By Ben
February 2026
Midway through January, I started rehearsing for The Merry Widow with Philadelphia Ballet, a glamorous ballet set in early 20th century Paris. It was originally set as an operetta, but was then adapted to a ballet in the 1970s. While I am familiar with a lot of the classical ballet repertoire, this ballet was new to me — we learned on the first day that the ballet is most popular in Australia, where it premiered.
For the first two weeks, we had a repetiteur from Houston Ballet (who had staged a production there a few years ago) to teach us the basic choreography. As a trainee, I was initially only cast as an understudy for a lot of the company dancers. This meant I had to be ready to substitute in for many different people in case they got injured. Having to learn so many parts at once was a new experience for me, and it made the first two weeks of rehearsals stressful. When normal company members would get breaks or time to go over the choreography on their own, I would have to switch over to learning a completely different part. While this period was not very physically taxing (although I was still on my feet and moving around all day), mentally, it was completely draining.
At the end of the two week period we had pretty much learned the whole ballet and started working on refining each section. At this point, one of the members of the original 1975 cast came in to help coach us on the nuances of the story and characters now that we had learned the basic steps. Even at this point I still felt like I was in a constant state of catching up to everyone else. I had not gotten a chance to run many of the parts myself and was struggling to pick up the spacing in formations from the sides of the studio where I did not have room to dance fully. To make matters worse, at this point in the process, a lot of the company dancers started getting sick. While this did give me a chance to actually learn the spacing, I ended up being thrown into parts that I initially had not even been asked to learn.
This period was the most stressful because I was having to do a different role almost every day and never got a chance to feel solid in any of them. Towards the end of that week, in a rehearsal that I had been thrown into last minute, a company dancer next to me sprained his ankle badly. The next day, the artistic team informed me that I would be going in for his part in almost all of the shows. While this was obviously a great opportunity, it happened with only a week left until opening night.
The last week leading up to the performance was a whirlwind. I stayed after rehearsals to get extra practice with my partners and reviewed the videos from rehearsal at night. I had to get fitted for a costume at the last minute and was given a mustache to wear to make me look older and to fit in with the company dancers better. When opening night came, I finally was able to stop to think about the incredible opportunity I’d been given — to be able to perform in all three acts of the ballet in a full company dancer’s spot.
The performances themselves were amazing. More so than any production thus far, I felt like I was truly a part of the company. Whereas before I was clearly in a more junior position, in The Merry Widow I built stronger relationships with many of the company members. As the two week run drew to a close, I found myself wishing that I could keep performing. This whole experience reinforced for me the necessity of understudies and the unexpected opportunities that can present themselves if you’re prepared.
