A Declassified Understudy Survival Guide with MOULIN ROUGE!’s Christian Probst

How do Broadway understudies survive? The gig isn’t easy! Understudies and swings are some of the hardest working performers on Broadway (and beyond), having to be ready to go on at a moment’s notice, often for multiple tracks. Think you could swing it?

In this episode, we’re checking in with Christian Probst, who is in the ensemble at Moulin Rouge! and understudies both ‘Christian’ and ‘the Duke’. What’s it like having to know so many tracks?

“I think the hardest thing about being an understudy is just always being ready, but then always being ready for the disappointment of not going on,” Christian explained. “So like you have to be ready every night to do your understudy tracks but know that 99% of the time, you’re not gonna do it.”