14 Things I Learned from Six Alternate/Dance Captain Collette Guitart's Workshop and Q&A

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Collette Guitart taught us the second chorus and the dance break of “No Way,” Catherine of Aragon’s song. She noted that she really relates to Aragon because of her own Spanish roots.

Guitart was incredibly kind and helpful throughout and emphasized that this was really difficult choreography that took her a long time to learn. “Even in rehearsal when we did this I didn’t put pressure on myself to get it in one day, I was like, ‘it’s not going to look good for like a week.’”

She had a few specific suggestions for how to get the attitude of the song down, specifically referencing the backup dancers in Beyonce’s Single Ladies music video. “We’re sort of those friends to Catherine of Aragon… Think about your own friend group. If one of your friends was being treated badly, you’d just be like ‘uh no, absolutely not.’ Put your own sass on top of it.”

On a personal note, this was definitely the hardest of the dance workshops I’ve done so far. I’d rank them from easiest to hardest as:

4.   Six (taught by Harriet Watson)
3.   Sorry not sorry (taught by Vicki Manser)
2.   Get Down (taught by Harriet Watson)
1.    No Way (taught by Collette Guitart)

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1. Hardest Queen to perform physically and emotionally:

Physically, Aragon, because of that  [gestures to dance we just did]

Emotionally is either Howard or Seymour. Seymour’s got the beautiful ballad and you don’t want to cry too much or get too emotional so you can still sing the song beautifully. And Howard has such an emotional journey through her song that it’s such a roller coaster because it’s such a really deep song and it starts out so funny; it’s really hard to do that even though the song is like 7 minutes.

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2. The Queens she initially auditioned for:

I did No Way (Aragon’s song) definitely. I think I had to do “All You Want to Do” (Howard’s song) too, which was terrifying because it’s really fun but it’s friggin hard. And Parr’s song, “I don’t need your love.” I didn’t end up signing Seymour’s song (Heart of Stone) throughout the whole audition process, but I did all the others.

3. Favorite part of Six:

The slow bit in “Six,” where it’s like “And now we’re one of a kind, no category.” At that point, all the audience is lit up and everyone is joining in together.

4. Has she ever collaborated with the Queens from other countries?

No, but we do had the random tour thing that happened, when he had jen and alisia? It’s totally random, that only really happens in time of need. We haven’t had a country cross over yet.

5. Her training:

I went to a performing arts college in Cambridge called Bodyworks Company. It was very dance heavy because I chose to go on a dance course. In your first year, you’re all trained to the same level and do the same thing. In the second year, you can either choose musical theater or a dance course. I wanted to become a better dancer, so I took that, and then outside I took private singing lessons.

6. Best advice for someone who has never danced before:

Do not put pressure on yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. You can look up to people, I certainly do, but you can’t compare yourself to anyone else because everyone is an individual. You’re never going to have the same talent as everyone else unless you’re like an identical twin. Whatever you’re doing, you just have to really enjoy it. Enjoyment comes first and that’s how you learn to love it. No comparison, because that can be a real soul crusher and that’s not what dancing is for. Dancing is meant to lift your spirit and all. The most important thing is that you’re enjoying yourself and it makes you happy.

7. Role as Dance Captain:

I have to know all the parts. I have to take warmup before the show, I have to do show watches a week. And those have to be different versions of the show with different alternates so I can give notes to everyone. I give notes to the girls; sometimes it’s not that they’re doing anything wrong, it’s just that they’ve gone so far into their character that they’ve lost the initial essence of the move. And sometimes if the girls have any questions, I’m sort of the person they go to to answer the question.

8. Favorite line in the huddle before singing “I don’t need your love” all together:

This isn’t my favorite but it got the biggest reaction from the audience – I didn’t hold my mic to my mouth but I  held it here [down by her chest so it could still pick me up] – and said “I’m so sorry about this guys, this is so embarrassing,” turning to the audience before going back into the huddle. They LOVED it. It was quite the naughty thing though, it’s not supposed to be about the individual there.

9. Advice for learning more about musical theater:

Go to as many show as as you can afford and figure out what you like. Is it contemporary? Is it old school Sondheim? Discovering that is not only fun, because you get to see loads of musicals, but it also helps you figure out what kind of musical theater performer you want to be.

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10. Tips on being a swing or alternate:

You need a swing bible. There is no person on this earth that can retain the information of an entire show just up here [points at head]. I think my brain is pretty good, like sometimes I don’t need to look at the Bible before going on a track, but I do it anyway, because if you mess up, even though everyone does it and you’re only human, you blame yourself. And you can only let yourself do it so many times before it becomes unprofessional

Stage Bible – I have a map of the stage for the covers I do. I put different colors for different characters and I mark out every single formation that there is in the show, even in the scenes where we’re quite static and don’t move too much. Like in Holbein, I’ve mapped that out; everyone changes their seat at every “tinder moment,” and you want to know where everyone is going and you don’t want to bump into them. You just want to have as much knowledge as possible before you go out there.

11. Are there any easter eggs in the choreography referencing history or the Tudors?

It’s all mental. There are bits in the show that, for example, in the song “Don’t Lose Your Head,” when she sings “I wouldn’t be such a b—if you could get it up.” She obviously didn’t say it like that, but she did say something like that, that her and henry’s sex life wasn’t going so well. There’re so many moments in thes how that they’re taking what they said in history and switched o modern life so we know what they’re saying and can go like OHHHH. We did loads of history research in the rehearsal process for this show. I was like /eye roll/ but it was SO INTERESTING. I learned so much more at Six than I ever did in history in school – Okay lies, I probably learned more in school, but I’ve retained more of it now.

12. How do you find remembering all the different choreography and harmonies?

It’s hard. It’s not easy, it’s a difficult job, but it’s also really rewarding, because I personally have that sort of brain at this point. I didn’t always, it’s all built up. My first few jobs gave me the knowledge of how to swing. If this was your first swing job, it would be mind blowing.

13. What was your most last minute show?

Manchester was WILD.

The shortest time getting ready was - Courtney was on for Seymour and she was having an allergic reaction and couldn’t stop coughing on stage. It wasn’t severe, she was fine, non-panic, but she couldn’t get rid of it and she couldn’t sing. Every time she opened her mouth, she couldn’t’ sing. We were so close to the end of the show, I was all packing up and everything. She came off at the beginning of  All you wanna do,” and they were like, we need you to go on for Seymour. I just had the rest of “All you wanna do” to get ready and had to finish out the show. They didn’t even make an announcement because they just wanted to carry on.

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14. Advice for auditioning for Six:

Be Yourself, because they want to see you and your personality. Have fun, because that’s all they want to see as well. Just have fun while you’re in the room. Look at them, they love a bit of eye contact, because as you know, we always look at the audience to connect with them. That’s quite rare [in musical theatre], it’s individual to this particular show. Have as much fun and be as relaxed as possible. Audition situations aren’t relaxed really, but the more you can show who you are as a person and not try to be “one of the queens,” the better.