The Understudy

Break a leg… or someone else’s.

Down-on-his-luck actor Harry finally catches a break: he’s cast as the understudy in a long-lost Kafka play playing to sold-out Broadway crowds. But when the show’s swaggering Hollywood star, Jake, sweeps into rehearsal, the stage becomes a battlefield of ego, ambition, and insecurity of truly Kafkaesque proportions.

Caught in the crossfire is the razor-sharp stage manager—with a complicated history with both men—desperately trying to keep the production (and her sanity) from imploding before opening night.

Theresa Rebeck’s THE UNDERSTUDY is a wickedly funny, fast-paced backstage comedy about ambition, jealousy, second chances, and the fragile line between art and ego. Smart, biting, and unexpectedly moving, it’s a love letter to the theater—and a no-holds-barred look at what happens when the spotlight isn’t big enough for everyone.

–until all anyone can do is dance.