For theatergoers, it produces an all too familiar sinking feeling. You open your Playbill and a little piece of paper flutters out, alerting you that a member of the cast is out and someone unexpected will be performing.
For understudies who are finally getting a turn in the spotlight, though, those little slips offer rare moments of recognition.
Love them or hate them, they are a Broadway tradition on the way out.
A little-noticed provision in the tentative contract agreed to this month between the Broadway League and Actors’ Equity Association would make those inserts — “stuffers” in industry parlance — optional. The deal, which is being voted on by Equity members, allows shows to announce most cast changes through QR codes printed in Playbills, along with either a verbal announcement or a cast list posted in the lobby.
But some Broadway troupers who came up the hard way fear that few audience members will bother to open the QR codes on their phones to see who is performing.
“I understand, from an environmental standpoint, that they’re wasteful, and I understand why producers, cost-wise and for other reasons, don’t want them,” said Julie Benko, who was the understudy of the title role in the recent revival of “Funny Girl” and created her own show, “Standby, Me,” about the four musicals in which she has covered principal roles.
“But,” she went on, “I think the understudies, the swings, the standbys and the alternates do so much work, with so little recognition, so much of the time — this is a little piece of paper that makes sure they’re acknowledged by the people who are watching them.”
The provision to move to QR codes for cast changes was proposed by producers. Both the union and the Broadway League declined to comment on the change. Members of the union have until Thursday evening to vote on the contract deal, which offers a 3 percent raise in each of the next three years and more money for the health care fund.
Cast changes have become increasingly common — and last-minute — with more actors missing performances since the coronavirus pandemic. Now, those changes may be less obvious.
Alex Birsh, the chief operating officer of Playbill, emailed theaters last week to tell them his company had already put together an “at this performance” landing page for every production, which would be ready for the implementation of the new QR code system.
The inserts, Birsh said in an interview, “are certainly part of a tradition.” Birsh would know — he is the third generation of his family to run Playbill. His grandfather once struck a deal with Western Union to sponsor the cast change inserts, he said, but the company ended its sponsorship after deciding it didn’t want to be associated with slips that some found upsetting.
“Obviously, sometimes they’re filled with a bit of disappointment, but also they can offer some excitement, because you might be seeing the birth of an incredible career,” Birsh said. “An understudy slip should always be a point of excited curiosity.”
Broadway lore is filled with stories of understudies who catch a break and make it big. Shirley MacLaine was discovered as an understudy in “The Pajama Game,” when she stepped in for a star who had injured her ankle, and she caught the eye of a movie producer. Sutton Foster became a star when she made the leap from understudy to lead during the pre-Broadway production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”
Broadway will not be the first to try a digital alternative. QR codes are already an option for touring Broadway shows in the United States.
There will be one quirky exception. Shows that require audience members to lock their cellphones in pouches (as the Broadway play “Liberation” currently does, following in the footsteps of other shows that feature nudity) will still need to use inserts, since audiences will not be able to access the QR codes.
Jennifer Ashley Tepper, a producer and author of Broadway history books who works as the programming director at 54 Below, a Broadway cabaret club, said she kept “several framed understudy slips from performances when friends and future stars went on for roles that they covered.”
She called the change “a bittersweet shift.”
“The end of understudy slips,” she said, “means yet another physical part of theater history will disappear.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
Sara Krulwich has been The Times’s theater photographer since 1995, photographing stage productions in New York. She joined The Times in 1979.
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