ON THE TOWN- today

[CukorLover]

Looks perfectly respectable, yet seems to lack any true star power.
It's a Helluva Town! Watch a Sneak Peek of Broadway-Bound ON THE TOWN

[PalJoey]

The production was thrilling in its earlier incarnation at Barrington Stage.

The three male leads are perfection, especially Tony Yazbeck--who finally has Gene Kelly-ish roile in which to display his Gene Kelly-ish talents.

And as for star power--the one new member of the starring sextet is genuine ballet royalty.I can't wait to see her do those ballets!

[CukorLover]

I bet it did look great on that intimate Barrington Stage. I imagine they're banking on the dancing to pull this one off, and I agree that Fairchild will be stunning regardless of the total production. Let's hope all that "storytelling" makes it past the footlights in that barn of a theatre.

[CATSNYrevival]

Hopefully it won't need stars, although Jay Armstrong Johnson is a star to me.

[ACL2006]

This looks great, yet I don't see it lasting long due to playing at The Lyric.

[lovebwy]

I may just have to make a trip to NY to see this.

Are they using the original Robbins choreography?

[Fan123]

Here's some more footage from the same press rehearsal at Playbill.com.

BTW, Joshua Bergasse is apparently choreographing.

Link

[PalJoey]

Bergasse did a miraculous job in creating all that choreography completely in the spirit of Jerome Robbins--including the four ballets!--and also incorporating the spirit of the Gene Kelly choreography from the movie.

I'm a Robbins purist--and I found the whole production entirely delightful.

[madbrian]

Just picked up great, discounted tickets for 9/22, which I think is the second preview. Can't wait.

[Smaxie]

I seem to recall that Robbins' original On the Town choreography is lost. I think what he did for Jerome Robbins' Broadway was an attempt to recreate as much as possible, from collective memory.

[PalJoey]

Preserving the dances from collective memory was part of the reason for Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

I think this On The Town will do just fine in the big theater. It's a big show, with a big score (and a big orchestra to play it), and the cast may not have big names but they are HUGE on talent.

[macnyc]

I'm really looking forward to this. I hope TDF get tickets.

[EricMontreal22]

According to several Robbins' bios, the choreography is indeed lost. When he did the OTT part of Jerome Robbins' Broadway, he and others worked from memory, but many have said even that was by no means faithful to the letter (but was faithful to the spirit.) I believe Encores! bssed some of their choreography on the JRB stuff...

[Kad]

"the cast may not have big names but they are HUGE on talent."

Too bad the production is short on cash.

[Famebroadway2]

Does anyone know if they expanding the physical production? That stage is MASSIVE and IIRC the production at Barrington was more intimate.

[everythingtaboo]

Now that the Lyric has been restored back to it's original state, including the original proscenium, the stage doesn't feel quite as big as Spider-Man might trick the memory into recalling. From what I can tell from glancing as I've walked by daily, they've added a bit of a fake proscenium which looks like it's made from (or at least appear to be made of) the same plexiglass the rest of the set uses. So while I can't compare to the Barrington set, I'm guessing it might be a big bigger but not by much. Maybe with lighting it'll made it feel even "bigger."

[EricMontreal22]

Wait--Jackie mentions the show is hip and their "bookwriters" have updated it (the ghosts of Comden and Green?) Was there a new book credit when this production was done before? I'm just curious how much the script has been tweaked.

[EricMontreal22]

I will say that watching clips of the production last year, and this rehearsal clips, it undeniably looks a lot better than the last revival (which I gather did work much better in Central Park than on Broadway.) The scenery obviously will be completely different (I mean even Papermill's so/so design would be a massive improvement than cardboard cutouts,) and the rehearsal shows a larger chorus. I take it they don't use a dance/dream Gaby (ie The Great Lover) for the big second act ballet, but Yazbeck himself? Honestly, I wish someone would re-use Oliver Smith's original designs--the colour photos of it at the NYPL digital archive are *gorgeous*.

And I finally realized that I saw Jay Armstrong Johnson and Clyde Alves on tour in A Chorus Line.