MUSIC TO HIS EARS
After weathering the year that theatre ceased to be made, Equity member Lyndon Watts was overjoyed to be cast in a lead role in Hamilton. He speaks with The Equity Magazine about the privilege of playing Aaron Burr and the precautions that have been taken to ensure a COVID-safe workplace.
For Lyndon Watts, 2020 began like it did for so many artists and creatives.
“I’d been cast as Paul in the Darlinghurst Theatre Company’s production of A Chorus Line,” he says. “We’d rehearsed the show and done four previews. As the COVID situation was coming to a boil in New South Wales that week in March, we got closed the morning of our opening night. There was no opening night. Everything we’d worked towards was gone in an instant. It was absolutely devastating.”
For Melbourne-based Watts, the rest of 2020 was about “trying to make it through to the other side and see what happens. I don’t think I had any good news for almost the whole year.” Then, in November, his luck turned around dramatically.
“I was in complete disbelief for about two weeks. I was totally in shock,” he says, of landing one of the most coveted stage roles in Australian musical theatre history. “I was in Melbourne when I found out I had been cast in Hamilton. It was at the end of what had been a really weird, difficult, turbulent year. That context made it all the more special.”
When The Equity Magazine speaks with Watts, who’s playing Aaron Burr, one of Hamilton’s lead roles, he’s in the seventh week of rehearsals in Sydney.
“This is the biggest role, workload-wise, that I’ve ever had to do,” he says. “I’m pulling out every trick in the bag. Everything in my tool-belt is being used, everything that I feel like I’ve been slowly picking up over the years, thinking that one day I might be able to use, it’s all been brought out now. Aaron Burr is asking everything of me. It’s thrilling!”
After graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2014, Watts was cast in the national Australian tour of Sweet Charity. Subsequent stage credits include Anything Goes, Singin’ in the Rain, Disney’s Aladdin, Aurelio in Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Bernardo in West Side Story.
“We all feel so lucky to be working on Hamilton,” he says. “We are not taking it for granted for one minute. Our partners, our friends are still actors who are waiting to get back to doing what they love, as well. That’s why we follow the COVID-safe guidelines so closely; we know what we’ve already lost and what’s at stake.”
Watts says that while the guidelines created many unfamiliar processes for actors to follow, they have quickly adapted to their new normal. “The first two weeks of rehearsal were a bit bizarre. Doing a musical in general after a year off was a weird enough experience, but coming back to work with masks and all the rest of it was a big change. But artists, I think, are very adaptable. So we adjusted and we knew that it was all for the good of the show. Honestly, it’s a privilege to follow through these measures to make sure that we get to keep doing this thing that we love so much.”
With COVID lockdowns and restrictions still in place internationally, Sydney is currently the only city in the world where Hamilton can be seen live.
“ The stakes are high,” says Watts. “Hamilton means so much to so many people, and there’s so much investment of time and money and love in this production. The staff, and the team, and the company have been incredibly strong on enforcing COVID-safe guidelines and ways that we need to function within the building.
“There are so many differences to the way we used to work. We get weekly COVID tests. We check in every time we walk into the rehearsal room and check out. As soon as we leave the rehearsal room, we have masks on. There’s lots of specific nitty-gritty that we adhere to and it’s all about protecting each other, staying safe, and making sure we can bring this incredible production to people.”
The first time Watts saw Hamilton was five years ago, with the original cast on Broadway. “I looked at the cast of Hamilton, with so much genuine representation and diversity, and I saw roles left, right, centre that I could do. Well, normally I go to see a show and it’s like, ‘Okay, there might be one role in it for me, that might be fun’. But this time I saw Aaron Burr, I saw Hamilton, I saw Lafayette, I saw a plethora of roles that I could step into and represent my culture. It was incredibly special. Aaron Burr, you know, it’s an iconic role and one that I’m very proud to wear.
“I’m making sure I clock all of this as it happens. I’m really trying to take it all in because I know I’m going to look back and see this as one of the more special times in my life.”
Hamilton is now playing at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney. Lizzie Franks is editor of The Equity Magazine.
