Here Lies Love, the immersive, groundbreaking musical from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, is transforming the Broadway Theatre into a discotheque, making audience members both clubgoers—dancing encouraged—and active participants in the story of the former First Lady and President, whose rise to power and epic fall from it are told through disco-inspired songs and Byrne’s signature wit.

Choreographing both the performers and the audience members—who continuously move throughout the space and occasionally learn a few moves themselves—is a big job, but one that Annie-B Parson is ready for. “It’s not intimidating,” says the choreographer, who has worked with Byrne for over a decade, including on his American Utopia. “My experience with audiences is that they do very well with whatever you give them if you’re clear.”

Though Here Lies Love has had four runs in the past decade—two at The Public Theater, where it premiered in 2013, one in London, and one in Seattle—none were at the scale of the Broadway production, which has been designed to put even more audience members up close and personal on the dance floor. It also has additional seating options for a more traditional theatrical experience—an added challenge for Parson and director Alex Timbers. “We’ve always been very aware of what it looks like from different angles,” says Parson. “Alex is very good at understanding how the space can come alive from all these different points of observation.”

Though Parson researched disco when creating the movement for the show, and built movement from her years of working with Byrne,­ Here Lies Love’s dance vocabulary brings a distinctly postmodern aesthetic to the Broadway stage, not dissimilar from the movement Parson has created for many years with her company, Big Dance Theater. “Bringing that to Broadway?” says Parson. “Well, we’ll see how they like it.”

Dance Magazine’s Lauren Wingenroth spoke to Annie-B Parson as Here Lies Love was readying for Broadway, and Rachel Papo photographed the first day of dance rehearsals in May.

How does it feel to be reimmersing yourself in the world of Here Lies Love after all these years?

It’s been a dream of ours to bring it back at a larger scale with a larger audience. I always have felt that you need to really make this piece as dynamic as it can be; you need sort of a crisis of people on the dance floor. And because we’ve always been in smaller venues, we were limited to 100 or so people. Now, the relationship between the audience and the piece will feel perfect. I’m very interested in co-proximate, co-temporal bodies in space.

It will feel different for the bodies that are watching, too. It’s just crazy to see that many people doing what they’re told. The motif of the disco becomes more intense with more people. In the past, we’ve had very few people in the observer seats, but now I think it’s just as many as on the floor.

What else can we expect to see that will be different in the Broadway production?

It’s essentially the same show but updated, since it’s now and not then politically. Because of Bongbong [the current President of the Philippines and the son of Imelda and Ferdinand], we’re looking to highlight the complicity of the U.S. government with the dictatorship in the Philippines. It’s not one of those pieces that I did it and it’s over. It’s about Filipino history. So it’s never going to be over.

Are there any challenges you’re anticipating as you bring the show to Broadway?

Well, we have a new cast, essentially—not 100 percent, but pretty much—so of course that always feels unknown, like “How do these people execute my movement?” And, in this very small period of time, how do I transmit the tonality and the muscularity of my particular movement vocabulary? It will be unfamiliar to them because they come from a different tradition.

I think of Broadway as very wet material. I think of it as hot and I think of David’s early material as cool. So when you’re dealing with cool–dry instead of hot–wet, it’s very different for a dancer. We’re talking about tonality, muscularity, isolation. It’s not just musical theater dancers, it would be any dancer that wasn’t trained in more postmodern tradition.

Having said that, I’ve had very good luck with the casts that I’ve worked with on this show. So I wouldn’t say I’m worried about it.

We don’t see immersive shows on Broadway often. Are you grappling with any expectations of what a Broadway show is supposed to look like?

Look, I just did American Utopia. And that’s the only Broadway thing I’ve done. I don’t have any knowledge of Broadway, I don’t tend to see Broadway shows. And aesthetically I’m very, very far away from what you would think of as a Broadway choreographer. So I don’t go in with any knowledge of what that audience is like.

The audience for American Utopia was there to see David Byrne. And they saw him, and it was his vision. So I essentially feel like it’s his vision again, and this is just as amazing. What we’re bringing musically is as groundbreaking as Bernstein when he was on Broadway; as Cole Porter when he was on Broadway; as George Gershwin when he was on Broadway. [Byrne] is accepting no tropes—no Broadway tropes are in that show. I don’t know if that’s conscious or unconscious. He’s just telling a story through his music. And to me, it will change how people think about music on Broadway, as much as Gershwin changed it and Porter changed it and Bernstein changed it. I think it will feel super-exciting to hear storytelling in a different musical voice.

What is the storytelling role of dance in the show?

Well, story is not my middle name; I am pretty narratively challenged. I would say more that I’m creating a movement logic. I think in any piece that is made by a choreographer who’s not in a tradition of musical theater, you teach the audience the vocabulary over time. So when they first see the material, it’s not going to be familiar. There’s a diagonal slant on what’s happening in the song. So I can’t say that there’s much storytelling—I would say there’s more music-telling.

You’ve made so much more work with David since Here Lies Love first premiered. How has your collaboration grown since then?

I feel like we’ve almost created a folk dance of our own, in that there’s a world of movement that has amassed coming from my body, into the music, into the dancers. It’s like one long piece for me. And I had a lot of cues from him about what he likes and where he’s coming from through references that we share. We both really love ceremony—we share videos back and forth of coronations across the world, these ancient rituals. So that is the way I understand what interests him.

So now that you have this larger pool of references and material, will there be more layers as you build the movement? Or are you going to be true to the original movement?

I want to do more layers, but I think they really want me to keep it the same. I’m not the lead author of the piece, Alex and David are. I love being in that position. I consider myself in service to David’s music, and to the director Alex Timbers. It’s a really interesting position, because choreographers, we love limits. And then when I’m in my own room, I have the opportunity to make anything I want, and have the burden and joy of being the sole author.

Anything else you want to mention?

This time, the thing that seems very, very cool to me is that we have Filipino producers. And they are brilliant. I don’t use that word loosely. That I have conversations with Jose [Antonio] Vargas is just insane. He’s so incredible and generous and deep. I just finished his book, Dear America, and I really recommend it. I think about all the things I could have done in my life, and it seems insane that I ended up doing this. How would I have ever met someone like Jose? He’s in a completely different universe. Those interactions are really deepening for me and anything that deepens for me deepens for the dancers through osmosis.

The post Behind the Scenes with Choreographer Annie-B Parson as <i>Here Lies Love</i> Moves to Broadway appeared first on Dance Magazine.

That said: We need to talk about Kolton Krouse. Specifically, we need to talk about Kolton Krouse in the Trumpet Solo.

The solo arrived in the middle of “Sing, Sing, Sing,” DANCIN’s second-act opener, set to music made famous by Benny Goodman. A virtuosic three-minute wiggle originally created for Ann Reinking, it requires a finely calibrated combination of introspection and extroversion—“like you’re in a back room dancing for yourself in the mirror,” Krouse says. In the wrong hands (and, especially, legs), it can wilt. But Krouse teased and tickled and va-va-voomed it into full flower. By the solo’s climax, the audience was eating from the palms of Krouse’s impeccably manicured hands.

“Trumpet Solo needs an artist who can play outside of the boundaries of the steps,” says DANCIN’ cast member Dylis Croman, a Fosse veteran who memorably performed the number in the 2002 recording of Fosse. “You immediately feel that Kolton has that freedom and joy, that sense of fun, like a tiger getting ready to pounce. And let me just say: Their kick layouts are outlandishly good.”

The list of artists who’ve tackled the Trumpet Solo is short—and before Krouse, it featured only cisgender women. In DANCIN’, 27-year-old Krouse, who is nonbinary, performed the routine as part of a track that included roles in both heels and flats. (Their other big solo, “Spring Chicken,” used some of the “Mein Herr” choreography immortalized by Liza Minnelli­ in Cabaret.) It was a significant step toward inclusivity that also felt natural. Fosse asked dancers to be themselves onstage; DANCIN’ simply showed Krouse as Krouse.

“The thing about Kolton is that they are truly comfortable in their skin, which is what Bob always wanted,” says DANCIN’ director Wayne Cilento, who performed in the original 1978 production. “And that actually made it really easy to figure out the tracking. Like the Trumpet Solo: The question was, who was the best person in the room to do it? Kolton was the one.”

Krouse’s secure sense of self has been evident from a young age, bolstered by well-founded confidence in their own talent. A star of the dance competition and convention circuit, they became the first four-time National Outstanding Dancer at New York City Dance Alliance, winning the Mini title in 2007, Junior in 2009, Teen in 2012, and Senior in 2014. There were bullies in their conservative Arizona hometown, but Krouse largely shrugged them off. “My feeling was, this is such a small chunk of our lives,” they say. “Sure, you can yell at me. But pretty soon, I’m going to get out of here, and you’re probably going to stay in Arizona, and, you know—bye.”

As a student Krouse felt the pull of New York City, which had “an energy that made me feel like I belonged,” they say. Looking for ways to channel that energy, they enrolled at The Juilliard School. 

They admired the abstract concert dance repertory that shaped much of Juilliard’s­ curriculum. But soon they realized that what they really wanted to do was tell stories. “I started to focus on the idea of Broadway because it brought all the pieces together—the acting, the movement, everything I loved best,” Krouse says. They also had a difficult time with the school’s culture. “I got this sense that in order to become­ an artist, they had to break you down and then build you back up, which was not it for me.”

So Krouse was ready to leap when they heard that Andy Blankenbuehler, an acquaintance through NYCDA, was choreographing a Broadway revival of CATS. Though Krouse initially asked to audition just for the experience, they ended up booking the show. They spent their sophomore year doing double duty: full-time Juilliard student by day, Broadway feline by night. 

The show—and the (ill-starred) 2019 film, which Krouse booked some months later—marked both a professional and a personal turning point for Krouse. Wearing the full-face CATS makeup every day opened the door to further play with cosmetics, nail art, and fashion; playing a creature rather than a person allowed them freedom to explore the feminine qualities that had always been part of their dancing. 

“I started to think about, Who is Kolton Krouse?” they say. “After a lot of experimenting, everything morphed into this androgynous situation—the masculine and the feminine all bled into each other, in my dancing and offstage, too. And that’s when I found Kolton.”

Krouse dropped out of Juilliard in their senior year, after they were denied a deferral to accommodate the CATS film’s production schedule. They landed a few more high-profile commercial dance jobs—including, in a bit of foreshadowing, the FX series “Fosse/Verdon.” Finding another­ ­Broadway role proved more dif­­fi­cult. “It was really hard to get into the room as me,” Krouse says. “There were a couple projects where they said, ‘No, you can’t show up in makeup and heels.’ It felt like a constant battle.” Frustrated, they switched agencies in search of better support.

When COVID-19 shut the world down, Krouse moved back to Arizona and drifted—not not intentionally—away from dance. “I just figured I’d take the time to work on other things I’d always been curious about,” they say. They explored voice training and songwriting with the musician Mario Spinetti, a longtime friend, recording covers and filming music videos for fun. Watching Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu compete at the 2021 World Figure Skating Championships re-sparked Krouse’s childhood figure-skating dream, previously snuffed out by dance commitments. They started taking classes; a teacher channeled them toward ice dancing, where, unsurprisingly, they excelled. (You can see skating’s influence in their dancing today: the way they throw themselves up into a saut de basque as if it were an axel, the way they wrap their foot in coupé to increase their turning speed.)

In the fall of 2021, as theaters began to reopen, Krouse got the call for the DANCIN’ audition. “I was like, Bob Fosse? Yes. Immediately, yes,” they say. They’d grown up watching Cabaret, and had loved learning the nuances of Fosse style on “Fosse/Verdon.” “With Fosse, the intention is always so clear,” they say. “Even in more abstract pieces, it’s almost like a silent movie—the audience understands what the people they’re watching are feeling or thinking, and sees them as humans instead of characters.”

That emphasis on the humanity of the performers feels consistent with a more flexible approach to gender. “Bob was very forward-thinking in that way,” says Corinne McFadden Herrera, DANCIN’s associate director and musical stager, who also helped with choreographic reconstruction. “Already in Cabaret, in the ’60s and ’70s, he was creating characters with an androgynous fluidity.” The DANCIN’ team didn’t seek out gender-nonconforming performers or plan to cast roles against gender “type,” but they embraced the fullness of Krouse’s identity—and skill set. 

“If Bob had had a Kolton in his life, he would’ve loved it,” Cilento says. “He would never have hidden that talent.”

Though the show made little fanfare about its casting choices, it sat at the middle of a conversation unfolding across Broadway about how the industry can better include nonbinary performers. Onstage celebrations of artists like Some Like It Hot’s J. Harrison Ghee and & Juliet’s Justin David Sullivan belie ongoing concerns about gendered awards-show categories and casting processes. 

“I think change could be coming, and I think it’s definitely getting better with certain directors and choreographers, but it’s still really tricky,” Krouse says. They’ve been unsure, for example, about how to navigate recent calls for “female-presenting” and “male-presenting” performers. Usually they end up essentially auditioning twice. 

“If it feels right, you can show them the combo in a heel and then the second time do it in a flat,” they say. “It’s hard. But if they’re not allowing space for you, you have to make space for yourself.”

Eventually, Krouse hopes to carve out space in other fields, too. They’re still studying voice, and plan to return to skating at some point. You might see them onscreen someday, acting in a horror film (“Wouldn’t that be incredibly fun?”) or a superhero movie (“I could do all the stunts”). And they hope to walk in fashion week—a dream that, for a person seemingly born to wear heels, feels eminently attainable. 

The DANCIN’ cast included some of the best movers on Broadway, yet Krouse was repeatedly singled out by critics. (The New York Times review called them “the one with the face-slapping kicks,” an epithet since featured in Krouse’s Instagram bio.) That attention, Krouse says, was a nice surprise. But they were more excited about the visibility than the praise. 

“Honestly, I wouldn’t even have cared if everyone hated it, as long as I could connect with that one person who hadn’t seen themselves onstage before,” they say. “What I really want for my art is for people to come away from it saying, ‘That makes me want to be more me.’ ”

The post Kolton Krouse Blazes Their Own Trail On Broadway and Beyond appeared first on Dance Magazine.

But without anyone to create a script, thanks to the ongoing strike by the union of screen and television writers, dance became even more prominent than it would have been. Host Ariana DeBose, with an ensemble that by the end totaled 16 dancers, opened the proceedings with Karla Puno Garcia’s vivid choreography—spilling from an upstairs dressing room of the United Palace Theatre down to the ornate lobby, through the auditorium, and onto the stage, followed every step of the way by swooping camerawork. And when the time came to honor the winners of the lifetime achievement awards, John Kander and Joel Grey, DeBose was joined by Julianne Hough to perform Garcia’s version of “Hot Honey Rag,” from Chicago.

As a fellow scribe and a one-time member of the Writers Guild of America, I fully support the strike. I must admit, however, that I didn’t miss the missing words; and, apart from a brief moment where DeBose lost the thread, neither did anyone on the stage. There were multiple shout-outs in support of the writers, and gratitude for the last-minute agreement that allowed the show to proceed. But the eloquence and emotion of these affairs come from the acceptance speeches, not scripted introductions and banter—whose absence allowed time for more snippets from nominated performances, and for efficiencies that facilitated an on-time close. The large onstage projections identifying who was who and what was what kept it all legible.

What made it fun was the joy—verging on delirium—that greeted all the performers filing offstage after their numbers, past those waiting to go on next. The Tonys are a competition, but you wouldn’t have known it from the backstage vibe captured in the show. The history-making Tonys won by two nonbinary actors—J. Harrison Ghee, the blossoming Jerry/Daphne of Some Like It Hot, and Alex Newell, the showstopping Lulu of Shucked—left the other nominees cheering.

The warmth and familial admiration pervading so much of the evening came through when Nicholaw accepted the choreography prize for Some Like It Hot. He started out thanking his 90-year-old mother and segued into heartfelt appreciation for the contribution of Glen Kelly, who did the show’s dance arrangements—a crucial element of musical theater that lacks a Tony category of its own. Unfortunately, Nicholaw’s prize, and Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire’s for scoring Kimberly Akimbo, were awarded before the CBS broadcast, in the streamed segment called “The Tony Awards: Act One”—so the television audience entirely missed the awards for the very things that make musicals musical.

Which prompts another observation. Dance is indisputably one half of what makes musicals musical. With five Tonys, the most of the evening, Kimberly Akimbo was the clear favorite of the Tony voters, who seem irresistibly drawn to what the New York Times theater critic Jesse Green calls “nerdicals”—serious shows with small casts and minimal opportunities for what we normally think of when we picture Broadway dance. This leaves gorgeous extravaganzas like New York, New York and Some Like It Hot at something of a disadvantage in the all-important Best Musical category. Shouldn’t there be an additional Tony honoring simple showmanship? A play might win it now and again, but I’ll bet that most of the time, the winner would have a kick line.

The post Tony Awards Recap: Writer-Less, Dance-Filled appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Though that might sound a little risky, it also offered an opportunity, in the words of choreographer Karla Puno Garcia, “to lift dance in a really big way.” Garcia isn’t new to the Tonys; she was associate choreographer and a dancer for Sergio Trujillo’s opening number in 2021, and has performed in the show with the casts of Gigi and Hamilton. Now, as choreographer, she gets to help create the vision for a broadcast in which dance will definitely be taking on some main-character energy.

Although she couldn’t share details on exactly what that will look like (“You’ll just have to tune in!” she says), Garcia was able to offer the scoop on how the opportunity came together, and what it was like to collaborate with triple-threat host Ariana DeBose.

How did you find out that you’d be choreographing this year’s Tonys?
Ariana DeBose called me and asked if I was interested and available. I said yes and yes! [Laughs]

That was a few weeks ago. I was in tech rehearsal for Days of Wine and Roses at the Atlantic Theater when she called. (I’m co-choreographer with Sergio Trujillo.) That just opened Monday night. I also just started a new immersive show called Tipsy Whispers on Monday. So I am not sleeping, but I’m so grateful, and my mind has just been creating content like wild.

What’s your history with Ariana? Did your time in Hamilton overlap?
Very briefly. She was on her way out while I was still learning the show. But that was one of many crossovers we’ve had. We’ve been in the trenches with each other as dancers, as performers, trying to book our slots in Broadway shows. We’ve performed in gigs together. And she has always been a supporter of my choreography. So we have a mutual respect for each other, and it was really cool to see a peer—now turned Oscar winner!—recognized in such a big way. She is a force!

Why do you think she chose you?
I think our tastes align. We both love musicality. We love dynamics and spicing things up in a similar way. Ari is an incredible dancer, an amazing showman, and, on top of that, she’s really funky. We both like kind of bringing the old and the new together, a classic vibe with a modern twist.

Is dance taking on a more prominent role this year because the show is unscripted?
I think in our industry, it’s easy to overlook a dance ensemble or just the element of dance. And this year, it’s really cool to bring light upon dance in a big way because of the circumstances. The opening number is just a huge celebration of dance. And, without giving too much away, I did get to choreograph another moment later in the show. And that’s all I’ll say. [Laughs]

Why do you think dancers typically get overlooked?
We tell stories through our bodies, and there are no words. Our bodies are the words. But I think we are at a point when we’re gonna start to see a huge wave of telling stories through dance, especially onstage. There’s a new generation of choreographers and creatives and directors that have different perspectives, and I think this diverse group is going to mix it up.

What does it mean to you to be able to work on something that reaches so many people?
I remember watching the Tony Awards with my family when I was 9 years old—seeing Broadway shows on my TV—and getting excited to not only watch them live but, eventually, hopefully get to be in them. To be a part of creating the vision that does that is super-super-special.

The post Karla Puno Garcia on Choreographing an Unusual Tony Awards appeared first on Dance Magazine.

I began acting in college while in the depths of my illness. At the time my body was barely functioning well enough to accomplish basic tasks, let alone sustain grand allégro. But my heart yearned for performance and creative expression, so I decided to try my hand at something dance adjacent—acting.

I was terrified on my first day of class. I had no idea what to expect or how to prepare. I wanted to be respectful of the customs of an acting class, and I didn’t want to look silly. (Spoiler alert, there is no way to avoid looking silly, so just lean into it.) I wanted a play-by-play of what to expect, but instead, I had to jump in blind and hope everything went okay. (It did, but I could have done without the added anxiety.)

So for those of you who are looking to improve your dancing through acting, I caught up with my teacher, Andrew Polk, who leads the class I’m taking on on-camera technique at The Freeman Studio. You may recognize him from films like Armageddon Time and television shows like Billions, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, House of Cards, and more. Here, he shares what to expect, how to prepare, and what he thinks dancers could take away from a class like his.

What to Expect

First, it’s important to know that every acting class is going to be a little bit different. Each teacher will have a unique approach, and the medium (theater or on-camera) will change the experience entirely. For example, Polk wants dancers to know that they are not at a disadvantage in an on-camera class because they don’t have heavy theater training as actors. “Working on camera is like another art form. It’s like you were playing basketball your whole life and then someone asked you to play the violin.”

That said, you can likely plan on a few things regardless of the teacher or medium. First, you will likely perform a scene at the front of the room with your teacher and class watching. Then the teacher will provide feedback for you to apply to your work (just like in a dance class). You will then have the opportunity to watch other class members perform their respective scenes, as well.

How to Prepare

For Polk’s class, scene assignments are sent out a few days before the first day of class and we are expected to have done text analysis and be off-book (memorized) by the time class begins. Each subsequent week follows this same pattern. In other courses I’ve taken in college or at The Freeman Studio, the first day of class has been more of an introduction to the course while the teacher outlines their expectations, and then we’re expected to be off-book by the next class. If your instructor doesn’t send out an email ahead of time to let you know what to prepare, I recommend reaching out and politely asking what their expectations are for your first day.

You can prepare by reading the scene, digging into the given circumstances, and familiarizing yourself with your character (and, of course, your lines). “Preparation is necessary—you need that kind of discipline,” Polk says.” Even more important than that, he wants you to bring your instincts. “A lot of what I teach is to trust your instinctual response to the material,” he says. “Often that is hard. A lot of people want to approach things the right way, but there is no ‘right way.’ Dancers are really in touch with their instincts and their bodies, and I think that would be very helpful.”

Classroom Rules

Each acting teacher will have different expectations for classroom etiquette, but for Polk, he wants students to be prepared, on time, and void of judgment. “Don’t judge your character or other actors,” he says. “In my class you spend a lot of time watching others. We are not there to perform for each other, we are there to work. So when you see other people work, you shouldn’t judge them, you should imagine you are them. It’s a really great way to learn.”

How Polk Believes Dancers Can Benefit From Acting

When students finish a cycle of his class, Polk hopes they know what it feels like to successfully act for the camera. “I want them to have progressed,” he says. For dancers specifically, he would hope that a class like his would expand their performance. “Can you tell a story that is not technical? Can you let go of your technical ability and lean into the story and into the character and be messy? If you are creating life, if you are creating a moment, that is what you are aiming for. That is the main challenge and reward for a dancer who is not used to that.”

Curious about what an acting class actually looks like? Head on over to Dance Magazine’s YouTube channel. There I share a day in my life as I prepare for, and attend, one of Polk’s “On Camera Technique” classes.

The post Begin Again: Acting for Dancers appeared first on Dance Magazine.

I lied about my height on my résumé the entire time I was a dancer, though in truth I don’t think the extra inch ever actually made a difference. In the United States, 5’6″ still reads as short for a man no matter how you slice it. The reason for my deception was that height was frequently the reason I was disqualified: choreographers often wanted taller male dancers for the ensemble and listed a minimum height requirement (usually 5’11” and up) in the casting breakdown. More than once, I was disqualified before I could even set foot in the audition because I possessed an unchangeable physical characteristic that frequently made me unemployable in the industry.

I was learning an object lesson in Broadway’s body politics—and, of course, had I not been a white cisgender non-disabled man, the barriers to employment would have been compounded even further. I wasn’t alone in feeling stuck in a catch-22. Not being cast because of your appearance, or “type” in industry lingo, is casting’s status quo. The casting process openly discriminates on the basis of appearance. This truism even made its way into a song cut from A Chorus Line (1975) called “Broadway Boogie Woogie,” which comically lists all the reasons one might not be cast: “I’m much too tall, much too short, much too thin/Much too fat, much too young for the role/I sing too high, sing too low, sing too loud.” Funny Girl (1964) put it even more bluntly: “If a Girl isn’t pretty/Like a Miss Atlantic City/She should dump the stage/And try another route.” Broadway profoundly ties an actor’s employability to their appearance; when an actor enters the audition room they put their body on the line: do they have a Broadway Body or not? A Chorus Line’s “Dance: Ten, Looks: Three” memorably musicalizes this moment when the character Val relates how her appearance prevented her from booking jobs until she had plastic surgery.

The dominance of what I call the Broadway Body—the hyper-fit, muscular, tall, conventionally attractive, exceptionally able triple-threat performer (one highly skilled in acting, dancing, and singing)—became Broadway’s ideal body as the result of a confluence of aesthetic, economic, and sociocultural factors. The Broadway Body is akin to the ballet body since it too contains the paradox of remaining an unattainable ideal since even those who come close to the ideal must still strive for it, too. Dancers internalize this quest for perfection and know it well.

In theatre, the Broadway Body ideal sets unrealistic standards enforced by industry gatekeepers—from agents and casting directors to producers and college professors. That appearance matters for performers is old news (the Ziegfeld girls were not all chosen for their dance talent back in the 1910s), but Broadway’s pervasive body-shaming is only beginning to be openly discussed in the industry itself. A 2019 study found that two-thirds of performers had been asked to change their appearance, and that 33% of those had been told to lose weight. As a result of the pressure to look a certain way, a small industry of Broadway-focused fitness companies like Built for the Stage and Mark Fisher Fitness sprang up in response.

Backstage noted that Mark Fisher Fitness “is particularly popular among those in the performing arts community looking to get a ‘Broadway Body.’” Other theatrical press picked up on the idea; an article in Playbill asked, “Who doesn’t want a Broadway body?” The Broadway Body is not merely a marketing ploy but a concept grounded in an appearance-based hierarchy. Even some notable Broadway stars capitalized on the connection of Broadway and fitness: in the 1980s, original West Side Story star Carol Lawrence released a workout video titled Carol Lawrence’s Broadway Body Workout, Broadway dancer Ann Reinking wrote a book called The Dancer’s Workout, and even six-time Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury got in on the game by releasing a workout video called Angela Lansbury’s Positive Moves.

The ever-increasing demands of performing a Broadway musical eight times a week necessitate some of the changes seen in Broadway Bodies, from notably higher technical demands placed on dancers to challenging vocal tracks. Artistic choices carry economic implications in commercial entertainment. The wear and tear on the body caused by the repetitive nature of performing a musical eight times a week increases the financial pressure and the physical toll for performers; life offstage becomes about staying fit to prevent injury and staying ready for the next job. Performers must pay more attention than ever to their bodies to remain competitive and employable.

Because the number of spots in the chorus typically outnumber speaking roles, Broadway’s bodily norms most often adhere to the body fascism of the dance and fitness worlds, which strictly regulates and disciplines the appearance and behaviors of the performer’s body into thinness. But these norms do not only impact those in the ensemble: the New York Times reported how Dreamgirls (1981) star Jennifer “Holliday’s weight fluctuations were often the subject of tabloid fodder, but much of the cast felt the pressure to be unrealistically thin,” including Holliday’s co-star Sheryl Lee Ralph, who “realized she was wasting away” due to this pressure. The emphasis on thinness comes at a cost to performers. On Broadway, casting is the site where these concerns come to a head. Even though there is a newfound awareness around the dangers of promoting thinness at all costs, it remains all-too-common for performers, especially dancers, to be told they are somehow inferior because of their appearance.

The post The Body Politics of Broadway: An Excerpt From the Recently Released Book <i>Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity</i> Sheds Light on Musical Theater’s Longtime Fixation on Physique appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Much like the concept of Martin and David West Read’s madcap show, which pairs pop hits with an imagined future for Shakespeare’s Juliet, Nicholas’ role is a mash-up: She’s a swing, the show’s dance captain and an understudy. As dance captain, she’s responsible for knowing the 12 ensemble tracks and all of the dancing for eight principals. She also acts as an extension of the choreographic team, maintaining the choreography and integrity of the show, taking notes, leading rehearsals and a daily warm-up, and teaching new cast members their parts.

Like many of musical theater’s unsung heroes, Nicholas, 33, has built a career around her ability to hold the intricacies of an entire show in her head. Nicholas credits this skill set with growing up on a competition team at the Academy of Dance and Gymnastics in Newport News, Virginia. “From age 10, I would be in seven routines total, and I’d learn them all in one week,” she says. At the urging of a competition judge, Nicholas started auditioning for musical theater in New York City during her senior year of high school. “I went in for a little show called Billy Elliot,” jokes Nicholas. “I didn’t know what a swing was at all, but they clearly saw something in me.” Nicholas was also the dance captain of Billy Elliot’s Toronto production. “That credit has now opened the door for all these other swing and dance captain contracts,” she says, highlights of which include the Broadway run of Mean Girls and the national tour of Matilda.

Nicholas’ experience was recognized during & Juliet’s opening night last November. As the ensemble member with the most Broadway credits, she was awarded the Legacy Robe, a decades-long Actors’ Equity tradition. “I’ve been able to check off so many bucket-list things here,” Nicholas says of her time in & Juliet.

Earlier this year Dance Magazine went backstage with Nicholas, following her from rehearsal to warm-up to backstage preparation as she juggled the roles of swing, dance captain and understudy.

A Childhood Dream

“When I was 10 years old, Britney Spears’ first album came out, and I wanted to be a backup dancer for her. Max Martin wrote so much of her music, so this musical is full circle for me. Obviously I’m not a pop star—that never happened for me—but I can pretend to be one here, and sing all my favorite songs. Meeting and working with Max is an amazing thing.”

Managing the Details

“Being a dance captain is unique because you are an extension of the creative team, and you’re also on the ground with the company. I work closely with the choreographer, Jen, and her associate, Esosa. Day-to-day I am responsible for our voluntary warm-up and also spacing onstage if an understudy is going on last minute. I help run rehearsals, and I help teach new tracks. I work with the stage managers, as well, staying up to date with the spike marks and what’s happening with the crew. On some really crazy days when we don’t have enough people, we do split-tracking, where one person might be doing more than one track at a time. I come up with the puzzle pieces of how the show will run smoothly—without the audience knowing we don’t have enough people.”

Getting to Work

“If we have rehearsal at 12:30 or a 1:00 call time, I try to be up by 9:30. I put my coffee on and then get in the shower and start vocally warming up. I have a gym in my building, but if I can’t make it down there, I always try to do some Pilates or yoga, just something to get my body going. I live in Harrison, New Jersey, so I take the PATH train and transfer to the subway at World Trade Center. I like the commute, because the show is very full-throttle. I’ll listen to my favorite jams, and get myself ready for the day.”

Before Showtime

“We get an hour and a half between rehearsal and the show, and I try to eat dinner right away so I can digest. When I show up to the theater, I like to have a bit of downtime, then I normally run warm-up and then will pop around and give notes. Then if I’m on, at half-hour I get into hair and makeup. If I’m not on, I’ll still sit on standby and figure out if I need to take notes or hang out in the wings.”

Tidying Up

“Dance clean-up days are always exciting. We’ve been busy putting in our understudies, so we haven’t had a chance to go through each number and remind ourselves of the pictures in the choreography and our intention. It’s nice to get time to really clean things up.”

Celebrating Differences

“& Juliet is different because we have people who specialize in breaking and people who have sung pop and R&B all of their lives, and now we’re in this melting pot of a musical theater show. Everybody gets to express themselves how they want onstage; we’re all dressed based on our personalities. It’s the first show where I feel like we are all different for a reason, and it’s celebrated.”

Staying Focused

“I’ve been doing the show so long now that I can be completely involved in the track I’m doing, but also keep an eye out, just because as a swing, we have so many moving parts. A sign’s flying out, or someone’s coming past you with a chair, that you always have to be aware of your surroundings. But depending on the role I’m doing, when I do have scene work, I will focus more on my intentions and lines and connecting with my scene partner.”

Life as a Swing

“Swinging is such a rewarding job because you’re really important. You have a pretty big job knowing the tracks and helping the show run and staying calm under pressure. The downfall is that you’re not in a track every night, so it’s hard for people to come and see you. You want to go on and blend in, which is the whole point. But when you’re not recognized for it, sometimes it’ll make you forget how special you are. Swings are now getting more recognition. I do love it, but I also know that I would love to be an onstage track, or move up and be an associate, meaning I would work even more closely with the choreographer.”

On the Right Track

“I take a lot of notes. The tech process was so fast, you would catch me in the wings writing down stuff frantically, because the more information I have, the better. Once I learn the show, I go track by track and have a notebook with a sheet for each track. Now that I know the show with my eyes closed, I can use process of elimination to figure out who’s around me. But it’s a lot of studying and quizzing myself. And knowing when I’m at capacity, and being like, ‘Okay, maybe don’t do anything extra tonight.’”

Going Onstage

“I actually go on a lot, just because doing eight shows a week is really hard. When one of the leads calls out, like Juliet or Anne [Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife], one of the understudies in the ensemble is bumped up, so then as a swing I’ll go into that track. There are six swings total, and different variables depending on if people are sick or injured. It’s fun, because I feel like it’s always something new. It’s never the same show.”

The post Behind the Scenes with Brittany Nicholas, Dance Captain and Swing in Broadway’s <i>& Juliet</i> appeared first on Dance Magazine.

In between, the work grew from an idea into a two-act musical; its main character evolved from a maharaja juggling three wives to a king coping with one; and its author progressed from Broadway newcomer (albeit one with a Tony for In the Heights) to celebrated choreographer (add two Tonys—Hamilton and Bandstand—and other honors, including a Dance Magazine Award). Naturally, just about everyone involved assumed that MCC was step one on the way to Only Gold’s Broadway opening.

I thought so too—I’ve admired Blankenbuehler since the original, unheralded, off-Broadway production of In the Heights, with its Robbins-like flow of totally integrated dance. That’s now his signature, and with Only Gold, he upped his already expert game, weaving dance into every aspect—texture, plot, the very essence of character.

Reporting for Dance Magazine over the years, I’ve watched Blankenbuehler push choreography further and further to the forefront of his musicals, following the path laid by Jerome Robbins, Susan Stroman and Twyla Tharp. He told me about Only Gold some 10 years ago, when he was working with a handful of dancers on choreography for Bring It On, the 2012 show that was his first Broadway musical as a director. He was brimming with excitement about another new piece: Paris in the 1920s! What could be more vibrant? And did I know the work of the British singer-songwriter Kate Nash?

He was a fan, and she’d agreed to let him use her quirky, rhythmic music for a show based on Bhupinder Singh, Maharaja­ of Patiala, who set 1920s Europe agog when he arrived from India with fabulous wealth, immense charisma, multiple wives and a trunkful of gemstones for Cartier to mount. The eye-popping necklace that resulted, and the sad ending of its owner, who died at 46, inspired Blankenbuehler’s story, about someone who has everything, but nothing that makes him happy.

Shortly before Only Gold closed, he phoned from London—he was on one of his regular working visits to Europe’s Hamiltons—to look back at the show’s “tumultuous life,” and ahead to its unknown future. Because the carping reviews had turned its Broadway ambitions to dust.

“My brain has been upside-down these past few weeks,” he admits. “In some ways the reviews surprised me, and in some ways they didn’t. I know there are tremendous moments—moments­ I’m extraordinarily proud of. At the same time, I’m aware how the audience is reacting. So I knew that there were still a lot of things that we had to work on—I was game for that.” What he wasn’t ready for was the overall negativity: “Even though a lot said really nice things, they still pointed up the problems more than the pros. So [pause]…that was just a little hard.”

No wonder, given that Blankenbuehler is the musical’s conceiver, co-author (with Ted Malawer), director and choreographer. “Trying to figure out the way a story grasps an audience is difficult,” he says. “I’m really good at it as a choreographer. But when I’m looking at a wider swath, a much wider picture, then it’s a complicated thing. I guess that’s the trouble you get into when you wear a lot of hats.”

It doesn’t help that with seven productions of Hamilton to oversee, that show’s achievements are always in his face. “It’s so good, so well-built, that it just messes you up—it’s really hard to figure out what kind of work to do next. Hamilton is so clean, so efficiently made—that’s one of the things that’s most intimidating. Efficiency is difficult.”

If Only Gold meanders a bit, it’s not because of the choreography. There was general agreement that the dances are superb and the dancers astounding—Tharp favorite Karine Plantadit, “So You Think You Can Dance” sensation Gaby Diaz, West Side Story veteran Ryan Steele, frequent Blankenbuehler collaborator Ryan VanDenBoom. But each of the 13 ensemble members was also a standout. Blankenbuehler himself couldn’t get over them.

“When you make a show,” he says, “you try to get different skill sets. Within an ensemble of, say, five men, one will be a very experienced partner, one does extraordinary things on the floor, one is eccentric and goofy—they do different things. So blocking is really hard. Figuring out who goes where, it’s ‘I have to get him stage right, because he sings this high note and then he has to do this lift.’ It’s a lot of work. But I didn’t have to worry, because they could all do everything.”

Naturally, he gave the ensemble wondrous things to do, which goes back to his experience dancing in Broadway choruses. He loved it, he says, but he longed to be something you can’t be in most Broadway ensembles: an individual. He wanted Only Gold to offer each an opportunity to “step forward” as a specific human being.

They play Parisians in the street when King Belenus (the majestic Terrence Mann) and his entourage arrive from their mythical homeland, and then become servants and jewelers and partygoers as the King, his lonely queen (Plantadit, riveting) and their headstrong daughter (Diaz, dazzling) contend over whom she will marry; the family becomes enmeshed with a talented watchmaker (VanDenBoom) and his musician wife (Hannah Cruz), who struggle with thwarted artistic ambitions. Nash, as the singing Narrator, announces the theme at the outset: “listening to your heart.” But making musicals also means listening to your head.

Blankenbuehler’s initial pitch to Nash was a black-and-white “mini-film” with swirling dancers in berets and such pairing off into flirty, French-flavored duets. When Nash agreed, he began the tinkering that would fill his downtime for the next decade and expand four minutes of dance to evening length.

“For, like, 10 years, it was really just a therapy project, me exercising my impulses,” he says. “When you’re making a new show, you’re problem-solving—not often using impulses that you dream about your whole life. All these years you’re learning this amazing tap rhythm over there, you have this amazing hip-hop class over here—things that create fires in you. But we’re hardly able to employ those things when we’re working.”

Teaching helped. “I was using my classes at Broadway Dance Center, each 45-second combination, as opportunities to experiment. My writing projects became the next step—me writing down the balletic ideas that I had in my head.” When a job came up, he’d stop, resuming after a show opened. “I’d teach a couple of the Only Gold dances in a class, and spend nights working on the script. It was a way to recharge my batteries.”

By 2013, it was ready for a lab, which he used to figure out if Only Gold was a ballet or a musical, and to learn that the songs needed more specificity if it was to be a musical. “And then the piece went away,” he says, “because of Hamilton, Cats, everything.” It stayed gone until 2018, when he did a four-week workshop of it that never got past the first act. But in a tantalizing showing, that first act had gorgeous, impassioned dancing from Seán Martin Hingston as the Maharaja and Alessandra Ferri as his first love, now the senior wife in a household that included Georgina Pazcoguin and Justice Moore as the younger wives. “Again, I continued to learn about it in different ways,” Blankenbuehler says, “and I was actually planning to stay focused on it.” But the Cats movie and the COVID-19 pandemic intervened, “and it really lost momentum,” he says.

In any case, he’d decided that the story needed to be clarified and the number of characters pared down. “The story I wanted to tell actually had nothing to do with polygamy,” he says. “It was about a person who simply had followed everything society and culture had told him would make him content and powerful. And he stopped listening to what would make himself happy.” So the Maharaja gave way to King Belenus and the wise eldest wife to Queen Roksana, while the wild youngest wife became Princess Tooba. The Parisians involved in various subplots remained, and in several cases, so did their casting, with Steele and VanDenBoom reprising their roles from the workshop.

The two months Blankenbuehler spent getting the piece onstage at MCC were the toughest of his career, he says, describing frantic, ridiculously long days and nights that nevertheless left him smiling. “I was so happy because I was getting to do the gutsy work I always wanted to do, but also, I was telling a story about heart. You know me—I have a real life, my family, my wife and my kids, and I want to tell a story that keeps going back to the heart.”

Then the critics arrived. He says he’d stopped reading reviews­ 12 years ago, but started again after the glowing notices for Hamilton. “That’s not smart; that’s not good,” he maintains. “This time around, I decided to not read the reviews.” But when everyone around him said, “You need to read the reviews,” he relented. Not surprisingly, he’s thought about them in the deep way he thinks about everything.

“The difficulty,” he notes, “is there’s lots of different things to be reviewed. There is emotional impact. There is the idea of using vocabulary in new ways. And the bottom line is people have a hard time talking about dance. So if I’m trying to do something where dance is integral to the storytelling, I have to know that most people who talk about it won’t be able to in a way that really does it justice.” His way of dealing? “You’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

Also, he adds, “I have my own criticism, so I keep working. I keep working until I can’t work anymore.” Even across the Atlantic, he’s pondering “the road map” to making Only Gold successful. “It’s not so much ‘Let’s change this scene.’ It’s bigger ideas, about how the audience should feel as they progress into the story.” And he’s also thinking about what a successful Only Gold would actually mean.

“There’s a line in the show about how you define success,” he says. “So I’m like, ‘Okay, Andy how do you define success?’ You wrote a show that was produced, and people said, ‘These are some of the best dances I’ve ever seen.’ And I also look at them with such pride. That should all be success. Unfortunately, I’m also the maker of the show, so figuring out how to define success is a big deal. For me, success isn’t: You run the show for four weeks and it goes into people’s hearts and minds and dies. It’s gone—that’s not success to me. Success to me is it keeps going.”

To that end, he thinks Only Gold might be perfected with a pickup cast and tour to venues like Sadler’s Wells, following Matthew Bourne’s example. What won’t change is that distinctive mix of music, dance and dialogue that characterizes even dance-driven musicals, though the reviews did prompt some soul-searching. “I went through several weeks of really asking myself questions, like ‘Do I need to forsake this goal of experimenting with this fusion of dance and theater?’ I don’t like dance theater—I like when people talk,” he says.

Still, he says he’s open to working with existing dance companies on new story ballets. “I have to tell a story,” he says. “An idea that has a beginning, a middle and an end.” And there are other limits: “I have to decide how much I’m willing to not dance. My ideas are only getting bigger. But my dancing’s not. I’m still dancing hard, but 10 years from now I’m not gonna be dancing that hard. So my ideas will still be detailed and specific, but my ability to envision that choreography won’t be.”

I remind him that many choreographers work well into their 80s, but he reminds me that they’re basically doing the same type of work year after year. “The difficulty is every show is different from the one before,” he notes. “I’m doing swing dancing one day and cheerleading the next.”

And Paris in the ’20s the next. “Now,” he says, “my job is to be really honest with myself: Can I make Only Gold really a great show? I don’t want to make a good show; I want to make a great show. What’s so interesting with a piece like this is when something works really well, you have to go into surgery saying, ‘Okay, how can I not touch that organ?’ ”

An earlier version of this article appeared on dancemagazine.com on November 23, 2022. 

The post Andy Blankenbuehler Opens Up About <i>Only Gold</i> and the Road Ahead appeared first on Dance Magazine.

I also recall the frenzied anticipation that attended its arrival­ in 1988—it was A Chorus Line all over again, Hamilton before Hamilton. When someone asked, “Have you seen it yet?” there was only one show they could be talking about—it seemed you just hadn’t lived if you hadn’t experienced that swooping chandelier, that magical boat ride on a candlelit underground lake and Michael Crawford’s diabolically seductive singing of “The Music of the Night.” When the season ended, Phantom snagged 10 Tony nominations and won seven awards, including Best Musical.

I don’t know if the show feels quite as sensational to the people lining up outside the theater these days—some for the umpteenth time. They are part of a worldwide audience that now comes to more than 145 million who’ve bought tickets to productions in 17 languages to watch Christine swoon for the Phantom while Raoul swoons for her. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical is a proven commodity, a theatrical sure thing, and it’s not just the most-seen show in Broadway’s history. It has also made more money and employed more New Yorkers—about 6,500 in all, some 400 on the stage, many of them ex-bunheads dancing the late Gillian Lynne’s choreography.

One of them was Carly Blake Sebouhian, who was finishing up at School of American Ballet but couldn’t see herself fitting into a ballet company. So she took singing lessons and auditioned for theater, joining the Phantom cast in 2003. She had just turned 19 and was by far its youngest dancer. Now, nearly 20 years later, she reckons she’s the oldest. She’s left the show to do other projects—“It’s a unique thing to be able to expand your creative muscles and do something brand-new,” she says—but only briefly. “They always let people return, which is really cool. So even though there are people in and out all the time, it’s sort of always the same people—like this big, giant family.” In an industry where most jobs are short-lived, the myriad ballet dancers who’ve cycled in and out of its casts—whether in London, New York or the 181 other cities it’s played—have come, like the audience, to rely on The Phantom of the Opera.

It may be difficult to wrap our brains around its absence, but it’s no trouble to envision the art of the musical if it had never come along—which is not what you would say about other landmark shows. There’s a through line running from Oklahoma! to West Side Story to A Chorus Line that traces the growing importance of a musical’s choreography to its storytelling. With Contact and Movin’ Out, Susan Stroman and Twyla Tharp took that model even further, entrusting those shows’ narratives entirely to the dance. For me, that line has always represented progress, and despite the quantity and quality of Lynne’s work, Phantom stands firmly—proudly, even—outside it.

The story could hardly be told without a ballet chorus. Gaston Leroux’s lurid 1910 novel begins backstage with terrified young dancers fleeing the ghost they’ve heard rumors about, and when the Phantom finally shows up, his first words are “The ballet-girls are right.” At the start of the renowned 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney, the curtain of the Paris Opéra rises on nearly four dozen dancers in Romantic­ tutus waltzing on pointe. Despite this ballet-centric­ setting, the musical’s choreography turns out to be quite extraneous—it provides lavish entertainment, along with the late Maria Björnson’s opulent sets and costumes and the sure-handed direction of the late Harold Prince. But Phantom’s dance numbers recall those in old-style musicals and, indeed, in the 19th-century operas that are part of the plot.

It’s peculiar, but not really surprising. For all their talent and decades of experience, Prince and Lloyd Webber were never among the theater artists who saw dance as the primary driver of musicals—although, ironically enough, as a fledgling producer, Prince was instrumental in bringing West Side Story to the stage. Working together and separately, on shows large and small, Prince and Lloyd Webber made work that focused on what a veteran of Broadway ensembles once described to me as “park and bark”—musicals where the dances are decorative interludes between songs and book scenes. And with Prince’s history-making “concept” musicals, like Company and Sweeney Todd, and Lloyd Webber’s history-making spectacles, like Cats and Phantom, that work has been vastly influential.

So you have to wonder, looking at a Phantom-less Broadway, what the next record-shattering behemoth will look like. The last 10 years of Tony winners run the gamut—they are romantic extravaganzas (Moulin Rouge!) and serious chamber pieces (The Band’s Visit); they use choreography in ways traditional (Kinky Boots) and bold (A Strange Loop); they are dance-heavy (Hamilton) and dance-light (Fun Home). For some of the nearly 20 million theatergoers who have seen Phantom at the Majestic, it’s been the thrill of a lifetime, their one exposure to a ravishing art form that New Yorkers often take for granted. For others, it’s been an obsession, a regular injection of an essential drug. And, of course, there are the haters, who see its success as proof that tourists are just too ignorant to appreciate Sondheim. For me, it’s been a constant reminder that when it comes to Broadway musicals, the work is never finished—Phantom was neither the apogee of the form nor a trashy entertainment for the masses. And I hope all of the above are eager to see what comes next. For Lloyd Webber, what comes next is Bad Cinderella, an updated, sardonic version of the fairy tale with choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter (School of Rock—The Musical). Its first preview is the day before Phantom closes. Fingers crossed. .

The post What Has <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> Meant for Dance and Dancers on Broadway? appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Walker’s Broadway debut was in On the Town at age 16; he went on to dance in Ambassador and Lorelei as well as in Fosse’s The Pajama Game, Pippin and Dancin’ before moving to Los Angeles to teach and perform in commercials. He returned to Broadway to perform in the 1986 revival of Sweet Charity, Fosse’s final production before his death. In 1998, Walker co-conceived and recreated choreography for the tribute musical Fosse, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1999. In 2013, he was nominated for a Tony for his choreography for the revival of Pippin. 

Walker choreographed and taught Fosse style jazz all over the world, including spending nearly 20 years directing the musical theater program at Jacob’s Pillow. At the time of his death, Walker was at work on two new musicals: Feelin’ in the Mood, The Glenn Miller Musical and Jack Cole, The Musical. (Walker also worked to codify Cole’s work.) 

A public memorial will be held at a later date.

Header photo by Nathan Johnson, courtesy Michael Moore Agency.

The post Honoring Chet Walker (1954-2022) appeared first on Dance Magazine.