Other Darrins in theatre.
- This is standard for any play — if a show runs long enough, several actors play the same character. This leads to intense debates about which actor or actress is the "best".
- Bears mentioning here that it happens quite regularly in plays where the understudy steps in due to illness, vacation, etc. of the main performer.
- One very notable case is Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap which has been running continuously for literally decades leading to actors who have played younger characters in the show taking over the roles of older characters as they've become too old to play their younger characters.
- Shakespearean actors have been known to do this as well—Ellen Terry, for example, played the Prince of Sicilia in The Winter's Tale at age eight, and later in life appeared as Hermione in the same play.
- Many cast recordings of musicals have used different singers, with the regular actor being unavailable due to contractual reasons (e.g. Irra Pettina replaced with Kitty Carlisle on Song of Norway, Ethel Merman with Dinah Shore on Call Me Madam), illness (Howard da Silva replaced with Rex Everhart on 1776), or having too small a singing part to bother (in which case another cast member usually would fill in). One unusual case is the original cast recording of Company being reissued on LP with Larry Kert (who replaced Dean Jones shortly after the Broadway opening) overdubbing all of Dean Jones's vocals. In a bizarre case of crosscasting, Gabey's two solos in On the Town were sung by Mary Martin (substituting for John Battles) on the original cast album.
- Aversion: While much of the Broadway cast of The Phantom of the Opera has changed greatly since its original 1986 run, the actor playing Firmin remained the same up until 2012.
- Although the long run at Toronto's Pantages Theatre did change leads, notably featuring KISS's Paul Stanley, who returned for the final two weeks of performances due to patron demand. Even there, the actress playing Madame Giry remained the same from beginning to end.
- And played straight with the role of Christine, which is so taxing that an "alternate" actress is cast to handle two of the eight weekly performances.
- Some runs of the The Producers hang a lampshade on this. Tony Danza at one point played the part of Bialystock, who in the script is insulted by Leo Bloom as "FAAAAAAATTT!!" When the line came up with Danza playing the part, the decidedly trim Danza responds, confused, "What?" Leo then, somewhat uncertainly, asserts, "You ... used to be fat..."
- Some shows deliberately change a character's actor mid-season, others will alternate between actors, as ACT does with Scrooge in their annual production of A Christmas Carol.
- Averted by William Shakespeare. When comedian Will Kemp left Shakespeare's company, the clown or jester characters in Shakespeare's subsequent plays have a noticeably different tone, as they were written with the darker, more cerebral style of Kemp's successor, Robert Armin, in mind.
- In A Very Potter Senior Year, Meredith Stepien replaces Bonnie Gruesen (from the first two installments) as Hermione. Of course, in true StarKid fashion, it's lampshaded. Hermione breaks her nose at the beginning of the musical and fixes it with a spell, but looks different.Hermione: Well, I may look different, but you guys should just treat me like I'm the same old Hermione you know and love. [to audience] And that goes for all you too. [she winks at audience]
- Julia Albain was unable to appear in the third installment, so her roles from the second were recast, with Brant Cox taking over Percy Weasley, while the Hogwarts Express "candy lady" was given as a cameo appearance by the troupe's agent, Pat Brady. Albain's main role of Crabbe was killed offscreen.
- Luna Lovegood, played by Arielle Goldman in the second installment, was also recast in the third... not because Goldman was unavailable, as she's still in the third show, but because they got Evanna Lynch, Luna's actress from the Harry Potter film series, to take over.
- This may sometimes happen if a show moves theatre or does a tour in a different country; one or two actors may retain the same role, but the rest will be more local.
- 2.5D stage plays, such as The Prince of Tennis and Tsukiuta will have series of plays in short runs of 1-3 weeks, followed by bluray releases of the final performances filmed live. So after a few years, a character will likely be played by a new actor, but in a sequel, as opposed to in the same play.
- In That Mitchell and Webb Look, the Numberwang sketches usually had Simon and Julie played by Paterson Joseph and Olivia Colman, respectively. For the stage show adaptation, The Two Faces of Mitchell and Webb, the roles were instead taken over by James Bachman and Abigail Burdess. This was actually Lampshaded by the host:Host: As you may have noticed, Simon and Julie have regenerated into two slightly less expensive actors.
- In-Universe in Fairview. It's a very meta play in which four white audience members leave the audience and insert themselves into a Dom Com about a black family throwing a birthday party for Grandma. Suze, marginally less racist than the other three white folks, plays Grandma and is rather subdued. The other three decide she's being boring, so the other white lady, Bets, starts acting as Grandma and does so in a far more flamboyant "yas queen" sort of way.
- Hatchetfield:
- Due to Robert Manion being asked to leave Team StarKid, characters he played in the first two musicals and the first season of Nightmare Time have been passed along to different actors:
- In the second season of Nightmare Time, Nick Lang would portray Pete Spankoffski, Professor Hidgens, and Cop #2 from The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals — necessitated by Manion's removal happening only a month before the season's release, leaving Lang, the director of the series, little time to do anything other than re-record Manion's parts by himself until the season finale, in which Joey Richter took over the role of Ethan Green from Black Friday.
- In Nerdy Prudes Must Die, the role of Pete was passed on to Richter, and Curt Mega took over Manion's semi-recurring role as the local Hatchetfield news announcer.
- In Workin' Boys, Jeff Blim took over the role of Hidgens.
- Kendall Nicole declined to appear in the second season of Nightmare Time to focus on her education, leaving Lauren Lopez to take over her role as Hannah. How permanent this recasting is remains to be seen.
- The Lords in Black, being Eldritch Abominations, are somewhat nebulous in characterization, resulting in most of them having been played by two different actors in the two speaking appearances they've had so far:
- Wiggly was voiced by Nick Lang in the promotional material for Black Friday but by Jon Matteson in the show itself and all subsequent appearances.
- Blinky and Tinky are played by James Tolbert and Jeff Blim respectively in the Nightmare Time season 1 episodes in which they debut, and by Lauren Lopez and Curt Mega in Nerdy Prudes Must Die, as Tolbert and Blim were not members of the production's cast.
- Nibbly and Pokey are both played by Nick Lang in the Nightmare Time season 2 episodes in which they debut, and by Kim Whalen and Corey Dorris in Nerdy Prudes Must Die.
- Due to Robert Manion being asked to leave Team StarKid, characters he played in the first two musicals and the first season of Nightmare Time have been passed along to different actors:
