What Is Double Casting in Theatre – and Should We Do More of It?
Double casting in theatre has become rather personal for me, because this Christmas I’m job-sharing Abanazar in Aladdin at Nottingham Playhouse. I’ll share the role with Tom Hopcroft across the run from 27 November 2026 to 16 January 2027, in Adam Penford’s production. The reason is refreshingly practical: Tom (not me) would quite like to see his family over Christmas; I would quite like to spend Christmas being evil onstage at one of my favourite theatres. It sounds like a win for everyone, but should theatre do this more often?
What is Double Casting?
First, double casting is different from having an understudy or swing. An understudy learns a principal role and steps into it when required, usually while performing another track in the production. A swing learns multiple tracks and covers gaps across the company. An alternate has scheduled performances in a particular role, often because of its demands. A genuine job share goes further: two actors are contracted to divide the job itself. Both rehearse it, both perform it regularly, and neither is simply waiting for the other to be unavailable.
On the North American tour of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Naomi Rodgers and Zurin Villanueva shared Tina equally, performing four shows each per week. Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre did a similar thing with their Jesus Christ Superstar: The Concert in 2020, double-casting Jesus, Judas and Mary when reduced Covid capacity meant the production needed nine performances a week to remain economically viable. Baz Luhrmann’s 2002 Broadway La Bohème even triple-cast Mimi and Rodolfo because of the demands of Puccini’s score, limiting the singers to three performances a week. Those examples are primarily about workload. My Aladdin job share raises a different possibility: flexibility.
Theatre is a difficult profession in which to have a family. Evening performances, weekends, Christmas contracts, touring and six-day rehearsal weeks collide rather spectacularly with childcare. Equity advises performers that flexible working and job-sharing can be requested around childcare, and launched a Job Share Working Party to encourage more flexible employment across the performing arts. Similarly, PiPA has secured commitments from 80 performing-arts organisations to improve conditions for parents and carers; Nottingham Playhouse is one of them.
An actor should not have to choose between accepting a contract and spending time with their children. Equally, a disabled performer, someone with caring responsibilities or an actor whose circumstances make eight performances impractical might be perfectly capable of doing four. Sharing could keep performers in an industry that otherwise makes continuing their careers unnecessarily difficult.
The Downside of Double Casting
Put simply: it costs money.
I’m paid pro-rata for the proportion of the performance week I work, rather than receiving a full contract for half the performances. Yet the theatre still has two actors attending rehearsals to learn and block Abanazar. Costume becomes more complicated too. Tom (not me) and I are different physically, so my arrival has created the wonderfully theatrical consequence of an entirely new costume needing to be made for the significantly shorter evil sorcerer. Plus, who wants to wear someone elses sweaty clothes? Multiply that across a whole company and the economics become uncomfortable very quickly. Two actors require fittings, rehearsal time and administration, while scenes have to function with two potentially different interpretations of the same character. A wholesale move towards double casting could also weaken the vital distinction between shared principals and covers. Understudies and swings remain essential because two Abanazars can, inconveniently, both get ill.
Artistic Benefits of Double Casting
Two actors will inevitably find different rhythms, relationships and comic beats. The danger comes when producers demand complete replication. If you employ two actors but expect the second to photocopy every inflection of the first, you have gained resilience while sacrificing much of the artistic benefit. The blockign will be the same, but actors will always add their own little flair.
Personally, I wouldn’t prescribe two actors for every Hamlet, Elphaba or Widow Twankey. I would, however, like producers to treat job-sharing as a genuine option when casting. If a role is exceptionally demanding, consider it. If an actor needs flexibility because they have children, consider it. If two brilliant performers could make one contract work where neither could otherwise accept it, consider it.
The eight-show week is a convention, not a law of theatre. Sometimes one actor is absolutely the right choice. Sometimes two actors can keep a performer healthier, keep a parent working and give somebody else an opportunity at the same time.
And if sharing Abanazar means one actor gets Christmas with his children while another gets to terrorise Nottingham in a fabulous costume, I’d call that a pretty fair share.
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