Chita Rivera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DlCbVELkS8&t=171s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9udhojGtO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJWBJgXuhcc A Broadway legend left us this week when Chita Rivera died at 91. In an era when every singer, dancer and actor talked about becoming “an all-round entertainer”, Chita really was. Although she did movies and television and cabaret, she was the quintessential Broadway stage leading lady. Chita was the original everything and if we may be forgiven for our memories connecting primarily with her Anita in the original cast of West Side Story, think next of Sweet Charity, Kiss of the Spider Woman, all the other Broadway shows, above all Chicago. Chita Rivera was nominated for the Tony Award ten times, as either Best Featured Actress in a Musical or Best Actress in a Musical. This is the current record for the most individual Tony Award nominations for a performer along with a mantlepiece full of awards including the Presidential Medal of Honor and her much prized Tony for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Tributes have been pouring in for this great lady of the theatre so it makes sense to me to make the Theatrewise tribute a look at the lady herself, doing what she did almost better than anyone else. The three links above are for an early television cabaret number from Porgy and Bess (I Got Plenty of Nuthin’), an unusual glimpse of Chita as a singer (How Lucky Can You Get) and two glorious numbers from Chicago (All That Jazz and Nowadays) with that other great musical theatre dance star, Gwen Verdon, also no longer with us, with whom Chita had an almost unworldly connection. They were the first cast of Chicago and, together, they were magic. For dance lovers, if you watch carefully, you can see the slight differences of style between these two great show dancers, even when they’re dancing the same steps at the same time. Verdon is tighter, more closely adhering to the Fosse discipline of arms, hips, knees, Rivera is looser, more improvisatory, even within the confines of a strict unison choreography. Sadly, when her great stage roles were filmed, it was movie stars who got her parts so there is very little video of a solo Chita Rivera. Nothing even from her unforgettable West Side Story performance. We can see Rita Moreno’s Anita but not Chita’s, who originated the role. No matter, we can love her with others nearly as well. And we’ve forgotten those movie stars who thought they were replacing her when all they did was to remind us of who we were missing. We’ll never forget you, Chita, as long as we can enjoy these and remember what a remarkable “all-round entertainer” you were. Jim Caruso’s Cast Party Click here for tickets Regular readers know that, whenever I’m in my other home town, New York, I never miss Jim Caruso’s Cast Party at Birdland “The Jazz Corner of the World”), the famous jazz and cabaret room on the corner of 44th St and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. This is a weekly talent celebration that has been going every Monday at Birdland for the past twenty years and it’s great fun both to attend and to perform at. If you’re a singer who happens to find yourself there, dust off your sheet music, warm up those vocal cords and join the Party. Jim Caruso’s Cast Party is a wildly popular weekly open mic night that has brought a sprinkling of Broadway glitz and urbane wit to the legendary Birdland in New York City every Monday night since 2004. It’s a hilariously impromptu variety show in which showbiz superstars hit the stage alongside up-and-comers, serving jaw-dropping music and general razzle-dazzle. Cast Party is the ultimate spot to mix and mingle with talented show folk and their fans. The buoyant, sharp and charming Caruso guides the entire affair, while pianist Billy Stritch holds court at the ivories and leads the Cast Party Symphony Orchestra (Tom Hubbard on bass and Daniel Glass on drums). The best part is that the audience is invited to participate in the musical festivities. Whether you want to perform, or just sit back and be entertained by some wildly talented people, Cast Party is THE place to be. This Monday, Feb 6, Cast Party is going worldwide with a livestream that starts at the regular time, 9.30pm EST, 2.30am UK Time, but available for 48hours thereafter so those of us not on the US East Coast and unwilling to wait up for the 2.30am start can still join in the fun. Online price over here £14.13 Song And Dance – Sarah Brightman/ Wayne Sleep Click here to watch One of my regular contributers, Adele, found this curiousity online and lobbed it over my transom. I watched it all the way through and although I have grave doubts about the staging, (you’ll see, very old-fashioned and cramped) I had forgotten what an unusual show Song and Dance was. In a nutshell, Song and Dance is a musical comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", loosely tied together by a unifying love story. Originally staged in the West End in 1982, it only became a single show when the two one-person shows - Tell Me On A Sunday, a song cycle for Marti Webb by lyricist Don Black and Andrew Lloyd Webber about an English girl in New York, and Variations, a solo piece composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his brother, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber - were combined. This version, only two years later in 1984, starred Andrew’s new wife, singer Sarah Brightman and Royal Ballet principal, Wayne Sleep. Brightman was originally a show dancer and it was only subsequent to her relationship with the composer that she metamorphosed into a West End singer and leading lady, principally in The Phantom of the Opera, written for her by Lloyd Webber. Until I saw this version of Song and Dance I had forgotten what a spectacularly good dancer Wayne Sleep was. He carries nearly all of Variations, choreographed by Anthony van Laast, before being joined by a team of dancers including Graham Fletcher, Sandy Strallen, Linda Mae Brewer and Jane Darling. Had Wayne Sleep been taller I believe he would have become the leading British soloist at the Royal Ballet but he grew only to be 5’2”, the shortest male dancer ever admitted into the Royal Ballet School. Because of his diminutive stature, many directors were reluctant to cast him in traditional male leading roles although he was promoted to Senior Principal Dancer and performed mainly character solos in major ballets. As if in compensation, many roles were created for him by noted choreographers, such as Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Ninette de Valois, Rudolf Nureyev, Gillian Lynne, and others. Perhaps it was only when he left the Royal Ballet and branched out on his own in a variety of dance experiments, did we understand how prodigiously talented he was. His big chance came in this unlikely hit, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance. Anthony van Laast’s choreography for him in this show was perfectly designed for Sleep’s many strengths and his height, in this instance, was no impediment. These days Song and Dance is a curiousity but well worth watching, if only to enjoy the precision and warmth of Wayne Sleep’s performance. Shirley Temple’s Lollypop Click here to watch Click here to watch It’s a decade since the death on February 10, 2014, of American actress, singer and diplomat, Shirley Temple. Best known as Hollywood's leading child star in the 1930s, she was 6-years old when she sang her best known song in the movie Bright Eyes in 1934. The idea of whether a 6-year old should have been working this hard or carrying a whole movie on her name didn’t occur to ‘30s studio execs or audiences, nor apparently that there’s something a little unsavoury about singing this song surrounded and manhandled by a group of men. I prefer this second clip, which truly shows her talent, with the great Bill Bojangles Robinson from The Littlest Rebel. Of course the racism involved in this one doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone either. Shirley Temple Black was a highly intelligent woman who outlived her movie past and grew up to be a distinguished diplomat, serving as United States ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and Chief of Protocol of the United States.
1 Comment
Cathy Thomas
6/2/2024 12:54:10 pm
Many decades ago I used to go to stretch classes at London's Pineapple studios. One of the class leaders was a male ballet dancer. One day we were just about to begin when the door opened and who should walk in but..............Wayne Sleep! We all gasped, the two men squealed and embraced each other. They had a brief chat and apologised to the class. It turned out that they had been at ballet school together and had not seen each other for a while. We didn't mind the interruption - we were mesmerised.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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