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[0:00] Mo Brittany: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Mo Brittany.

[0:18] Mo Brittany: For almost a decade, The Book of Mormon has been delighting and shocking audiences at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre. As both Ugandans and Mormon missionaries, the show's ensemble works together to make a very funny show even funnier. Today, we share stories from three of the Ensemblist who have graced the production over its tenure. Our first story comes from Tommar Wilson, who joined the Chicago Company of Chicago after almost seven years in the ensemble of The Book of Mormon. As an original member of the show's Ugandan ensemble, he had seen the show through years of transitions, and the show also ushered a number of personal transitions for Tommar as well. Here's Tommar Wilson.

[0:59] Tommar Wilson: I was scared for a long time to admit that I lost my passion for performing. After all, my whole career up to that point was all kind of an accident. It was an accident that I ended up at Carnegie Mellon, an accident that I went to an open call for Ragtime with a friend and ended up on the first national tour, and an accident that I moved to New York and signed with an agent by the end of my first week. I say accident only because I didn't plan any of it. Stuff seemed to just happen to me, and I was along for the ride for a long time. Of course, I was in over my head several times in those years because I was surrounded by people that had prepared their whole lives for these things that I just seemed to be falling into.

To do the things I never dared. This was the time for me to step up. So then why was I so scared? Ten years later, after a couple of tours, six Broadway shows, and a handful of regional gigs, I was burnt out. 2009 was the most stressful year I'd had professionally. I was working harder than I ever had before as a dance captain of a show with 24 people that hardly left the stage for two and a half hours. On top of that, I was in the show. So my only chance to learn the show I was teaching and maintaining every day was to watch bootlegs until 4 or 5 AM. I signed up for the job because I knew I could do it and I cared about the show. But more than that, I cared about the people in the show. I didn't really stop to care about or take care of myself for that whole year.

So I came out of that experience exhausted, burnt out, and broken. I had no passion for performing but I was scared to say it out loud because I had no idea what it would mean. No one really talks about working in the arts without passion. I didn't really know who I was without performing and I was sure no one else did either. I was floundering. Not sure if I loved being on stage anymore. Maybe I needed to hold out for leading roles and stop doing ensemble work. But I'm not the type of personality that does well without a job. Then The Book of Mormon came along. I'd already told myself I didn't want to get involved in another big musical but I took the job with The Book of Mormon when it came to Broadway.

Mainly because so many of my friends were involved with the show but also because I needed to be working. I trained. I had experience. So of course I could perform even if I wasn't passionate about what I was doing every second I was on stage. Plus it was a great show and people loved it. But the show ended up being so much more than I could have known. When The Book of Mormon opened in 2011, I was still that broken actor. I didn't know what I wanted to do next. All I knew was I needed a paycheck every week until I could figure it out. The hype of the show was exciting but I didn't feel like I had anything to do with its success. I was one of the last people to join the show and all the other Ugandan actors had been in at least one of the workshops.

I'll never forget the day we started staging the African Pageant. Everyone was excited to rehearse it and I asked if we could just sing it around the piano one more time which of course they were all cool with. But about five measures in, people slowly made their way to the taped out stage area and just performed the full number staging and all as I watched from beside the piano. It was frustrating to play catch up but I knew what I was getting into. Also I already loved all these people and they were having a great time and I've never been one to deny my friends a good time. So here I am surrounded by great friends in a hit show. My friends are winning awards and getting movies and TV shows and having the time of their lives and I'm enjoying myself just because I like seeing the people I love succeed and be happy.

But it didn't feel important to me to be on stage eight times a week. Just to be clear, I don't think you need to be passionate to do your job well. I think of myself as a professional and I never step on stage without the intention of giving the best performance I can. Even if I crack or fall or don't really connect in a moment, I always want to give a great show. But this was the first time that I wasn't aching to be on stage. Before you know it, I'm five years into my Broadway run in The Book of Mormon. I changed tracks in the third year and had a few more featured moments. There aren't many jobs that you leave and people in the street feel okay asking, hey, how's that scrotum feeling? But strangely that was my job.

This was already longer than I'd been involved with any show. It was longer than I'd been in one place ever in my life. I mean, I was a military brat so I never went more than four years in one home or school. But this company had become my family. You see their kids being born and grow up. You see them lose parents and family members. And amazingly, you see them all come together to support each other when it's necessary. The dynamic at Mormon is shifting slightly by now. Hamilton is the new pretty shiny thing in town. So the emails and Facebook messages from friends of friends aren't asking for Mormon tickets anymore. They're more like, hey, do you know anyone at Hamilton that can get me backstage?

Also, everyone at Mormon is kind of settled into their groove. So I was ready for other challenges. I just didn't really know if I still had it in me. I mean, when you do the same show for so long, you start to doubt that you can still make choices or learn something new or retain something new. Fear is kind of my life partner. I'm still learning how to deal with it and finding ways to coexist and make the relationship work. But sometimes it can be a real asshole that I don't know how to deal with. But at some point in my sixth year of Mormon, I made a choice. I decided I was going to move on to something else creatively and not let fear ruin it. It was hard. I didn't know what that was going to be.

My first audition for Hamilton was back before the developmental process. I did some material for The King and a few of the raps, and I was not ready. I knew the words, but that was about it. I knew the people behind the table, and I could actually see in their faces that they wanted me to make it work so bad, but I just couldn't. It was another case of fear stopping me from going where I needed to go. But when the opportunity came around again, I was ready. I knew the material. I'd worked on the things I wasn't as comfortable with, and after a week of auditions ending with an hour and a half Skype session with the creatives, I was offered a job. Just before the seven-year anniversary of the beginning of my Book of Mormon journey, I was saying goodbye to the show that had been there for what I think was my personal creative low period.

I needed time to figure out where I wanted to go creatively, and this show had been there for me. It didn't need me, but I needed it. I needed the comfort of a piece of theater that worked, that felt good, that I was proud to be a part of. I needed the security of a show that would let me take the time to deal with my own creative issues in my own time, and Mormon was all of that. But it was also my home. It gave me a whole new family. It gave me confidence and let me build and strengthen muscles that were weak. It gave me a safe environment to grow. It was the birthplace of my new creative self, and every person in that building played some part in creating the new artist I was trying to become.

[8:43] Tommar Wilson: So this is to say thank you to The Book of Mormon. Thank you for letting me rediscover my passion. Thank you for letting me be a part of a historic piece of theater. Thank you for helping me through some creative and personal lows with support, love, and financial stability that I couldn't have even dreamed existed in theater. I think a job is what you make it. You don't have to love what you're doing, but you can choose to use the opportunity you have to grow and learn. I fell in love with my job, and I got to grow at the same time. I wish that for everyone, but I also only realized that on the other side of the journey. I'm forever grateful, because I'm happily once again an actor that is passionate about being on stage.

[9:25] Mo Brittany: Thanks, Tommar. Our next story is from Kenny Francoeur. As dance captain for the national tour of The Book of Mormon, he helped guide dozens of actors into the production while on the road. He used his signature writing style to compose an original piece for us about the do's and don'ts for rehearsing as an understudy. Here, with his five understudy rehearsal commandments, is Kenny Francoeur.

[9:49] Kenny Francoeur: Like the Batu Caves of Malaysia or Milan's Duomo, understudy rehearsal is a sacred space. Having been a swing with The Book of Mormon, I've attended my fair share of rehearsals. My body instinctually enters the stage door every other Thursday afternoon like highway hypnosis, vocalizing without awareness like a nearly comatose Florence Foster Jenkins. Once arrived, I participate in the greatest pleasure of my job, performing an entire show with less than half the necessary actors, sans set, costumes, or orchestra, a minimalism wet dream. Our bodies and the materials are our only tools. As dance captain, I'm particular in my approach to understudy rehearsals. While others have vastly different expectations of these most holy occasions, here are a list of commandments that I pass on to every swing and standby in our show. Although not all companies will adhere to or care about these instructions, I believe heeding them makes us better, more considerate swings, standbys, people.

[10:53] Kenny Francoeur: 1. Thou shalt know thine numbers and depths. It's the least you can do to meet proficiency in your job. This is a visual business, and regardless of your awe-inducing abilities, if you can't stand in

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