At the start of this week, leading lady Rosalie Craig, who is playing the gender reversed role of Bobbie in the West End production of Company was unwell and unable to perform. Her understudy, Jenwaa Saayeng, stepped in and saved the day by taking her place. But sometimes when one person gets sick, it can be a downward spiral for the whole cast as germs spread around.
Super trouper Rosalie tried to return to the show on Tuesday but had to be replaced by Jenwaa after the interval. Jenwaa then continued at yesterday’s matinee performance but 45 minutes in to the evening show, she fell sick and ran off stage during the song You Can Drive a Person Crazy. The rest of the cast finished the song but the show then had to be stopped and the remainder cancelled.
Patti LuPone came out on stage, before the audience went home, and treated them to an acapella rendition of A Hundred Years From Today from the musical Blackbirds of 1934, which she had done at the final two performances of Sunset Boulevard in 1994 when they had technical difficulties.
Tickets are being refunded or exchanged. There has been no news yet as to whether this evening’s performance will go ahead as planned or if that too will be cancelled.
Get well soon everyone!
Have you got any stories about being at a show-stop where the performance had to be cancelled? I went to Les Mis once and they announced before the show, that due to flooding, it wasn’t safe for them to perform the show. So we all had to go home! I guess the safest way to inform everyone without causing panic was to wait until they were all seated so the situation could calmly be explained.
West End Wilma
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