With his debonair charm and fluent feet, Tony Yazbeck seems built for ebullient men like Gabey in On the Town, who earned him a 2015 Tony nomination. But he’s riding high at the moment dancing nervous breakdowns. First, there was his fierce, knife-edged tapping in Prince of Broadway, which just won him a Chita Rivera […]

Conscientious theatergoers may be familiar with The School for Scandal, The School for Wives and School of Rock. But how many are also aware of the school of Fosse? The 1999 musical, a posthumous exploration of the choreographic career of Bob Fosse, ran for 1,093 performances, winning four Tonys and 10 nominations; employing 32 dancers; […]

The closing months of the 2016–17 season brought a glut of extraordinary music and dance to Broadway’s stages, and the superabundance has left 2017–18 looking a bit anemic. Partly it’s real estate—there are only so many Broadway theaters; in June, nearly three dozen were occupied. The only musical scheduled to open this summer was Prince […]

Apart from having won the Tony Award for best choreography, the dances in Damn Yankees, West Side Story and the 1994 revival of Show Boat have little in common. Not the choreographers—Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins and Susan Stroman—or the composers—Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, Leonard Bernstein, and Jerome Kern. Not the dancers, either—the standouts were […]

I first got hooked on Broadway musicals as a preteen at Gypsy, with its tapping moppets, gyrating burlesque queens and Tulsa, the dancing heartthrob. I’ve been going ever since, but Dance Magazine has been at it even longer. The 1926-27 Broadway season was just ending when DM began publication, and of its 200-plus shows, dozens […]

  Flying High NASHVILLE Look up, Nashville: Bay Area vertical dance company BANDALOOP is taking over downtown buildings on Oct. 6. The special event will kick off the company’s performances of Harboring at the city’s new contemporary arts venue, OZ, where dancers will hang from three different spaces as audiences are guided from one room […]

What makes choreography compelling? Whether you consider a work’s musicality or steps, formations or narrative, it often comes down to one thing: the element of surprise. Justin Peck is a master of this. He’ll bring two partners together for what seems like the beginning of a sumptuous lift—and then have them take off in opposite […]

Susan Stroman’s visual wit makes her a natural for adapting Woody Allen.   Stroman rehearses ensemble members. All photos by Paul Kolnik, Courtesy Bullets. Little old ladies cutting loose with their walkers in The Producers. A total klutz tangling his arms and legs around the fabulously lithe Girl in a Yellow Dress in Contact. A […]