Edinburgh Festivals Diary: The actor learning emergency choreo on a plane and the busiest family on the Fringe
The call came less than 24 hours before Mateo Chavez Lewis performed in his first Fringe show
The trans-Atlantic emergency casting calls just keep on coming.
This week, the musical director of a show got on a plane from Canada with just six hours notice and was parachuted in to understudy for an unwell actor.
The show in question was Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody, a send-up of the hit TV series about the secret relationship between two Major League hockey stars, running at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ahead of its transfer to London's Underbelly Soho later this year.
The call to join the cast onstage came while Mateo Chavez Lewis was on holiday in Canada.
“I was on vacation in Halifax, Nova Scotia, when my phone rang,” he said. "It was Alan Kliffer, our director and lead producer. He asked if I'd be willing to fly to Scotland that same night."
As music director for the New York and Canadian companies, he had been responsible for teaching the show's music to the cast, meaning he already knew the score inside out. Choreography and staging, however, were unfamiliar territory.
To add to the complication, he had to step into not one, but multiple roles, including one of the Susans - the Midwestern, straight hockey-romance fans who narrate the show - a barrister and a member of the ensemble.
“I already knew every note of the score," he said. “I just didn't know a single step of the choreography or staging.”
Undeterred, Mateo taught himself the choreography and blocking via a video during his overnight flight.
"The poor people sitting next to me must have been so confused,” he says. “Why is this guy dancing in his seat?"
After landing in Edinburgh, he rushed straight into rehearsals and had an hour to check into his hotel before heading to the theatre at Underbelly George Square for sound check. The show began at 7.50 pm Edinburgh time - less than 24 hours after the original phone call.
The experience also fulfilled a long-standing secret ambition for Mateo. Before becoming a music director, he trained as a professional actor, and he said he had privately hoped for the chance to perform in the show rather than direct its music from the wings.
“I'd always quietly wanted to be up there performing," he confided. “This show in particular has such a brilliantly funny script that I knew, deep down, it would be an absolute blast to perform.”
Family connections
One performing family is having a busy Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year.
Zofia Zerphy is in bestselling show Spin Cycles with Berserk Theatre, her sister Olivia is in Redacted with Voloz Collective - and now their dad, Michael, has headed to Edinburgh too, after a 40 year Fringe hiatus.
All three Zerphys will be performing at the Fringe this year. It is Zofia’s first year, Olivia’s third, and Michael is back after performing in Edinburgh in the 1980s. He is a retired clown performing the songs of Bedutzed!, his one man show about how a clown can never retire.
Zofia says: “We used to play theatre games in the living room after dinner, and he taught us that the world is just one big stage. So here we are, all performing together.”
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