Why play one role in Hamilton when you can play many? As a standby, swing and dance captain, that’s the extraordinary job John Devereaux and Bella Rusli have in the national touring production of the Tony Award-winning blockbuster.
A bonus for these Texas natives: they get to play these roles for a hometown crowd. The show is now playing at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas through June 9 before it moves to Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, playing June 11 – 23.
Rusli grew up in McKinney, taking dance lessons in Allen before going to Boston Conservatory at Berklee and earning a BFA in Dance. Her background in dance has grounded her musical theater career.
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“I was also a competition dancer growing up, so I feel like a big part of that helped me in my career, just with auditions. Maybe not the competitive nature, but the performing as much as I possibly could because growing up that was my only opportunity to perform onstage in front of other people and I think that has really shaped how I move or how I feel about auditions,” Rusli said.
Devereaux hails from Houston and attended Texas Christian University (TCU), graduating in 2012. A friend urged him to audition for a show at TCU and that changed his career trajectory. He lived in Los Angeles for six years before joining the Hamilton tour.
“For TCU, it was a place where I gained my confidence. I feel like I had gifts that weren’t tapped into as much, but I guess TCU pulled it out of me and they gave me confidence and nurtured those gifts. It was kind of like an incubator for those four years,” Devereaux said.
The Scene
Rusli began touring with Hamilton in the spring of 2022. For this tour, she is a swing, covering the female ensemble roles.
“Really, we learn every single track that the women all play from top to bottom and they’re all very, very different. We learn every single one and we pretty much rotate those in our brain constantly when we’re not onstage, and then when we do get called on for whichever track it may be, you go on and you do it without question,” Rusli said.
She is also the dance captain, a new role for her with this particular tour.
“Essentially, we are the gap between our management and cast. We are still cast members who are part of the show and do the show with them, but we also are the ones who give notes, raise concerns from the cast with management and are really in the middle of maintaining the show and its integrity,” Rusli said.
Devereaux is a standby for King George, George Washington, Hercules Mulligan, James Madison, Lafayette, and Thomas Jefferson.
“They say you have to be a certain kind of crazy to cover, to be able to have multiple people going in your mind, but I think there’s another level to that: being able to pull out any of those people at any moment,” Devereaux said. “It’s great. I love it. I’m still loving it.”
Unpredictability is part of the job. As a swing or a standby, an actor might play the same role for several shows in a row, or they might perform a different role each night of the week. The schedule is constantly shifting.
“It obviously changes from day to day. Nothing is really what we planned. As dance captain, we are part of scheduling the next week, but it rarely goes the way we schedule it,” Rusli said.
Swings and standbys hope to be informed two hours in advance, but Rusli remembers an instance when a swing had to change tracks in the middle of the show.
“I’ve been through every form of being called on from knowing months in advance to knowing a week ahead, to knowing hours, to knowing minutes even, but never have I done a mid-show swing-on in my whole career,” Devereaux said.
“Keep knocking on wood!” Rusli said to her castmate with a knowing laugh.
Devereaux develops a system to learn all his roles. As physically challenging as the show is, Devereaux and Rusli rely on their mental stamina.
“It’s our job more so to know the show than to do the show, but in knowing the show, you’re cool and can be fine to do the show, “ Devereaux said. “The swings, standbys, covers, they are the band-aid. They are the glue that keeps things together in case anything goes wrong, cast-wise, especially during 2021 coming back and people catching COVID-19.”
Devereaux began touring with Hamilton in 2019. Post-pandemic touring looked completely different with masks required backstage and daily testing. Mental health was also a priority.
“When we got back, there was much more focus internally on mental health and there were a lot of old habits and old unwritten things and unsaid things and unwritten rules, but those were brought to the forefront when we came back and we dealt with how some of those unwritten rules were problematic to our process,” Devereaux said.
Rusli remembers how strict the COVID-19 precautions were when she first began touring and how those precautions have evolved and relaxed over the last two years.
“It was a really crazy time,” Rusli said.
Backstage tours and greeting fans at the stage door are still not allowed.
Touring in Hamilton has laid the groundwork for Devereaux and Rusli’s future careers.
“I didn’t really realize that I have a brain for swinging before I joined this tour and I think this job has taught me that and that in my future career, wherever I go after Hamilton, at least I know I can swing and I actually really enjoy it and honestly that might be my niche in this industry,” Rusli said. “I think that taught me my career path. I can do hard things and they fit me just right. That’s what Hamilton has taught me.”
“I think I’ve learned how to be resilient in the face of anything,” Devereaux said. “It really has taught me to roll with the punches, to be intentional in what I’m doing , but I think the big life lesson I’ve gotten from Hamilton thus far is that things are going to happen, and you can either fight against them and still have to do them or just go out there and do it the best you can.”
Learn more: Broadway Dallas and Performing Arts Fort Worth
