“As much as people think that being a swing is an entry-level position, the fact of the matter is being a swing is at the opposite end of the spectrum, where the lead is,” he explains. But that perception is misleading, says Simeone. Swings, more so than understudies and replacements, are the most likely to be considered entry-level. On some occasions, I’ve actually been called at half-hour to go on for people that I am not ‘paid to play,’ meaning something happens, like someone is delayed in getting there from the airport, and the swing will be asked, ‘Do you know the part? Can you go on?,’ and the swing’s job is to say yes and to make it happen.” “I have been in the show as the lead for a week or two at a time. “I have been called to go on in the middle of a show for someone,” he says. Simeone, a “super swing” in Broadway’s “A Bronx Tale,” once performed three different roles in three consecutive performances. Swings are not on stage every night-but when they are, it’s often at a moment’s notice. On Broadway, a “swing” is a performer who has learned several different tracks (theater-speak for roles) and can step into any of them when called.
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