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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.

[0:30] Mo Brady: Last season, 288 actors worked as Swings on Broadway. That's literally a third of the performers working under Actors' Equity chorus contracts. And yet, the job of a Swing is still one of the most esoteric jobs in the theatre. In general, Swings are hired to understudy multiple ensemble tracks on a production. They're asked to remember all of the lines, blocking, choreography, vocal harmonies, and backstage traffic for these multiple roles. But no Swing's job is exactly the same as another, and often no one knows quite how they memorize and remember all the information they need to know. And this intense intelligence is only half their job. They must also exhibit the artistry and technique of any Broadway performer.

When people say, the show must go on, Karli Dinardo is one of the people who makes that happen. As the Swing and Dance Captain for Moulin Rouge! The Musical, she covers seven other women in the show. Before making her Broadway debut in the production, she was a Swing and Dance Captain for Hamilton on the Road. We asked her into the studio to share her most harrowing and most triumphant stories of being a superhero Swing. Here's our conversation.

[1:36] Mo Brady: Hi!

[1:37] Karli Dinardo: Hi!

[1:38] Mo Brady: Would you introduce yourself and tell us what neighborhood of New York City you live in?

[2:03] Karli Dinardo: I am Karli Dinardo, and I live in Harlem.

[2:07] Mo Brady: And what's your job?

[2:08] Karli Dinardo: I currently am the Dance Captain Swing of Moulin Rouge! The Musical.

[2:12] Mo Brady: Technically, what is a Swing?

[2:15] Karli Dinardo: A Swing is someone who typically is offstage, not always, sometimes there are onstage Swings, but typically is offstage and covers up to 10 different parts in the ensemble and potentially extra additional principles as well. And so at any moment in time, said Swing would have to jump into the show, at any moment of the show, into any of those 10 tracks and pretty much keep the show going without anybody knowing any different, which is pretty crazy to think about in that way.

[2:45] Mo Brady: Emotionally, how would you describe a Swing?

[2:47] Karli Dinardo: You learn to deal with like your flight or fight mode very quickly.

[2:52] Mo Brady: So you've swung two professional productions, right?

[2:55] Karli Dinardo: Yes.

[2:56] Mo Brady: With each show, how many tracks and which tracks, if people might be familiar with them?

[3:01] Karli Dinardo: The first time I swung was on the Angelica Tour of Hamilton, which was very unique because our entire Swing team had never swung before. So we were all kind of going through this together and learning what it was. And it was obviously a beast of a show, so it was quite the one to start with, but I really feel like it kind of trained you to be able to do anything. And so I did all five ensemble ladies in that production and I understudied Peggy Mariah. But being Dance Captain, you have to pretty much know everything. So though you technically don't have to perform them all, you still have to know, but that's a separate conversation. But yeah, I did all five ensemble ladies and in Moulin Rouge, I do all six Can-Can ladies and I understudied Nini.

[3:42] Mo Brady: Had you Dance Captain before Hamilton?

[3:44] Karli Dinardo: I had not.

[3:45] Mo Brady: What do you think there was about your personality, your spirit, the way that you were in the audition room that made people go, "Karli's going to be a great Swing"?

[3:55] Karli Dinardo: Attention to detail is something that's super important as a Swing. And I naturally just am someone who loves to observe and loves to like, really meticulously watch people when they're demonstrating something or when they're being taught something or when we're being taught something. And I think that that's probably what it was one of the contributing factors of like this attention to detail and having to retain so many different details as a Swing is a big tick, I believe, when you're on the other side of the table.

[4:21] Mo Brady: So how do you keep track of all of your tracks? Is it an iPad? Is it notecards? Is it notebooks?

[4:26] Karli Dinardo: So I originally was very old school. I wrote everything down in a notebook. Now, just with the nature of shows shifting and being on tour, like different things would have to shift as we got to different theaters. And particularly now on Broadway, I've definitely changed to electronic. I have actually Google Docs of all my tracking sheets. So I can just go in and edit the things as necessary, whether it changes to eight instead of 10, or, you know, upstage instead of downstage, or things like that, that are much easier to keep track of when it's kind of like solidified, and it's pretty much good to go. I'll print it out then and have one on either side of the stage, if I'm debuting a track or the first few times I'm on for a track just to have as a security blanket because you never want that deer in headlights moment as a Swing on stage, where you're like, "Ah, what's next? Who am I? And where do I go?" So I try to keep them just in case I have one of those moments I can reassure myself, read through my notes and have the answer quickly.

[5:25] Mo Brady: Are your notes numbered by number or roll by roll? You have different sheets?

[5:29] Karli Dinardo: Yes. So each track has a separate document in my brain. I'm kind of a little OCD. I love to have everything color coordinated. So like props are blue, costume changes are green, partnering is pink, all those little things so that when I'm scanning quickly, those things pop out so I can have the information that's necessary quickly. If I have time to read through it, obviously, I can read all of the details. But no, it's number by number, but each document is per track.

[5:56] Mo Brady: Okay, so for a lot of listeners who, you know, did shows in school or community theater, they understand how an ensemble learns a show, you know, you do a rehearsal process, and everyone's up on their feet and learning the show together and you have sort of four weeks and then you do tech and then you open, right? Swings have to learn differently, right?

[6:19] Karli Dinardo: Yes, the very individual thing about Moulin Rouge is they had their out of town in Boston. And obviously things shifted from Boston to Broadway. So whenever those things were being taught, we were all kind of learning it together, except they were in the space and we were to the side or in the corner or just trying to be out of the way because obviously everyone's trying to do their job. For a lot of it, it was not a review, but it was familiar to them already in some shape, way or form. So we really had a lot of quick catching up to do because they didn't have to stop and redo something. It was like, great, let's we're gonna do this, let's make this happen. And then we're on the side like trying to go double speed and be like, "Okay, that goes to this, that goes to this."

And then you go here, we often would come in early. And this was something that we did in Hamilton as well, where all the swings were kind of like, we only have each other to help each other in this moment. So we'd come in early before rehearsals would start and use the taped out stage to run through the things that we did the day before. My dance captain, other dance captain Fred, he'd come in and be like, "If you want to partner and do extra things, I'm happy to come in." So we do that just so that we could start getting some kind of familiarity with specifically our show has so much partnering in it. So it was nice to try and get that a little bit in our muscle memory rather than the first time doing the partnering was like before a show.

[7:33] Mo Brady: How similar are the tracks that you know in Moulin Rouge! to each other?

[7:39] Karli Dinardo: There are definitely some moments where they'll all do the same phrase of choreography. But maybe the two upstage ladies will join in from count four, and then the downstage ladies all do the same thing on different numbers or different depths. But then there are definitely times where everybody's doing something different.

[7:55] Mo Brady: So what's the hardest number for you to swing?

[8:00] Karli Dinardo: Oh, that's a great question. Um, there are a couple, I think, now, six plus months in, it's obviously more familiar and less of a mind scrabble. But like the can-can particularly is tricky because it's not symmetrical. So for a swing brain, it's not just, "Oh, this is the reverse of so and so." It's always something that's different. And so you don't want to be that person that runs into someone or is in someone's way. Bad romance, if a lady is in the gauntlet section, what we call the gauntlet section, that is probably one of the trickiest parts of the show to swing just because it moves so quickly. And it's one lift after another, after another, and the traffic's crazy and furious and fast and furious. And it could potentially be very dangerous. So that's definitely one of the hardest parts to swing. And it's hard to replicate in rehearsal because you don't have an entire ensemble of people. So I would say that's definitely one of the trickiest.

[8:53] Mo Brady: How often are you rehearsing now that the show is up and running?

[8:57] Karli DiNardo: Very frequently. I mean, granted, as a dance captain, I think that's why it's very frequently, the swings as a group of people. At first, we were in rehearsals pretty much all the time. And all the time means twice a week for five hours? Definitely twice a week, sometimes more than that. Just with the nature of the first time everybody gets thrown in for the show, you haven't necessarily had time to address everything. So I'd always come in early that day to make sure that we could go over everything and then make an appropriate lift call for that night. And it always changes on the circumstance. But now it's a little bit of, we have new people in the building, so it's like teaching the new guys and then maintaining everybody else's tracks and making sure that it doesn't go too long of a gap between rehearsals of different tracks and understudies.

And so it definitely is constant. We definitely were doing a lot for the six months, but it's just also circumstantial where someone's out for an injury leave, and then this person has to be in the show in two and a bit weeks. And I feel like that's just New York. Living in New York and working in New York, you have to kind of expect things to pop up.

[10:09] Alan Seales: So you have rehearsals outside of the performances. What are you doing during the performances when you're not on?

[10:12] Karli DiNardo: Either watching the show. From where? I like to watch from the back of the house. Being in the actual theater, there's nothing that replicates that. So I love creeping into the back of the house and watching the show from there. We also have what we call Joe's room. He's incredible, one of our crew guys in them. And he has this big screen in his office that he opens up for us to come and watch the show, which is so lovely. It's really incredible to have that as an option. So sometimes we're in there, just kind of watching one person specifically during a show, which is super helpful if I'm like, oh, let me review so-and-so today, just because I haven't looked at it for a couple weeks. Sometimes we're trailing backstage because the backstage traffic is a Tetris as well, just with the nature of props and sets and people and having to fly certain things at certain times.

So it's important to also refresh that backstage traffic because that also can get dangerous if you're not paying attention and in the wrong spot. Honestly, for myself, being dance captain, I'll be noting the show depending on who's on. So there really hasn't been many performances where I'm just like, oh, I'm going to chill in my dressing room tonight. I think less than one hand in six months, how many times I've been like, I don't know what to do tonight, which I guess is a blessing and a curse. But one of the joys of being a swing is that there's nothing stagnant about it. No, I mean, sometimes we'll be the musicians have like a lounge out front, which is kind of between where you would go to the house and come backstage underground.

And it's like the largest space we have. So sometimes we'll just be running through things there ourselves and things like that. So that's it is definitely the blessing of being a swing is that you never get sick of doing the same thing. And sometimes it's like, great, you're on for so and so and you've not done that track in two months. And you're like, great, let me get that file from the back of my head. And so here we are six months plus into the run. If you had to guess how many times you've been on? Are you definitely over 50?

[12:06] Karli DiNardo: Okay, I do have a count. Yeah, I have like a I try to keep account of how many times I've done each track. There it is. There's that brain that you're talking about. Yeah, it's like I didn't do it on tour. And I always regretted it. Sure. So I tried to be a little bit more proficient with it this time around. Yeah, I'd say close to 60.

[12:34] Alan Seales: What's the most notice you've had to go on for a swing?

[12:39] Karli DiNardo: If someone puts in for a vacation, they have that approved, we'll usually know a month in advance, oh, this person's on vacation, and we get to split the week, however, which way or someone has a personal day that's been approved, and we get to have dates coming up.

[12:48] Alan Seales: And what do you mean by split the week?

[12:55] Karli DiNardo: So for instance, we have three female swings. And so it would depend on whether I would do the first half, Amber would do the second half, whether we'd split it three ways, and Caitlin would we do like a few shows each. Obviously, that's up to stage management. But yeah, that's what I mean by we could, we would split if she was away on vacation for a whole week, we would do half and half, which is cool. It gives everyone a chance to get the track in their body and remember it, which is great.

[13:15] Alan Seales: And what is the least amount of notice you've been given?

[13:22] Karli DiNardo: During a show, I was thrown on in the middle of act two, you'll hear an announcement, or a stage manager will run in and then you're like, here we go. And then it's the mad dash to get ready. Because sometimes once I was like, oh, you have to be in in one number, and you're like, cool. And then we're firefights upstairs up to the dressing room, and then back down to the basement to get dressed and then back to stage. And so it is crazy. The adrenaline is crazy. I always try to take a moment before I do go on stage to kind of exhale. Because if you take your time getting ready, then there's no way you'll be on stage in time. But once you get on stage, you have to like take a moment. Otherwise, it kind of is just frenetic and that's not helpful.

[14:02] Alan Seales: What is your favorite thing about swinging?

[14:04] Karli DiNardo: Doing something different all the time. It really pushes your brain in a way that you don't expect. I would never have thought about being a swing until Hamilton. And now it's kind of like something that you exercise that muscle and you just kind of keep doing and you are like, wow, I keep surprising myself or you learn yourself in a way that you wouldn't normally. And sometimes you're like, great. Now I know that this is my limit. And now I know that I need more sleep in order to do this, or I need to rest a little bit more. Or actually, I know this better than I thought I did. And I need to trust myself more. And I think that that's really cool. It's a very unicorn thing to have to do. And I feel very grateful.

I get to do what I love. And I get to basically put on seven different caps at any moment in time and kind of push myself in that way. Because I feel like, you know, every woman in our show is different. And so whenever I go into any of their tracks, I try to put myself into that character that I know that they've created, but obviously in my own way. And that's something that's great because you're not doing the same thing every time. It really does change.

[15:07] Alan Seales: If you could write a note and send it back in time to land on Carly's lap, her first day of swinging the Hamilton tour, what would that note say?

[15:16] Karli DiNardo: Probably would be twofold. Within our first week of rehearsals, Stephanie Clemons, who's a genius.

[15:27] Alan Seales: The global dance supervisor for Hamilton?

[15:29] Karli DiNardo: Yeah, she is incredible. And she kind of set all the swings down. It was all of our first time swinging. And she said, for every one time the onstage company runs something, you have to do it 30 times. And it very much registered very clearly for all of us in that moment. But it's something that now having three years later, had time to really explore what that means. It's so true. It's something that just changes the information from stuff that you know, to stuff that you can actually be comfortable doing. It eliminates all of the negative self-talk that comes when you're like not 100% sure of something. And it just makes everything more enjoyable. It actually means that when I go on stage for the first time in a track, I hope that I've done it enough leading up to that moment so that I actually get to enjoy performing and telling a story rather than just thinking, what number am I on?

Who am I supposed to go upstage or downstage of? Which part of my body do I give in this lift? That's all the technical stuff that you don't want to be thinking about. Why we do what we do is because we love to perform and we love, I love to tell stories and to make people feel and think differently than maybe they would usually. So in order to do that, and in order to like fill my heart up and my soul up when I'm on stage, that's something that's just part of the work.

[16:57] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Carly DiNardo for sharing her stories with us this week. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. The Ensemblist is proud to be part of Broadway Podcast Network. If you can't get enough of theater conversations directed into your earbuds from us, there are more than 40 other great theater podcasts to listen to on the network. Check all of us out at bpn.fm. And we've joined the world of Patreon. You can support the work we do here at The Ensemblist for as little as $5 a month. Check us out at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. And if you don't have the cash to donate $5 a month, you can help others find out about The Ensemblist by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Also follow The Ensemblist on Instagram, where we share the stories of talented artists working in Broadway ensembles. Thanks for listening, guys. Until next time.