By SHARON EBERSON
Some Like It Hot is a movie with music that swings, and the musical based on the movie takes that to heart. Set in the Prohibition era, the stage production dances and sings its way from beginning to end with the feeling of a big, bygone Hollywood musical gone live.
That’s not to say the Tony-nominated transfer to the stage doesn’t reflect modern times, as Pittsburghers will see when Some Like It Hot comes to the Benedum Center for a week, starting Tuesday, April 15.
The Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman musical features a book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin that tweaks the Billy Wilder movie that starred Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe – a movie that tops some lists of the greatest film comedies of all time.
The Broadway version starred Pittsburgh’s Christian Borle and Tony-winning best actor J. Harrison Ghee as down-on-their-luck musicians who witness a mob murder and dress as women to hide out as members of an all-girls band. It’s a full-on song-and-dance fest, which earned 13-time Tony nominee Casey Nicholaw the top honor for choreography in 2023.
It’s fair to say that a musical that swings and dances requires a strong ensemble and swings of the triple-threat kind, also known as the MVPs of musical theater.
One such swing is Texas native Austin Dunn, a Point Park University and Pittsburgh CLO alumnus who has been with the company since October of last year. Ian Campayno, a Central Catholic High grad, is a “vacation swing,” stepping into the company after filling that role on Broadway.
Dunn was on the phone last week from the national tour stop in Memphis, Tennessee, where “the weather is absolutely beautiful, so I’m taking in the sunshine while I can.”
onSTAGE PITTSBURGH: Is this your first time back in Pittsburgh since graduation?
DUNN: Pretty much. I had a more unique experience with Pittsburgh because my freshman year was the pandemic, so I feel like I didn’t really get to experience all that Pittsburgh had to offer my first year of college. But I think because of the pandemic, it kind of made me sort of move out into the different neighborhoods. I lived on the North Side after my freshman year, and oh my gosh, I miss that neighborhood. The house I lived in [on the Mexican War Streets], it was just gorgeous.
onSTAGE: Before we get into the show, can you describe what it means to be a swing, and how many ensemble roles you might have to cover in the show?
DUNN: I feel like the definition of a swing, at least in my point of view, would be someone that is typically not on every night, but covers pretty much anyone in the ensemble, at any given time. If an ensemble member is out sick or if they’re on a vacation or if they’re taking a personal day, these kinds of things, they need people to step into those different roles for the night. And so that’s what a swing does – they cover anywhere and everywhere. For me, it’s possibly six [roles to step into], and then for some other swings who might cover a principal role or maybe some niche things, it could be 6 to 8, but more because we have two more heel ensemble members than flat ensemble members.
onSTAGE: I’ve never heard it put that way before, heels and flats …
DUNN: Especially with this show, because a huge part of the story is someone realizing who they are, we really wanted to be conscious of the language we’re using in our workspace. So sort of a way we differentiate between people who may have been in the past considered a part of the male ensemble or the female ensemble, it’s now sort of based on the costumes they wear. … I think we’re in a huge turn of trying to be as inclusive and as conscious as possible, which is always great. So we’re introducing new language all the time.
onSTAGE: I think I saw Ian Campayno and some other people on social media refer to the ensemble simply as Hotties …
DUNN: That’s amazing!
onSTAGE: You could have a different dance partner anytime you’re onstage, and not know until show day what you’re going to do that night. How do you compartmentalize so many roles at once, and be ready at moment’s notice?
DUNN: This is a hundred percent the most physical show I’ve ever done in my life. There’s so much movement and so much happening not just on stage, but offstage. So I think I have to believe in the ability to know that my body and mind are capable of doing hard things and gathering all the information together, especially as a swing, because I’m not going on every night. Sometimes I’m tackling things I haven’t done in six months, and it’s live theater, so things sort of morph and change over time. That’s the most difficult part. I would say dance technique and singing technique are really the key factors in being able to do the show consistently, at the level that we’re all wanting it to be, continuing to get rest when we can on the road.
onSTAGE: Is there something specific in the choreography that you love to do?
DUNN: Oh my gosh, yes! I think there’s three really big numbers that I love to do when I’m on, and it would be the opening number for sure. And then the end of act one, which is Some Like It Hot, and then sort of one of the final numbers of the show, which I almost don’t want to really give it away. You’ve seen the show, but it’s the crazy door number …
onSTAGE: Yes! OK, we won’t give any more of that away, other than to say the precision involved in that is amazing. Do you rehearse often?
DUNN: I would say we rehearse one to two times a week, and every so often the creative team will come out or we’ll have a cleanup rehearsal with our music and dance departments that we have on the road, and those are kind of when we touch base to make sure that we’re all kind of on the same page. But we’ve been on the road for almost what now, six to eight months. I can’t even really remember. And so hopefully we have it down by now.
onSTAGE: You were doing a tour of Chicago before this. Did you come right from there to Some Like It Hot?
DUNN: No, I actually left the Chicago tour at the end of May. So I got to spend the summer in New York, but I always tell everyone this story, I had been sort of bouncing around different apartments with friends and subletting when I could because I just didn’t know if I was going to go back on the road right away. And then the day I auditioned for this was the day I moved into my new apartment. It was a crazy turnaround for sure.
onSTAGE: Tell me a bit about how Point Park prepared you for what you’re doing.
DUNN: I just am so lucky that I went to a school that really trained equally in all aspects of dance and singing and acting. So I feel like I left school being better in all three, rather than maybe focusing on a specific part of musical theater. The people I got to go to school with are all so amazing, and they’re all thriving as well [among others, he mentions his close friend Alexandra Kinsley, part of the current Pretty Woman national tour] and it’s good to have a community out in New York, you know what I mean, that I can always go to whenever I need a bump of energy.
and Tavis Kordell as Daphne. (Image: Matthew Murphy)
onSTAGE: What was it like coming from Texas to this urban campus?
DUNN: I’m from Austin, Texas, and technically my house is in Austin, but really, my life was just outside of Austin, in a really small town. So Pittsburgh, I feel like I even used to say at school when touring students would come in, it’s like it’s the perfect city for training you to be in a city if you haven’t lived there. And it was a little bit of a culture shock … but it was also a good way to get ready for New York.
onSTAGE: Do you know if or when you might be onstage when Some Like It Hot comes to Pittsburgh?
DUNN: Sometimes I’m able to sort of request a day, like, if my family’s coming. And so this was so far the only city I was like, I need to perform. And it just so happens that someone’s taking a vacation. So I think I’ll probably get some dates, but that’s kind of swing life in general, that I could have this planned day to go on Friday, and then three boys call out, and then I’m doing a different track that day.
onSTAGE: How do you stay grounded and not get eager and anxious of the not knowing? Or is that just part of the excitement of what you do?
DUNN: I think it’s a little bit of both. Swings are some of the hardest working people in the theater, and you don’t get to always see it, but they’re always backstage watching and tracking and … it kind of is like a cycle, so that they’re always prepared. It’s so great to watch and learn from the swings out there, too, because, especially the girls, they’ve gone on mid-show however many times, and they’ve just crushed it every time. It’s seamless. So it’s always fun having a team of people, knowing they’ve got your back and you’ve got theirs, and you can be as prepared as you can be. But there’s also an element of just being present and having fun with it, and knowing that it’s life theater, which makes it magic.
onSTAGE: Most people know the movie, but did you know this show specifically? Did you see it in New York before you did it or?
DUNN: I didn’t see it in New York, but both those people I brought up earlier, Alex and Adam [Levine] had seen it in New York, and they were like, ‘You have to go see it. It’s like my favorite show of this season!’ It was after the pandemic, too, so it was like, musical comedy is exactly what we need. We need something fun. And I just heard the most amazing things about it too.
onSTAGE: When I talk about it, I say it’s the movie with music and dance, but with a major twist that makes some things in the movie that didn’t make sense, make sense. Is there anything else you would tell an audience member who might ask about it, without giving too much away?
DUNN: I think I would want the audience to come in with the expectation that it’s just going to be a really fun night at the theater while also knowing that you might learn a little something at the end. I think that’s exactly what it’s, it’s so nice to have something where you can enjoy it and be entertained while also still having the moment to be like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s exactly right.’
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Some Like It Hot features Matt Loehr as Joe/Josephine, Tavis Kordell as Jerry/Daphne, Leandra Ellis-Gaston as Sugar, Edward Juvier as Osgood, Tarra Conner Jones as Sweet Sue, Jamie LaVerdiere as Mulligan, Devon Goffman as Spats, and Devon Hadsell, who was a member of the original Broadway company, as Minnie. The national tour is presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, as part of the 2024-2025 PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh Series, April 15 – 20, 2025, at the Benedum Center, Downtown. Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/94992/some-like-it-hot.
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