Dance in the Broadway Musicals of Shakespeare

2019 ◽  
pp. 302-326
Author(s):  
Ray Miller
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
West Side ◽  
Stephen Sondheim ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
West Side Story ◽  
Broadway Musicals ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Shakespeare’s plays have served as inspiration for a score of Broadway musicals. These musicals have contributed to the development of the musical theater libretto from a loose collection of sketches to an integrated “book musical” that equally values text, music, design, directing, and dance. While many are familiar with some of the most popular hits from those shows—including “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” from the Cole Porter’s musical, Kiss Me, Kate, or the balcony scene song, “Maria,” from the Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim collaboration, West Side Story, the contribution of choreographers and dancers to the translation of Shakespeare-inspired music, text, and scenography to the musical theater stage has not received due scholarly attention. This chapter considers the partnership between text and dance in selected Broadway musicals that have been based on the works of Shakespeare, focusing on choreography for musicals by George Balanchine, Hanya Holm, and Jerome Robbins.

The Ballad of John Latouche

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Pollack
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
Carson Mccullers ◽  
Frank O'hara ◽  
Stephen Sondheim ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Baby Doe ◽  
Ned Rorem ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

Born into a poor Virginian family, John Treville Latouche (1914–1956), in his short life, made a profound mark on America’s musical theater as a lyricist and librettist. The wit and skill of his lyrics elicited comparisons with the likes of Ira Gershwin and Lorenz Hart, but he had too, as Stephen Sondheim noted, “a large vision of what musical theater could be,” and he proved especially venturesome in helping to develop a lyric theater that innovatively combined music, word, dance, and costume and set design. Many of his pieces, even if not commonly known today, remain high points in the history of American musical theater, including Cabin in the Sky (1940), Beggar’s Holiday (1946), The Golden Apple (1954), The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956), and Candide (1956). Extremely versatile, he also wrote cabaret songs, participated in documentary and avant-garde film, translated poetry, and adapted plays. Meanwhile, as one of Manhattan’s most celebrated raconteurs and hosts, he established friendships with many notables, including Paul and Jane Bowles, Carson McCullers, Frank O’Hara, Dawn Powell, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, and Gore Vidal—a dazzling constellation of diverse artists all attracted to Latouche’s brilliance and joie de vivre, not to mention his support for their work. This book draws widely on archival collections both at home and abroad, including Latouche’s diaries and the papers of such collaborators as Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Douglas Moore, and Jerome Moross to tell for the first time the story of this fascinating man and his work.

Justin Peck

2021 ◽  
pp. 771-788
Author(s):  
Mindy Aloff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Side ◽  
Steven Spielberg ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
West Side Story ◽  
Dance Companies

Justin Peck, barely thirty, not only is the resident choreographer at New York City Ballet (NYCB) but also is in demand by dance companies throughout the United States and in Europe. He received a Tony Award for his choreography for the 2018 Broadway production of Carousel, and Steven Spielberg hired him to choreograph Spielberg’s new film of West Side Story. This chapter focuses on Everywhere We Go, the spectacular “epic” that Peck and indie composer Sufjan Stevens made for NYCB in 2014, including discussions of Peck’s musicality, his composition of duets and use of sneakers in some dances, and influences he acknowledges from the works of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. At the end is an essay by Peck from 2008, “How to Become an Artist.”

Robbins, Jerome (1918–1998)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia L. Foulkes
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
York City ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
West Side ◽  
West Side Story ◽  
Combine Movement ◽  
Goldberg Variations ◽  
Artistic Director ◽  
The Town

Jerome Robbins was one of the master choreographers of the twentieth century who transformed musical theater and ballet. Beginning with Fancy Free (1944), Robbins left his mark on both disciplines by his use of humor and character, and by his ability to combine movement originating in multiple idioms. This auspicious beginning led to more ballets—Interplay (1945), Afternoon of a Faun (1953), and The Concert (1956)—as well as a number of hit Broadway shows: On the Town (1944), West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), and Fiddler on the Roof (1964). He traversed different genres with ease, moving from Broadway to ballet, dance to choreography, and then to directing plays, films, and television programmes. Although he made his earliest ballets for Ballet Theatre (now the American Ballet Theatre), his longest affiliation was with the New York City Ballet, where he was appointed associate artistic director in 1949, and to which—after a hiatus of more than a decade—he returned in 1969 to choreograph some of his most acclaimed ballets, including Dances at a Gathering (1969) and The Goldberg Variations (1971). Robbins’s work often defined the historic moment, marrying music, movement, and expression with such quality and intensity that his works have endured as historical and artistic landmarks.

Taking the Reins

2021 ◽  
pp. 106-144
Author(s):  
Liza Gennaro
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Peter Pan ◽  
West Side ◽  
West Side Story ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Artistic Vision ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Bob Fosse

The genesis of the present-day director-choreographer, starting with de Mille’s role as director-choreographer on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ill-fated Allegro (1947), is explored. How she employed dance as a narrative and metaphorical device in support of the allegorical structure of the libretto, and how her artistic vision conflicted with her collaborators is investigated. De Mille’s directorial oeuvre is considered in the context of the male-dominated world of Broadway. Robbins’ ascendance as the most influential director-choreographer of twentieth-century musical theater is examined in a close analysis of his choreography for and direction of Pajama Game (1954 [co-directed with George Abbott, co-choreographer Bob Fosse]), Peter Pan (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956 [in which he collaborated with Bob Fosse]), Gypsy (1959), and Fiddler on the Roof (1964). West Side Story (1957) will be discussed here as an anomaly in Robbins’ musical theater career. I argue that Robbins’ interest in movement innovation in relation to his choreography for the “Jets” in West Side Story (1957) differs from his previous musical theater works. In addition, I will examine Robbins’ West Side Story collaboration with co-choreographer Peter Gennaro.

Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Steichen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Broadway Musicals

George Balanchine is today one of the most celebrated figures in twentieth-century ballet and is closely identified with the two institutions he helped found in collaboration with Lincoln Kirstein: the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet. During the early years of their efforts in the 1930s, Balanchine and Kirstein’s enterprise underwent numerous changes and transformations. The complexity of their endeavors has been misrepresented in many existing accounts of their lives and careers, in part because their activities have not been assessed as a whole. This book chronicles Balanchine’s and Kirstein’s work between 1933 and 1940 in the spheres of ballet, opera, Broadway musicals, and Hollywood cinema. This new account shows the ways in which their collective and individual efforts influenced and affected one another and ultimately shaped the character of the institutions they would eventually found. The work of the short-lived organizations the American Ballet (1935–38) and Ballet Caravan (1936–40) brought together dozens of dancers and collaborators, and the activity of these companies was closely related to work of the School of American Ballet as well as Balanchine’s projects in Broadway musical theater and film.

Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story (review)

Notes ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-533
Author(s):  
Lars Helgert
Keyword(s):  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
West Side ◽  
West Side Story

Critical Reflections on the Operatic Canon

2020 ◽  
pp. 524-533
Author(s):  
John Rockwell
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
George Frideric Handel ◽  
Early Music ◽  
West Side ◽  
Half Century ◽  
West Side Story ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Music Revival ◽  
Critical Reflections

This chapter looks back at the core canon in opera, tracing its evolution and mutation during the half century when its author served as a professional critic and then festival director. The chapter sees the core canon as either fixed or shrinking over the last ninety years. The public’s resistance to Modernist dissonance led to an explosion of repertory in areas immediately outside what had been the traditional canon. The need for novelty has been sated by directorial innovation (Regietheater), the early music revival (with George Frideric Handel the principal operatic beneficiary), and the ceaseless search for new curiosities to revive from the past. Moreover, the operatic canon has been enlarged by lighter forms of musical theater (West Side story and Sweeney Todd) and also by influence from non-Western cultures bearing their own canonic traditions and repertories. This chapter is paired with Kasper Holten’s “Inside and outside the operatic canon, on stage and in the boardroom.”

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