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Broadway Rewind: Broadway Comes Out to Celebrate Living Legend, Chita Rivera!

by BroadwayWorld TV Apr. 4, 2020

As Broadway remains dark, BroadwayWorld wants to make sure that you still get your theatre fix each and every day until it's back. In our daily series Broadway Rewind, we're uncovering footage from the depths of our archives so that you can relive magical moments of Broadway past!

"This episode of Broadway Rewind is such a treat', says BroadwayWorld's own Richard Ridge, 'because it has CHITA!' We also visit with the cast of Tom Stoppard's play, Rock N' Roll which starred Brian Cox, Rufus Sewell, but we start things off ay the first day of rehearsal for Tracy Letts' groundbreaking play, August: Osage County, which came to Broadway following a sold-out run at Steppenwolf. Tracy talked about bringing the play to Broadway and the Chicago audience's reactions to the play 'It's exciting. Broadway is all so new to me, so we will see what happens. The audience's reactions far exceeded my greatest expectations. Very loud and very raucous and they were talking a lot, which normally isn't a good thing but, they were talking to each other, strangers were talking to each other about the play, as the play was unfolding in front of them in a very interesting and engaged way. It was very exciting to see.'"

"It was then on to the opening night of Tony award winning playwright Tom Stoppard's play Rock N' Roll, which was directed by Tony Award winner Trevor Nunn. Stoppard was celebrating his 40th anniversary on Broadway. He told me, ' or years and years , I had this thought that I should write a sort of pseudo autobiography because I'm Czech and I didn't go back to Czechoslovakia after the war and I was thinking maybe I'd write a play about myself, if I'd gone back. A parallel life. I didn't do that play, but the remnants of that became part of this one.'

We close things out with the legend herself, Chita Rivera, as we drop by her star-studded opening night at Feinstein's at the Loews Regency. Ann Reinking summed up the evening, 'It was very emotional. What an amazing woman. There are special people, and she's a special person and special isn't special unless it's rare and she dances better than anybody. I was young, and she danced better than me, I was middle age, and she danced better than me! It was absolutely perfect.'