'Like a trust fall': How the touring musical 'Tootsie' rolls with the quick changes

Playing the gender-bending lead role in the national tour of the musical "Tootsie," Drew Becker has learned one of the most confounding theater tricks of them all.

The quick change.

"I've never had a role this big where I'm in every single scene. Out of two hours and 35 minutes, I'm in like two hours and 28 minutes of it. And when I'm not on stage, I'm doing a quick change off stage. So, I really wanted to work up to the stamina just to be able to do that length of a show eight times a week," said Becker, who has been starring in the first national tour of the new musical comedy since it launched in October 2021.

"I have 12 (costume) changes in Act One — I don't know the number off the top of my head for Act 2 — and the fun part about it ... is that some of these changes happen on stage right in front of the audience."

Based on the 1982 movie starring Dustin Hoffman, the Tony Award-winning musical is coming to the Civic Center Nov. 15-20 as part of OKC Broadway's 2022-2023 season.

What is the story of the musical 'Tootsie?'

Adapted from Sydney Pollack’s famed film, "Tootsie" garnered two Tony Awards — for book writer Robert Horn and lead actor Santino Fontana — in its 2019 Broadway run. The show features a score by David Yazbek, who earned a 2018 Tony for "The Band's Visit."

Becker stars as Michael Dorsey, a talented but temperamental actor whose difficult reputation makes it hard for him to get gigs. The increasingly desperate performer adopts a new identity as a woman named Dorothy Michaels, and he snags the role of a lifetime — but to keep it, he has to keep up with his double identities.

"You have to find where it's layered in the script, 'Not only is this Dorothy in the scene, but this is Michael pretending to be Dorothy while interacting with this person that he's falling for.' ... It wasn't daunting to me as much as it excited me to take on something of this size," Becker told The Oklahoman.

"I've never had to do a role that had any kind of super quick changes like this, in the amount that I have to do them in this show. So when I was first joining the tour, it was really something new that I had to learn. But now that I've been with this for over a year — and we've been doing it eight times a week — it is second nature now."

How does the tour pull off the show's many quick changes?

As with other types of show-biz wizardry, it turns out that the art of the quick change comes down to the practical magic of planning and practice, trust and teamwork.

"Since I'm in so much of the show, I basically just run off stage, and there's a little SWAT team off stage ready to throw everything on me before I walk back out on stage," Decker said.

"It is similar to like a trust fall — and knowing how brilliant these people are at their jobs, it's very easy to walk off stage. I'm never worried about not making it. ... I'm never stressed, I never feel like I'm rushing or anything like that to get back on stage. So, it just feels like a really easy transition of, 'You walk off stage, everything gets put on you, you walk back on.'"

Bryon McDonald, the tour's hair and makeup supervisor, is one of the leaders of the backstage "glam squad" that keeps the fast-paced comedy moving.

"Drew always has two dressers and a sound person, so we're ... the ones that always follow him around. And we want to always make sure that we have everything set up, so all he has to do is run off stage, pretty much just put his hands out and let us do everything. So, he can stand there, and we can get him ready. That way he can get back on stage on time," said McDonald, who joined the "Tootsie" tour over the summer.

Working on his seventh tour, McDonald said he and Becker's star dresser, who travels with the show and works just with the lead actor, have worked hard to choreograph the quick changes.

"During the rehearsal process, we went through that a lot. It took us a little bit of time to rehearse how we kind of dance around Drew. But we got it down," said McDonald, who has 21 years of experience doing hair and makeup.

"Most of the changes are no longer than maybe two, three minutes at the most."

What is the show's quickest quick change?

There is one particularly quick quick change in "Tootsie" that requires Becker to exit and then return to the stage in less than half a minute.

"He has about six dressers, along with myself — and that is a really quick change. It's 25 seconds. So, those ones can be a little scary. But you just have to plan and make sure that you're ready for no matter what happens ... to make sure that he doesn't miss his entrance," McDonald said.

"It's a lot of fun, though."

Along with the team that travels with the production, the tour often hires local dressers who are trained before the show opens to help with the quick changes.

McDonald also credited the work of the musical's original hair and wig designer, Paul Huntley, with making the show look good through the quick changes.

"Drew has a lot of wigs during the show: He goes through eight per show, and all of them are lined with a corset boning inside. So, it hugs to his crown, and that way, we can just take that wig off and put it on and take it off and put it on. It's like a headband that's inside the wig ... so it helps keep it nice and secure so they don't fall off or fly off," McDonald said, adding that the tour hauls around 15 wigs just for Becker that get rotated in and out.

"There are 70 wigs in the show ... and wigs are just amazing. The design for it was just done so nicely to also go along with the iconic movie and the hairstyles of the movie.

"So, it's just a really fun, great show to be working on."

'TOOTSIE'

When: Nov. 15-20.

Where: Civic Center, 201 N Walker.

Tickets and information: https://www.okcbroadway.com/tootsie.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Here's how the touring musical 'Tootsie' rolls with the quick changes