Kevin Winkler News

As a way of introducing myself as the new DANCE REVIEWER for Broadway World L. A., I am reporting on an historic event in which I participated at St. Luke's Theatre on March 26th, 2018 in NYC: the 40th-year anniversary and reunion of the cast members of the opening of Tony Award-Winning Bob Fosse's DANCIN' on Broadway at The Broadhurst Theatre on March 27, 1978.

Tony Award-winning actress BEBE NEUWIRTH will host the 40th Anniversary and reunion of the original cast of Bob Fosse's DANCIN' on March 26th at 7 PM at St. Luke's Theatre, 308 West 46th Street, NYC. The evening, presented by Dancers Over 40, will feature members of the original Broadway cast as well as others that joined the show during the run. Ms. Neuwirth appeared in DANCIN' during the final four months of the Broadway engagement.

DANCIN' opened on Broadway on March 27, 1978 and ran for four years, and was Bob Fosse's only all-dancing and all-singing musical. To mark this historic event, Dancers Over 40 will assemble a spectacular 'once-in-a-lifetime' panel of original cast members almost exactly to the day of their 1978 debut - March 26, 2018, 7pm at St. Luke's Theater, 308 West 46th Street.

Wednesday, March 23rd, DO40 brings together gypsies from many generations (and many who are DO40 members) to celebrate all things Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon at St. Luke's Theater, 308 West 46th Street, 7pm.  Featured throughout the evening:  Nicole Fosse, Valarie Pettiford, Harvey Evans, Dana Moore, Lloyd Culbreath, Gene Foote, George Marcy, Diana Laurenson, Dick Korthaze, Pam Sousa and Mimi Quillin.  DO40 members Kevin Winkler and John Gilvey are both more than half way through writing their books on this dynamic duo and they will discuss how they came to write about them in a special panel with Nicole Fosse, and a Q & A during the segment.   Winker's book is titled Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical, and Gilvey's, Brains and Talent: The Life and Allure of Legendary Entertainer Gwen Verdon.  We are working with the Fosse/Verdon Legacy, LLC to bring you more information on their workshops, and present a moving history, through the eyes (and feet!) of those who knew them best: Broadway dancers.  

Monday, October 21st was a luminous night for DO40, panelists, performers - and especially the sold-out audience who attended Dancers Over 40's latest panel and performance, this time honoring Director/Choreographer Ron Field. Along with seven members from the original production, on hand were Marge Champion, Sandy Duncan & Don Correia, Joel Grey, Donna McKechnie, Lee Roy Reams and Ben Vereen. A star-studded night, indeed for DO40!

As an undergraduate theater major in the early 1970s, I heard music everywhere. It seemed to pour out of every office and workspace around the department. (And in the LP era, if you wanted more than the radio, this meant schlepping a twenty pound record player and a dozen or so albums from your home to the campus, sometimes requiring back-and-forth trips from the car. If you go to that much trouble, you want to keep the music playing.) In the hushed costume shop with its quietly industrious all female staff, Broadway ruled, with Stephen Sondheim's recent Company and Follies in heavy rotation. It was 'men only' in the scene shop where I listened to male balladeers like James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot while unhappily working off assigned crew hours. Jazz classes (my favorites) in the dance department were conducted to the pre-disco sounds of Isaac Hayes and the Temptations. And late night cast parties were never complete without spins of Bette Midler's first two albums.