PBS’ third annual “Broadway’s Best” series starts tonight, and this year’s edition is a treat for dance lovers. The 2019 lineup features five shows: three are Broadway musicals, one’s a West End play and the fifth is a taping from The Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park, with movement by a big-name choreographer. Each […]
The 20-somethings doing Broadway Dance Lab’s first-ever Choreography Summer Intensive ended their recent tour of Lincoln Center’s New York Public Library for the Performing Arts with something special. In the seminar room, Tony-winning choreographer Christopher Gattelli awaited them with a conference table laden with Broadway treasures from the library’s collection. Decades-old original sketches and black-and-white […]
Christopher Gattelli describes his latest cast as “unicorns,” because he can’t believe they exist. “It blows my mind, what they can do,” he says. “They can do everything.” They have to. Their characters belong to no species generally known to dance on Broadway—a crab, a squirrel, a starfish, a snail and, you guessed it, a […]
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 […]
Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe in The King and I’s pivotal “Shall We Dance?” number. Paul Kolnik, Courtesy The King and I What makes a musical magical? Anyone who’s ever been cast in a new musical will attest to the fact that there’s virtually no guarantee that it’s going to be any good. You may love […]
The King and I returns to the stage. The 1977 production of “The King and I.” © 1977 Jack Mitchell, Highberger Media, Inc. A lot has changed on Broadway since 1951, when the now-classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I opened. Christopher Gattelli, who’s in charge of the movement for the Lincoln Center […]