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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Mo Brady.

[0:20] Mo Brady: First National Tours are one of the most important calling cards for the Broadway community. Staged in New York City to cross the country, these facsimiles of Broadway shows bring the experience of attending a Mainstem musical to theater lovers across the country. But how are these touring productions similar to their Broadway counterparts? And what's the experience like for performers who pick up their lives to travel the country in one of their casts? Sabrina Imamura opened the first national tour of Hamilton in early 2017. Performing in the show's ensemble took her along the West Coast for about a year and a half before Broadway called, where she's been in the show's Mainstem ensemble on and off since mid-2018. I asked her into the studio to tell me about performing in two different productions of the same show, and how they differed and were similar both onstage and off. Here's our conversation.

[1:13] Mo Brady: Hi!

[1:15] Sabrina Imamura: Hi!

[1:17] Mo Brady: Will you introduce yourself and tell us what neighborhood of New York City you live in?

[1:23] Sabrina Imamura: Hi, I'm Sabrina Imamura, and I live on the Upper East Side.

[1:27] Mo Brady: Okay, so take us back through Hamilton. You joined the first national tour, which started in San Francisco?

[1:32] Sabrina Imamura: It did. It started in San Francisco. We were basically in California the entire year. We were kind of a different type of tour, I guess you could say, because we had very long sit-downs. So we were in San Francisco for about five months, and then we moved to LA for about five months. And then we were in San Diego for about a month, which is essentially a year. And then the sit-downs got a little bit shorter, but still a month or like five weeks.

[1:58] Mo Brady: And then did you go straight from the touring production to joining the Broadway production?

[2:02] Sabrina Imamura: I did not. I had a cute little six-month break. I had mentioned to Steph Clemons, the associate choreographer, that if anything opened up on Broadway, I would be definitely interested if she thought I would be a right fit for the cast. So it just kind of panned out after six months that Woman 1, which is my original track on tour, was taking a leave of absence on Broadway for a couple months, so they wanted me to cover the track. So that's how I made my Broadway debut.

[2:27] Mo Brady: And you made your debut in that track, you left, then you came back in another track?

[2:31] Sabrina Imamura: Yes, I did. I had a two-month break after the first time I was on Broadway, which is just basically a long vacation. And then they asked me to come back and cover another leave of absence for Woman 4.

[2:43] Mo Brady: Are these two shows different from each other? Is the tour different from the Broadway production?

[2:47] Sabrina Imamura: The show itself is exactly the same. All of the roles are the same, the same blocking, the same movement. Maybe when we were learning on tour, they may have changed a couple of entrances and exits just because they were like, well, why did we make it this way? We should have switched it because this is the more logical way. But it was because the show was obviously already frozen on Broadway, so they hadn't made that change. I think the only difference between the tour production and Broadway is that some of our ensemble men and women were kind of flip-flopped. So for example, on Broadway, Man 1 is Charles Lee, but on our tour, our Man 3 was Charles Lee. And so they kind of flip-flopped in certain numbers.

Even our Man 4 was George Eaker, but Man 3 on Broadway is George Eaker. So that was kind of the only difference, but I didn't really know that until I went to Broadway. Everything is the same. Movement is the same. The entire show is pretty much like down pat, like everything exactly the same. But sometimes they just like to switch around those features. I believe the only difference for the women was that our Woman 4 played Sally in What Did I Miss? And Woman 3 does that on Broadway.

[4:02] Mo Brady: Are the theaters different?

[4:03] Sabrina Imamura: Yes, that was actually an adjustment coming to Broadway for me. The theaters on tour are ginormous. They are huge. It's a huge house. I think every theater we were in was almost double of what it is at the Richard Rogers, which is awesome. But backstage, we also had a huge crossover pretty much everywhere we were, which was great.

[4:25] Mo Brady: What's a crossover?

[4:26] Sabrina Imamura: Crossover is if you're not making a cross on stage, from stage left to stage right, you can go behind the set, basically, and go to whichever side you need to to make your next entrance, essentially. It was huge. Actually, some of the theaters were kind of mazes. L.A. was kind of a maze when we first got there, trying to figure out where our dressing room was, which floor it was located on. And Denver was another one where you kind of had to figure out and weave through where to find the wig room when you first got there, because it's all in a different place, and it's all new.

[4:59] Mo Brady: Does it change your performance when you know that you're performing for 1,500 people versus 3,000 people?

[5:05] Sabrina Imamura: Yes, yes and no. I found that on Broadway, it's a more intimate setting, so I felt closer to the audience and it was a closer connect. But it was a little bit harder when we first got into our theater in San Francisco, just because it was so big, to still try and make those connections with the audience, while also playing to what the artistic team wanted from us focus-wise, because there's so many specific parts in the show where we're directing our focus to certain places, to the audience, to each other, or as ensembles trying to direct the focus of the audience to the important thing that's happening on stage. So that was kind of a battle when we first started, but once we started adjusting to getting notes and figuring out ways to get our focus to where it needed to be, then it was easy peasy every time we would switch to a new theater and it was still that big audience.

[6:00] Mo Brady: What does that mean? Does that mean bigger movements when you're trying to direct focus?

[6:06] Sabrina Imamura: You would think so, but it's actually just about keeping the movement, I guess, tighter with purpose. So trying to tell the story with the movement while not getting too out of hand, because you think that people can't see you, because everyone can see you. The stage is pretty barren, so everyone can see you. So we would get notes on that sometimes. That was one of the notes that we got when we first started performing in the big theaters was that just because it's a big theater doesn't mean that the movement needs to be bigger. You need to give your intention. If your intention is correct, then it's going to come across to the entire audience.

[6:45] Mo Brady: No matter how far away they are.

[6:46] Sabrina Imamura: Yeah.

[6:47] Mo Brady: Was Hamilton your first national tour?

[6:49] Sabrina Imamura: It was. First tour, first show, first step into musicals. I was a ballet dancer, so...

[6:57] Mo Brady: You rehearsed it here in the city?

[6:58] Sabrina Imamura: Yes.

[6:59] Mo Brady: Okay, so the full company rehearses here.

[7:01] Sabrina Imamura: We rehearsed for six weeks and then we flew out to San Francisco.

[7:05] Mo Brady: You get on a plane and you go move to your new contemporary home.

[7:09] Sabrina Imamura: Yep.

[7:10] Mo Brady: Where did you live when you were in San Francisco?

[7:12] Sabrina Imamura: I lived in the financial district, which I found out was a very odd place to live, and I realized it when I was living there, but it was really conveniently close to the theater. It was a quick 25-minute walk maybe, and then they also had the Muni, which is their version of public transportation, which was like two stops away from my apartment to the theater door-to-door.

[7:33] Mo Brady: Because you're on a tour, people think about tours, you're getting on the plane or the bus every week, and that's not the case, especially at the beginning of this tour. It's sort of a hybrid between a sit-down and a tour.

[7:46] Sabrina Imamura: It was actually really nice having those long sit-downs. I think I would have been very stressed out if it was every two weeks that we were moving because travel just stresses me out, and packing and making sure I don't leave anything or taking everything that I do need. So having those long sit-downs was really, really nice.

[8:03] Mo Brady: How do you make a home for yourself in a city that you know you're leaving very quickly?

[8:07] Sabrina Imamura: I did do a lot of Airbnbs and I did the Trulia in San Francisco, and all of them were furnished, but I would buy little home accents here or there, get candles. The home aspect came with being so close to the cast because they were kind of like my second family on tour. We essentially didn't really have the ability to leave for those big holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that was the first Christmas and Thanksgiving I hadn't spent with my family in 26 years, so that was kind of hard for me. But being so close with my cast was a big, helpful factor in feeling at home because we had created this show in the rehearsal space together, so we all became close in that way, and we all just vibed really well with each other. So being able to live with the cast member and then see them every day and get to work and play with them on stage every day just kind of made it a lot easier.

[9:05] Sabrina Imamura: I think the biggest difference for me was just the scale of the productions. When you're in a Broadway show, everything is just a little bit bigger, a little bit more extravagant. The sets are more elaborate, the costumes are more detailed, and the overall production value is just higher.

[9:35] Sabrina Imamura: On tour, we had to adapt to different venues, which meant that sometimes the sets were scaled down or modified to fit the space. It was a unique challenge, but it also allowed us to be creative in how we presented the show.

[10:05] Sabrina Imamura: Another difference was the audience. On Broadway, you have a mix of tourists and locals, but on tour, we often performed in cities where people were really excited to see the show because it was their only chance to experience it live. That energy was palpable and made each performance feel special.

[10:35] Sabrina Imamura: The cast dynamics also shifted a bit. On tour, we were all living and traveling together, which created a different kind of bond. We became a family in a way that was really beautiful, but it also meant that we had to navigate the challenges of being together all the time.

[11:05] Sabrina Imamura: I remember one time we had a long bus ride after a show, and we all just sat together, sharing stories and laughing. Those moments were really special and helped us connect on a deeper level.

[11:35] Sabrina Imamura: Performing in the ensemble of Hamilton was an incredible experience, and I learned so much from it. The choreography, the music, and the storytelling are all so powerful, and being part of that was a dream come true.

[12:05] Sabrina Imamura: When I transitioned to Broadway, I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment. It was like coming home after a long journey, but I also carried with me all the lessons and experiences from the tour.

[12:35] Sabrina Imamura: I think both experiences have shaped me as a performer. The tour taught me resilience and adaptability, while Broadway has pushed me to refine my craft and embrace the spotlight in a different way.

[13:05] Sabrina Imamura: Overall, I wouldn't trade either experience for anything. They both hold a special place in my heart, and I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to perform in such an iconic show in both settings.