Understudies are commonly considered the heroes of the stage. They can memorize two or three parts in a show and can easily step into any of those roles at the drop of a hat—ensuring that the show goes on. Sid Solomon is one of those heroic understudies, and even more impressively, he has memorized an eye-opening five roles in the Off-Broadway hit comedy The Play That Goes Wrong and can step into any of those roles at the last minute.
“You can tell me I'm on with five minutes to spare, or, as has happened a handful of times, you can throw me on in the middle of the show, and it's not going to be a concern for me,” says Solomon, with complete humility.
The Play That Goes Wrong has been running in New York since 2017—it first premiered on Broadway and then moved to a smaller venue Off-Broadway at New World Stages in 2019. Solomon has been with the show for six years, first in 2018 with the national tour and then Off-Broadway since 2019. Since the beginning, he's covered at least four roles, with a fifth one added later.
In The Play That Goes Wrong, a fictional company of actors is trying to put on a murder mystery play, but things start going awry—from people missing a cue to pieces of the set falling down around them. Created by Mischief Theatre Company, it’s been running in the West End since 2012. All the chaos onstage is meticulously planned and choreographed—so much so that the cast members like to joke that when something goes right (like when the floor doesn’t collapse), that’s actually bad for the show.
Though for the show’s understudies, of which there are four, their job is to be there when the play actually goes wrong. For someone who doesn’t know what he’s going to be doing every day, Solomon is remarkably even-keeled. He has a data-driven, analytical brain that is very good at retaining information—he even keeps a spreadsheet of every show he’s done and what role he’s gone on for. “Since joining the Off-Broadway company, I average, as of today, 2.64 performances per week,” he says, looking in real time at his spreadsheet. “So on average, I do the show a third of the time between those five roles that I cover. It's actually as of today, it's exactly 33 percent of the shows.” When Solomon is not on the stage, backstage, he’s actively working on his Master's Degree in public administration from the University of Illinois, Springfield.
Solomon admits when he first learned he was going to be an understudy on the national tour, he was “terrified.” How was he going to be able to remember all four of those roles and all that choreography, cues, and mishaps to watch out for? “Watching that show for the first time after I knew I was gonna go work on it, it was the first time I ever watched the show without laughing once, because I just watched it absolutely horrified by what I just agreed to do.”
Luckily, he never had to do the nightmare scenario for any production: going on without having any rehearsal time. From the first day of Goes Wrong rehearsals, Solomon was in the room with the cast going over each line and learning the sword fighting and stunt work alongside the principals. Solomon learned each of his four roles one at a time—the first role he learned, he was also able to do multiple performances in a row because the actor was out. Then after, he learned the next role, and then the next. “What was interesting is that once you know one piece of the puzzle, learning a second piece becomes significantly easier,” remarks Solomon. “There are places where the puzzle pieces fit together, so that then becomes easier.” The show's understudies also share an ensemble part known as the "stage manager," so that's a sixth role that Solomon also has to keep track of.
Sure, but has there been any point where Solomon forgot which role he was on the stage for and stepped somewhere he wasn’t supposed to step?
“Very, very rarely. Thankfully, they've been very, very minor,” he answers. “You build these sort of neural pathways; your body knows where it's supposed to go. There are a handful of scenes in this show where somewhere between three or five of the characters that I cover are all talking to each other at the same time. Those are my favorite scenes, frankly, because they're the ones where I have to focus the most. Because if there's any point on stage where I lose focus, it is very easy for muscle memory to kick into the wrong track.”
It's not all fun and games. Solomon admits there have been times when the show has actually gone wrong with him on the stage. Such as the time when, during a fight scene, he misjudged the distance between him and a grandfather clock and got a little too close to it.
“I got it so close that when I pulled my head back, I scraped the front side of the front of my face across the face of the clock, and took out large chunks of skin on my forehead and my nose,” he recalls. Blood started running down his face. Solomon could’ve stopped the show; the cast are encouraged to do so when they feel unsafe. But at that moment, he took a mental inventory: He didn’t hit his head, so there wasn’t a concussion. He felt normal aside from the blood. So he smiled to his scene partner at the time, Brent Bateman, to indicate that he was alright. The stage management bandaged him up. “We put a bunch of Ace bandages around my forehead, and put too much stuff on my nose, just so it looked fun. It made it feel like it was actually supposed to have happened,” he recalls.
At the ER after the show, everything came back clear, though Solomon admits that he does bleed easily. “I have a little bit of a reputation at the show for being a bleeder. If I get cut a little bit, there will be blood,” he says, nonchalantly while sipping on tea.
This November marks Solomon’s fifth anniversary with the show, and he doesn’t foresee himself leaving anytime soon—he’s grateful for the steady employment. When asked if Solomon ever wants to be a principal cast member doing one role eight times a week, the actor gently declined, saying the variety is what keeps Play That Goes Wrong exciting for him.
“I really like my job,” he enthuses. “I put a lot of pride into my work, and the fact that my primary function is to be supportive of those principal actors, if and when they need and or want to not be at work on any given day. But I do not take the physical and vocal beating of doing the show eight times a week. And that's not a bad place to be for me. I love what I do, I really do. And frankly, I do not see being an understudy as inherently being a stepping stone to being in a principal role. In the same way I wouldn't see being an assistant stage manager, or a deck stage manager as a stepping stone to being a production stage manager. All of these are jobs that are valuable, all within their own right.”
