Willamette’s fall play Urinetown opened its doors on Nov. 1, gracing audience members with bathroom jokes, musical numbers and capitalistic criticisms. Opening night and the following weekend had an unexpected addition to this play’s repertoire of surprises: one of the lead roles, Bobby Strong, originally played by Pollox Gessinger (’28), was filled in by Otis Perrone (’27).
On Wednesday, Oct. 30, Pollox notified the team that they might not be able to go on due to a possible concussion. With opening night just two nights away and a pre-showing a night before that, there was a tight window to find someone to fill the role. In regular circumstances, a stagehand would fill the role, but because the production is a musical, alternative arrangements had to be made. Perrone stood out from the rest because they knew the musical front to back after doing it in high school. “I knew the character very well so I felt comfortable,” Perrone shared.
While Perrone was able to swoop in and take on the role of Bobby Strong, this left their own roles as McQueen and one of the cops unfilled. They had to pass along many of their former lines to other characters, and with two roles in the same play, they spent most of the play in the limelight. Perrone said the director and stage managers did their best to support them throughout the production: “The director and the stage manager are just incredible and they made sure that I was hydrated throughout the whole show and had water in multiple places and that I was able to have a break.”
Despite the show's last-minute changes, many actors said that they were still able to put on a great performance thanks to the efforts put in by Peronne and the rest of the team. Karina May (’25), who played Hope Cladwell in the show, said they “all felt very prepared to put on a good show despite missing Pollox,” adding, “It really goes to show not just Otis’, but everyone's determination and commitment to making the show the best that it possibly can be.”
For other actors, adapting to a new stage chemistry so close to opening night proved a challenge, but not an unwelcome one. Lily Walsh (’26), the actor who played Little Sally, found it “really exciting to have an understudy or a standby on stage with you because it can change a lot of things in a really great way.” Evolving with the production is a part of the process, and Walsh added that “if there is an audience, you just have to roll with it, but it was really admirable, all of the work that Otis put in. … We are really excited to have Pollox back because the show is really not the same without them.”
Gessinger returned to the role of Bobby Singer on Wednesday, Nov. 6, and said that they were “happy just to be able to go back on stage and get to do this role with all of the other people in this cast.”