the scenes that are doing incredible things. You might even have kids that are going into college to say, hey, you know what? When I get out of here, I want to be a swing.

[29:42] Evan Alexander Smith: Well, and the thing is too, I think it's important, like you said, there wasn't that conversation in colleges about what swinging actually is. I think the shame of that is that there are some people who are inherently incredible. Like it's just what their skill set goes towards. There, they're you know, I think there are people who I know I've I I know a lot of people who are career swings and dance captains who it's all they've done because they love to do that, and they go show to show to show.

[30:07] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, yeah, because it's just the way that their brain operates. You know, they and when you find somebody who is an incredible swing or an incredible dance captain who loves being a swing or a dance captain, I mean, those people that it they are worth their weight. They become the most valuable people in the business.

[30:22] Joshua Kobak: How do you describe it when somebody says what's a swing?

[30:26] Evan Alexander Smith: Uh I mean, I guess pretty clinically, I guess. I would say, you know, the swing is the person who is hired, you know, a lot of the time an ensemble member will cover a principal and a swing will cover an ensemble member. You know, they're the under studies for the ensemble, and maybe that's a little bit reductive because they do so much, but in I think sort of the most basic terms, that's how I would describe it. They're there to make sure that the show can always keep going.

[30:53] Joshua Kobak: Yeah, I would always say um we're the fireman of the performance.

[30:58] Evan Alexander Smith: Because I've had to go on in the like when I was an idiot, uh Brian came down wrong and like broke his nose or something. And it was one of the days when the time had changed also, right? And I missed the time change.

[31:08] Joshua Kobak: Oh no.

[31:10] Evan Alexander Smith: And so the stage manager was just like, don't worry about it. And I was in way out in Brooklyn, but I had my motorcycle.

[31:16] Joshua Kobak: Right.

[31:16] Evan Alexander Smith: And then during like uh 10 minutes in, I get a phone call. And I rode so fast.

[31:24] Joshua Kobak: So hard to get here.

[31:26] Evan Alexander Smith: And I parked on 44th Street, like right by Smith's, and ran with my helmet, all my gear, straight into the theater, threw it off.

[31:36] Evan Alexander Smith: The customers were there. I literally dove into my shirt and went out on stage and I'm dead. It was exciting, but all shows too.

[31:48] Joshua Kobak: I mean, that what an impossible lift. I mean, to come out cold like that.

[31:50] Evan Alexander Smith: Ten parts in that one plus St. Jimmy. Or no, nine plus St. Jimmy, so ten.

[31:57] Joshua Kobak: How many did you do in rent?

[31:58] Evan Alexander Smith: You did a lot of six?

[32:00] Evan Alexander Smith: Six stars and six. Was ten the most that you did?

[32:02] Evan Alexander Smith: Ten's the most I've done. Unless you want to count all the little parts in Ferza.

[32:05] Joshua Kobak: Yeah.

[32:06] Evan Alexander Smith: It's so funny because you asked B earlier, like, did I have much time as Frank? And like, I think people expect that, like, how could you go on without having done those things?

[32:16] Evan Alexander Smith: Like, it's just I think it's important that people know that like again, you just often there's not time, especially early in the process.

[32:22] Joshua Kobak: Oh yeah.

[32:23] Evan Alexander Smith: And you know, we are asked to do these things that can feel incredibly difficult or dangerous.

[32:30] Evan Alexander Smith: And it happens in a second. I mean, we had uh somebody broke his leg on or on stage in a scene, and he there oh in a person and broke his leg, and you could see his face go white.

[32:43] Joshua Kobak: Wow, rock star.

[32:58] Evan Alexander Smith: Right, you know what I mean, and just like seamlessly go through while they took him off, you know.

[33:03] Joshua Kobak: We had we had some pretty mate, we had like two broken feet, and during that show we had a lot of a lot of injuries because it was just a really physical show, but again, something like that where it's like he was right there in costume, just like kidding, you know.

[33:16] Joshua Kobak: That's the thing. One of those where you would go on mid-show, like a mid-show swing on.

[33:21] Evan Alexander Smith: How did you deal with going from like zero to 100 like that?

[33:24] Evan Alexander Smith: Uh Red Bull.

[33:27] Evan Alexander Smith: Ripple.

[33:28] Evan Alexander Smith: Um for my first five years in the business. I pretty much had a Red Bull before I would go on. Until I realized that when I could start at the beginning of the show, if I was Roger, it's the first five years was all rent.

[33:40] Evan Alexander Smith: I at a certain point I realized, why am I seeing stars out when I'm holding rent at the very end of the first number?

[33:46] Evan Alexander Smith: And why am I so out of breath? And I was talking to Boco, our music director, and we started talking about it, and I was like, Well, I have a Red Bull, and he's like, Well, maybe you should try it not having a Red Bull.

[33:56] Evan Alexander Smith: That fixed it. But there was many.

[33:58] Evan Alexander Smith: But adrenaline, I understand having to have your adrenaline up to just jump in mid.

[34:04] Joshua Kobak: Yeah.

[34:04] Evan Alexander Smith: And I think that honestly, the Red Bull all also sort of became a little bit of a crutch because it felt like I needed it.

[34:09] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, it was part of my process, so you know, you don't want to mess it up because create all those rituals.

[34:14] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, but there was many times when I'd have to go on for act two.

[34:17] Evan Alexander Smith: So like the Roger would go on and do all of Act One, and then we'd come out and do Seasons of Love, and then suddenly there'd be this other guy standing there.

[34:25] Joshua Kobak: But the weird part, this is why I asked you about the stage door, is that they always made me look exactly like the person.

[34:31] Evan Alexander Smith: So I had the white spiky hair or the super blonde idol haircut.

[34:36] Joshua Kobak: And so when I would go out stage door, and this is I started on tour as well.

[34:39] Evan Alexander Smith: You walk out, and it was never anything about me at all.

[34:44] Evan Alexander Smith: It was always like, is he okay? What's wrong with him? You were good, but we really wanted to see.

[34:51] Joshua Kobak: What was your most sort of scary or intense swing experience that you've ever had?

[34:55] Evan Alexander Smith: What was mo high anxiety for you?

[34:58] Evan Alexander Smith: Oh gosh. Um, I mean, I guess I would say luckily, I don't think I've ever had one that has been super scary in that way.

[35:05] Evan Alexander Smith: I mean, the first time I went on at Little Shop, again, I was I was expecting to like rehearse the show and then leave.

[35:12] Evan Alexander Smith: And it feels like it's always like the worst case scenario is what ends up happening.

[35:18] Evan Alexander Smith: I had been there, I had just finished my first run through of the show. It wasn't a pudding, we didn't really have puddings at Little Shop, but I had rehearsed Act One and then I finished my rehearsal for Act Two.

[35:28] Evan Alexander Smith: And I was up in the lobby of the West Side Theater learning an audition for the show that I thought I was going to have to go do because I was gonna be unemployed.

[35:38] Evan Alexander Smith: And I heard the stage manager come out of the auditorium on the phone and they're gonna go, uh-huh. Okay, yeah. Uh okay. We're gonna be okay. Uh um okay.

[35:51] Evan Alexander Smith: And then I saw him hang up and I saw him take a second. And at this point, the other understudy, the full-time understudy, um, he was out sick.

[36:01] Evan Alexander Smith: And so I watched Howie, our stage manager sort of like slowly saunter up to me and go so um Jeremy is gonna be out tonight. Do you think you can play Seymour?

[36:13] Evan Alexander Smith: And this was uh this would have been maybe like the first week of October, it was the week before I was supposed to finish my contract.

[36:22] Evan Alexander Smith: Um again, I'd expected not to go on. Um yeah, I mean it was like I had an hour and a half notice. I think I'm gonna show you. I think you even told me about it. I think I remember you being like, I'm going on.

[36:36] Evan Alexander Smith: So um uh I mean that was very quick notice, but at least I'd made it through the show once with no tech. But um still that no tech. Did you get to work with the puppet? No. So you didn't get to work with a puppet. No, and because back then too, it was during really strict COVID stuff, so any props had to be disinfected. Any anything that had been touched by an actor had to be disinfected in the cleaning crews. And I think you know, we all thought when we have to would be six months away.

[37:24] Katy Pfaffl: Right.

[37:24] Evan Alexander Smith: And so it ended up being, I if the show was at seven, I think it probably was at six o'clock. I was there, sort of then getting my hands on all of the things that I needed to get my hands on. Right. Um so that was very fast. Super swing. If there is one thing that you could say that they could do to make the swing experience a better experience for swings. Do you have any ideas there?

[37:51] Evan Alexander Smith: I mean, I think like the very basic thing would just be reaching out about what swings need. It would be nice to say to at some point have a pow-wow with the people who uh you know, with stage management or general management, company management, just say what are the things that would be helpful in this circumstance, you know, like um I guess I can't think of anything specific, but I I do think like if if I could be way more general, uh I wish there was a bit more of a culture of respect for swings.

[38:24] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[38:24] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah. Um I I I just think that often it feels like um like swings can feel like the lowest on the totem pole. Invisible in the room.

[38:35] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[38:36] Evan Alexander Smith: Um, you know, like I've been in situations where, you know, by no fault of anybody in the room, but like uh I remember doing a press, it was either a press or like a producer showing of a uh of a final rehearsal for a show, and they had put the swings at a table that was you literally could not see where the actors were performing, and it was still at a part of the process where the swings were very much learning the show still. Um they put them so far in the corner of the room that uh they might as well have not been there that afternoon. And you just go, like in that circumstance, somebody could have said, maybe we need to prioritize the people who are working on this show more than like making sure that uh so-and-so has a really good shot. I don't know. It's just things like that. It often also that something like that just really speaks to the swings to say, well, you're not really a part of the company.

[39:31] Katy Pfaffl: Yes, exactly.

[39:31] Evan Alexander Smith: Right? This is the company, yeah, and then there's you. And I think that separation, I think is the thing that I would love to see be the change is to really go. The swings are a part of the company. Yeah, they're a really important part of the company, and therefore when there's company things that happen, swings should be included. When there's any sort of press events, swings should be included. When there's things that are events celebrating, you know, the company at large or reunions or all those things, like swings should very much be included in those things because I think it's really odd that you can ask somebody to do as much as a swing does, and then to just throw throw baby in a corner.

Do you know what I mean? Like we don't need to be doing that. Like people are like necessary, that there's any sort of like ill intent or it's nefarious at all. I just don't think that there's I think that your idea is to have the idea to ask swings how they could have their job better, right? Or be more comfortable. Um I think that it kind of trickles down from there, right? Because the newbies to the business are looking up at the people telling them where to be, what to do, who's paying me, you know, and they can go like, well, they're they're not paying any attention to that person, so I'm not going to that happens.

[40:48] Katy Pfaffl: Yep.

[40:49] Evan Alexander Smith: That definitely happens. And so it's the modeling, it's modeling in every business in every culture, there's modeling for that. I think nobody's more important than anybody else in a show.

[40:59] Katy Pfaffl: Yep.

[40:59] Evan Alexander Smith: And and that goes for ensemble to lead to all those things. It's it's nobody's more important, every single piece of those, you know, they're they're all part of the machine and part of the puzzle, part of the picture. And I think that we can kind of get into that thinking that we are a community and a tribe.

[41:15] Katy Pfaffl: Yep.

[41:16] Evan Alexander Smith: Right? That's that's the way that it can stay healthy, um, and everyone can thrive and grow. You know what I'm excited about? I'm excited about uh thank you again for for coming today and talking to us. But I'm just so excited to meet you because I feel like there's a I feel like I have an understanding with you, and it's I'm just so excited to talk to more swings. I guess we uh swings, we don't have to be able to do that. But to talk to yeah, community really.

[41:45] Evan Alexander Smith: You've been in the trenches, in the trenches. Well, and you learn that it's kind of the same everywhere, yeah. You know, like uh yeah, I mean it's it it it's kind of like I was saying, you expect that when you become a swing that there's this like swing community, or there's this like swing, you know, you can go to like swings.com and there's like a how to die, and there'll be people who will help usher you along, and right um, yeah, it's nice that you guys have found this incredible way to start bringing us together.

[42:07] Katy Pfaffl: Hey, that's an important thought. So, what would you say to someone who just got offered as a swing? What would you do? What would you say to usher them along?

[42:16] Evan Alexander Smith: The advice, yeah man. Oh gosh. You'd be like, let's get a drink and bring a notebook.

[42:24] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah.

[42:25] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah. Um learn how to advocate for yourself, I think, because I don't it's you you you may be really lucky to find yourself in a position where you have, you know, people like Dot Dan, John and Lindsay who are beautiful advocates for their company. They're the reason why the swings got to perform on the Tonies this year. That's so amazing. Maria, as well, our director all fought to make sure that the entire company was on stage. Um, but again, like we've sort of been talking about with the sometimes feeling invisible and uh it can be really hard to to learn how to be a strong advocate for yourself and to know your worth and to understand in a in a super healthy communicative, non-combatitive way how to just stand up for yourself and and uh and let people know what you need. Um practically buy an iPad and download Good Notes Five. I don't know.

[43:13] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, yeah. Did that help you a lot?

[43:16] Evan Alexander Smith: Oh yeah. I mean, I it uh we we were rehearsing merrily roll along during Black Friday deals, and so I got a really cheap, like old generation iPad, and it totally changed the way that I was able to really quickly keep up with what was happening every night. And how I can sit at the back of the house and notate things. This is very nervy now. But um, no, I mean I I I really do think it's so much of it is about first of all being prepared, being more prepared than you really think you need to, and you know, uh figuring out early in the process what tools you need to um to be prepared. To be prepared. Um, and again, that what that means for every show is gonna change. If it's a super choreography heavy show.

A lot of that work is probably just gonna have to happen in the room with the dance captain and with the associates and with trying to get things into your body where in a way that's not super optimal because you know you don't have the same kind of rehearsal that the uh full-time performing cast might, but um, you know, I think it's it's about being prepared, being ready, and learning how to uh lean on your fellow swings and company members. You know, so much of what made Marily special was the little community that the four of us and then eventually the six or seven of us that and ended up being for Broadway, the uh sports system that we had with each other and that's sharing of information and the uh and you know, the sometimes commiserating and the leaning on each other emotionally and yeah um uh you're you you don't feel like you have to do it alone, um, which is really really important, I think.

[44:44] Katy Pfaffl: That's great. That's great advice. And now you are in back to the future. Do you notice a big difference in being a lead versus being a swing and for yourself, for the culture, all of those things?

[44:57] Evan Alexander Smith: You know, I'm still so new there. Um, and so I'm still learning the dynamic of the company. I mean, I I will say like there is something to uh you are treated differently.

[45:08] Katy Pfaffl: Yeah, it it it is a difference for sure.

[45:11] Evan Alexander Smith: Are you having fun?

[45:13] Evan Alexander Smith: I'm having an incredible time. And you know, rehearsals were eye-opening because it's the first time in my career where I am I guess I've replaced once or twice before in a show, but um being in a situation for the past two years where I've been understudying roles and all the rehearsals I've had have been to sort of again um find my place in the template, it has been really incredible, sort of uh being given the agency to find my way into the role and how things are different for me than they might have been for the person I was replacing and um and for the understudies for uh for George, you know, we all kind of have our own different thing, but being able to really take some ownership of my choices and to feel free to explore uh and to uh to build a new template as opposed to trying to fit it.

[46:01] Katy Pfaffl: Um how much do they need you to be tied to the film?

[46:06] Evan Alexander Smith: Um has that been a part of the process, or is it more I think I put more pressure on myself to do that than the creative team ever did. I I talked to uh I John Rando, our director who gave me my first massive job out of college 15 years ago. Um this has been a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with him. But when I talked to him shortly after I got the part, he said um, you know, what we loved about your audition was that you really made it your own. And like I think what what we talk about is paying homage without doing an imitation. So you find the things that that we know the audience is gonna really tie into that help drop them into the world right away. But then we find our own way. So, you know, like uh in the opening scene, it I I I have George's haircut right now, I'm wearing a hat, but um, we do a lot to make sure that uh the physical likeness is similar in costumes.

Yeah, um, and uh I do a very distinctive laugh that just lets the audience know that they're in good hands. Right, right, right. This is see, this is the thing from the movie that you love. But then uh to do two hours of an impression would be I think terrible for everybody because I'm not a good impressionist. Um and so to find in the qualities, the things about George that uh are are uh the same things that are within myself, you know. You know, I I tend to gravitate to playing uh uh downtrodden nerds. It's been uh a thing that I've done a few times now in in my career, and I I think part of that is because so much of that is my personal experience. I just want to tell everybody to listen, um, who's listening right now to go see Back to the Future and to see Evan in it because I can speak to him a million times over about how brilliant he is, and I can't wait to see you in this role.

[47:48] Katy Pfaffl: Oh, and what are you what is your at and like what are your socials and stuff like that? Does anybody want to follow you?

[47:51] Evan Alexander Smith: Yeah, I only ever really use Instagram. I have like TikTok and Twitter, but um uh at Evan Alexander Smith, www.evanalexandersmith.com.

[48:02] Katy Pfaffl: I love it. I love it. Well, everyone should follow you, and everyone should follow your career and see you in as many things for as many roles as you will play, which I hope will be for a very, very long time. I will be there screaming and yelling and crying for you always.

[48:16] Evan Alexander Smith: No, I'm gonna be here.

[48:17] Katy Pfaffl: Yes!

[48:18] Evan Alexander Smith: Thanks so much for staying with us all the way to the end of the episode. Make sure to tune in to our next episode coming out in a few weeks. Check us out on Instagram at Super Swings Broadway. And if there's any super swings out there that you think we should interview, please drop into our DMs and let us know. And we will reach out to them because we want to have as many super swings out there in the spotlight as we possibly can. Thanks so much. Super Swing Same in the cell.