If learning an entire ensemble’s song and dance routines seems like a monumental task, it’s made even harder by the fact that on any given night, a swing might be required to fill in for more than one cast member. If more people are off than there are swings to fill in for them, they’ll have to somehow manage it anyway.

“It’s very possible for you to do split tracks, where you’re doing an amalgamation. Whether it’s doing this person’s job for this dance number then jumping into that person’s scene, it’s really a detailed prioritisation throughout the whole show,” says New.

Every swing tackles the complexity of their job differently. For New, this involves creating a spreadsheet for each cast member he might have to replace, as well as a simplified form detailing how the entire show fits together.

Fellow 9 to 5 swing Emma Hawthorne also takes copious notes: “Knowing that you will only ever get a short amount of notice, you just find any way that enables you to remember things quickly so that you’re as equipped as you can possibly be.”

Hawthorne’s cheat sheets include “which wing you enter by; what numbers on the stage you stand on; if there’s a prop you have to use, where you might get it from; if there’s a set piece you have to move, what the mark you have to move it to looks like.”

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It’s a gruelling job, though, and not for everyone. “For people who don’t like change it can be a little bit challenging,” says Hawthorne. “One of the swings this week has done a different person every show this week. So every night he’s someone completely different, and that’s just the brain you get into. You have to live moment to moment because there’s no time to be thinking about anything else.”

The upside? Performing the same role eight or nine times a week for a year or more means that most music theatre performers struggle to keep things fresh and spontaneous. That’s not a problem a swing will ever face.

Hawthorne and Assetta’s jobs as swings are complicated by the fact that they’re both also dance captains for their respective shows – throughout their seasons they help fellow cast members keep their choreography fresh and tight.

These leadership roles not only give them detailed knowledge of every step they might be called on to swing, but also give them perspective on the inevitable hiccups that come from performing on the fly.

“I’m always like, if you mess up something just let it go because it’s only one moment out of a thousand. We’re going to have a few wrong moments every show because of the nature of what we do, but you have to continue on and go look, if I got 970 moments out of 1000 right that’s pretty good,” says Hawthorne.

If jumping into someone else’s shoes at a moment’s notice doesn’t sound nerve-racking enough, Hawthorne also covers one of 9 to 5’s leading roles. “In that case we can’t split-track that. If someone does go on for a lead they’re in that track only. But filling Caroline O’Connor’s shoes is something you try not to think about! You just go on and do your own show and your own version of it, but you are highly aware whose shoes you’re stepping into.”

What happens when every role in a musical is a lead? That’s what Assetta faces: Six is known for giving equal weight to each of its half-dozen leads, and the show has become renowned for giving its swings an unusual level of creative freedom.

“It really is so lovely to not have to go onstage and feel like you have to fill someone else’s shoes,” Assetta says. “Generally that’s what the swing does, they have to go on and literally replicate what the other person has done on the stage. But we’re so lucky for the swing to be able to step into a role and it’s completely your own.”

“The swings on Six have their own fandom,” says Millerchip. “So when the fandom read online that one of the swings is on it spreads like wildfire and they rally around. They’ll come and see the show just for the opportunity to catch that swing in that role.”

Millerchip’s own stage career began as a teenage swing on the original Melbourne production of Cats in 1988. “That was my first and last foray into being a swing. It was an incredible apprenticeship but you’ve got to have a particular constitution to be a swing. To be honest I found it anxiety-inducing. You’ve got to have such a presence of mind and be so organised, and be able to calm the farm and focus. I have enormous admiration for swings.”

COVID has only made that admiration grow. Swings have always played a vital role in music theatre, but in the last few years they’ve grown in number and visibility. For the Sydney season of 9 to 5 Hawthorne was called in to replace others for 44 shows. When New first took to the stage, company members were going down left and right. For Six, the resident choreographer has begun playing swing to the swings themselves.

“They’ve been this little subculture that doesn’t get much airplay, but I think things are changing,” says Millerchip. “Everybody behind the scenes thinks that swings are amazing. It’s only the public that don’t know who they are.”

Cover versions: a glossary of substitutes

Swinging isn’t the general act of filling in for another performer – there’s a whole language to describe theatre’s various forms of replacement.

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Each member of an ensemble doesn’t play a role but a “track”. A track might include some group dance scenes, several small character parts, moving sets or props or a combination of all these.

A swing learns to take over any of these tracks if another cast member can’t, and if there are multiple tracks that need filling they’ll be chopped up and stuck back together as a “split track”.

A cover is more specific – when a lead or supporting actor drops out, another actor will have to fill that role exclusively. You can’t be playing a barmaid or farmhand in one scene and then soloing the showstopper in the next. An ensemble member might be called on to cover a lead role, however, with a swing stepping in to fill the resulting ensemble gap.

If you’re wondering where understudies are in all of these, they’re in a different theatre. Plays that receive very long runs might contract an actor to learn and rehearse one or more major parts, but extended seasons of plays in Australia are rare enough that it’s almost unknown for theatre companies here to contract understudies.

Alternates are becoming more common, though: when a major production calls for performers to alternate roles due to the sheer demands they exact on anyone playing the role, equal prominence will be given to each performer. Examples include the local and New York duos alternating the lead roles in the recent production of An American in Paris, and the Australian Ballet’s Kunstkamer, in which AB head David Hallberg alternated a role with the Nederlans Dans Theatre dancer who originated it. Then there’s the current production The Picture of Dorian Gray, whose central role is played by actors Eryn Jean Norvill and Nikki Shiels with no announcements ahead of time as to who will appear in any given performance.

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