{"id":207894,"date":"2019-04-17T16:44:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T20:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/?p=207894"},"modified":"2019-04-17T16:44:50","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T20:44:50","slug":"heather-botts-the-challenges-of-being-a-broadway-understudy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/2019\/04\/17\/heather-botts-the-challenges-of-being-a-broadway-understudy\/","title":{"rendered":"Heather Botts: The Challenges of Being a Broadway Understudy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the featured headliners for the 7<sup>th<\/sup> annual Autism Benefit Concert on Monday, April 22 will be Heather Botts. Botts is best known for being an understudy for several Broadway shows including \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d \u201cDoctor Zhivago,\u201d and LCT\u2019s \u201cThe King and I.\u201d I interviewed Botts to discover the challenges and joys an understudy role can bring and how this autism awareness event is relevant in her life.<\/p>\n<p>Botts mentioned a couple of different factors of a live performance that differ from Broadway. \u201cYou don\u2019t get to rehearse with any of the elements before you go on and perform for a live audience. You have to practice on your own and know the show inside and out.\u00a0 In some cases, you have no depth perception because you are basically watching from the sidelines to kind of figure out and know your blocking and where you stand. Once you get in the sandbox, it can feel very different like an out of body experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Botts also mentioned the woes of hair, costume, and the thrill of a live experience. \u201cIt will be the first time you are wearing the wigs, the first time you are singing with the live orchestra, the first time you put the costumes on, it is so many foreign elements that you are experiencing for the first time which is why you have to know the script inside and out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Out of all the challenges, Botts still remains enthusiastic with every role she gets. As she is headlining alongside other well-known Broadway stars, Rebecca Luker and Sierra Boggess, I asked Botts what it meant to her to be able to do so and she stated, \u201cIt is an incredible honor, I am humbled.\u201d Botts recalled the first time she heard the recording of \u201cSecret Garden\u201d with Luker, calling her voice, \u201cone of the purest sopranos voices\u201d she\u2019s ever heard. \u00a0She described seeing Boggess for the first time on the big screen for \u201cPhantom of the Opera\u201d, calling her \u201cridiculously amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Botts hopes to inspire the audience to give back to this great cause stating she is, \u201chappy to be part of this legacy.\u201d While Botts herself is not affected with autism in her immediate family, she stated, \u201cI have friends that have kids that have autism, I know some adults that are autistic, and it is just such an important cause and I\u2019m so excited that Montclair State University has this concert to raise awareness and funds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the featured headliners for the 7th annual Autism Benefit Concert on Monday, April 22 will be Heather Botts. Botts is best known for being an understudy for several Broadway shows including \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d \u201cDoctor Zhivago,\u201d and LCT\u2019s \u201cThe King and I.\u201d I interviewed Botts to discover the challenges and joys an understudy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":207895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-communication-and-media-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207896,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207894\/revisions\/207896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}