WNYC is following the creation of an ambitious new Broadway show, “Paramour,” from Cirque du Soleil. The production combines circus with elements of a traditional Broadway musical. And it’s full of risks: physical, personal, and artistic.
One of the biggest rolls of the dice came at the beginning of April, when the show’s creators decided to replace a lead actor. That left the new actor, Jeremy Kushnier, with only two weeks to learn the script, before the start of previews. “I must look like a crazy person on the subway every day,” Kushnier said. “The stuff I have memorized, I’ll start from the top and just start saying it out loud on my train ride in… And people are like, ‘Go ahead sir. You can have the seat,’”
There are also physical risks in bringing big, expansive acrobatic acts into the relative confinement of a Broadway theater. The Lyric Theatre happens to be the same theater where another musical with grand acrobatic ambitions, “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” crashed full-speed into a wall of injuries and infighting. “We all consider that injuries are part of the field of work,” said Eric Heppell, the show’s artistic and acrobatic director. “Cables and drums and shivs and pulleys and winches are inspected constantly, daily.”
{ SOURCE: WNYC | http://www.wnyc.org/story/risky-business-cirque/ }
