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What Kind of Year Has It Been? Looking Back on the 2022 Theater Season

Understudy of the Year - Kailey Azure Green, American Players Theatre

Green began the season at American Players Theatre as the choreographer, intimacy choreographer, and assistant director to Aaron Posner on Sheridan’s The Rivals. They ended up performing as an understudy in three different shows, sometimes with just seconds to prepare. According to Artistic Director Brenda DeVita, one night after Isabel Bushue suffered a knee injury during the first half of APT’s production of Sense and Sensibility, Kailey was called on to play the Dashwood family’s youngest sister for the remainder of the performance. When Kailey arrived up the hill they had three questions: “Which play is this?” “Do I have a wig?” and “Can I go to the bathroom before I go on?” This versatile actor also appeared as an understudy in The Rivals and Loves Labors Lost, mastering sword fights and Shakespearean verse as if they had been engaged to play the roles all along. If we've learned one good thing from COVID, it’s that the play doesn’t have to go on if it is going to put actors in danger. But audiences who traveled from all over the Midwest to see productions at APT were very happy that these plays were able to proceed due to the efforts of many understudies, including Kailey. Well done.

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Quick Chat with Erin Milleville

APT's Quick Chat Series is a chance to get to know the folks around APT. This week we talk to Kailey Azure Green, Assistant Director, Choreographer and Intimacy Choreographer on The Rivals, about all things movement, storytelling and the best songs to sing at karaoke.

This is Kailey's first summer in the Woods. Based out of Washington DC, Kailey works as an actor, intimacy choreographer, fight director, choreographer, artistic director, and is as an Assistant Faculty member and Executive Assistant at Theatrical Intimacy Education. They are a multi-talented artist and educator and we're so glad they could join us this summer. Kailey is a non-binary artist and uses they/them pronouns.

APT: This is your first season at APT! How has your summer been going?
Kailey Azure Green: It’s been absolutely wonderful! It’s been really fun to be the first show to open in the season, because we were able to open The Rivals and I’ve been able to just enjoy all the other openings, and support people through their techs, and everything like that.

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The Rivals

And a word about understudies. . .

As many professional theaters have acknowledged recently, both on Broadway and regionally, the show really would not go on without understudies. As we get used to dealing with COVID-19 as a part of everyday life instead of an emergency, theaters need to anticipate that members of the main cast will get sick and will be unable to perform. It used to be that understudies went on rarely, if at all. Now they are regularly filling in for leading roles. 

But very few understudies expect to go on for another actor on opening night. Enter Kailey Azure Green, a performer brand new to APT this year, who is part of the intern company and assistant director on this production. In a small but essential role as the valet Hastings, Green executed their many entrances, bits of comic choreography, and wrangling of props with aplomb. It was absolutely delightful to see them shine onstage on very short notice in the first official show of the season — one that is as festooned with tiny details as it is filled with laughs.