Cirque du Soleil spokeswoman Ann Paladie responds, "Cirque performers do not necessarily have understudies or swings. There may be other cast members who are trained as backups. For acts that are highly specialized, like [the] trapeze for example, if someone is out sick, the act is reconfigured. If it is an act like high wire, there is no one else who can do that, so a completely different back up act is put into the show if the high wire [artist] is out.
"The turnover rate varies," Paladie continues. "We have some Mystère cast members who have been there since the show opened in 1993!"
In one case relating to the specific show you reference, Cirque recently experienced a notorious instance of involuntary cast turnover. LOVE performer Jason "Blu" Griffith murdered and dismembered his on-off girlfriend, Deborah Florez-Harvaez, a dancer in Fantasy at Luxor. Griffith was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 10 years to life in the slammer last summer. (Aptly, one of Griffith’s favorite TV shows was Dexter, apparently.)
