Dancin'


Dancin is a musical revue created, directed, and choreographed by Bob Fosse and originally produced on Broadway in 1978. The plotless, dance-driven revue is a tribute to the art of dance, matched with a wide variety of music styles, from classical to jazz to American pop songs. The original production received seven 1978 Tony Award nominations, with Fosse winning for best choreography.
Original cast member Wayne Cilento helmed the first Broadway revival in 2023.

Concept and development

In summer 1977, with the development of his film All That Jazz on hold, Fosse decided to eschew collaborators and create a new musical without a story or script, constructed entirely from pre-existing songs, using his choreography as the "words". Fosse witnessed Michael Bennett's tremendous success with the dance-focused musical A Chorus Line, but observed that it actually featured very little dancing in proportion to its talking and singing. For many years Fosse had been working toward choreographing a full ballet, first for the Harkness Ballet in New York, and later, for the Joffrey Ballet, most likely out of a desire to achieve the same status as ballet-turned-Broadway choreographers Jerome Robbins and Agnes DeMille, thinking a ballet would "legitimize" him because it was considered a "serious art form" compared to musical theatre dance.
However, despite negotiating for a decade with Robert Joffrey, Fosse's ballet never moved beyond the idea stage.
Instead, Fosse's concept for this new show was to use classical and show music, popular music, rock and roll, Mozart, Bach, George M. Cohan, and contemporary music by Neil Diamond and Melissa Manchester, anything except a new score written by a collaborator. He stated publicly that the project would free him from the burden of an artistic partnership: "When you have collaborators, you have all those midnight meetings. I'm tired of those... So I just decided to meet myself at midnight." In a contemporaneous interview, Fosse told the Bulletin: "With a heart attack behind me, I just didn't feel I could spend time on a book musical... that kind of show takes about three years to do. I didn't have those years to sit with a composer and to evolve a book. So I went with music that was already published and forgot about story." Later, on the opening night of Dancin, famed librettist Alan Jay Lerner sent Fosse a telegram that said: "You finally did it. You got rid of the author".
Fosse started working on the show in August 1977; intimidated by the idea of having to choreograph two hours worth of material, he asked dancer and choreographer Graciela Daniele to contribute a few numbers to the show, but she declined, saying: "When you are out of ideas, call me. I have the feeling that once you get into it, you're going to want to do it all." He didn't call, eventually devising choreography for the entire show, except for the finale, "Yankee Doodle Disco", which was choreographed by cast member Christopher Chadman. That month, Variety reported that Fosse's all new dance revue would be called Dancers– the title eventually changed to Dancin, with the subtitle "A New Musical Entertainment". For his cast, Fosse saw over 1,000 dancers during auditions, settling on 16, including his muse, Ann Reinking; Charles Ward, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre; Edward Love, who had danced with Alvin Ailey; Fosse stalwarts Christopher Chadman, John Mineo, and Richard Korthaze; and new members of the Fosse family like Wayne Cilento.
Three months of rehearsal began at the end of 1977: on the first day, Fosse told the assembled cast: "This is a show about dancing. You have to love to dance, or you should not be in this show. If you do not love it, get out, please. It's going to be hard work for the next three months. You're going to be exhausted, but that's what this show is about."
Despite the lack of creative partners, Fosse still had to negotiate with his co-producer Bernard Jacobs, the president of The Shubert Organization. While the show was out of town in Boston, Jacobs objected to the old-fashioned, literal minded Broadway-style ballet "Big City Mime", which depicted a tourist in Time Square coming in contact with prostitutes, massage parlors, and dance halls. Jacobs also objected to "The Dream Barre", another more risqué number featuring Ann Reinking and Charles Ward. Fosse bowed to Jacobs on "Big City Mime", cutting the number, but stood his ground on "The Dream Barre", which would remain in the show until being cut years later on tour. The rest of the show's numbers impressed audiences, and because Fosse co-produced the show, it became his biggest financial success in the theatre.

Original Broadway production

Following its out of town tryout in Boston, Dancin opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on March 27, 1978. It later transferred to the Ambassador Theatre, and closed on June 27, 1982, after 1,774 performances. Dancin was a milestone musical for dancers, both artistically and financially; for the first time ever, the entire company of a Broadway show was given principal contracts under Equity, which meant higher salaries. It was a very strenuous show; injuries were common, and the dancers were asked to do more than had ever been asked of dancers on Broadway before or since.
Dancin was nominated for seven and won two Tony Awards. Fosse won for his choreography, and Jules Fisher won for his lighting design. Fisher said that sound designer Abe Jacob should have won a Tony Award, but there was no category for sound design until three decades later.
Dancin received two national tours, the first from April 16, 1979 to May 18, 1980, and the second from July 29, 1980 to October 9, 1983. Dancin also ran for a limited season in 1983 at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Westminster, London. Previews began on November 11, 1983, with the official opening on 14 November 1983, and closing on 28 January 1984. The revue was once again directed by Fosse. At the time of his death in 1987, Fosse was said to be working on Dancin' Too, his proposed followup to Dancin.
Following Broadway, national tours, and London, the show was not performed or revived because the choreography is so demanding. However, several numbers from Dancin were recreated for the 1999 dance review Fosse, including: "Crunchy Granola Suite", "I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man", "Percussion V", "Mr. Bojangles", and "Sing Sing Sing". A revival of Dancin was scheduled to be produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54 for 2009, but it was postponed until the 2009–10 season, and then postponed indefinitely.

2023 Broadway revival

It was announced on November 11, 2022, that a revival of the show, styled as Bob Fosse's Dancin and directed by original cast member Wayne Cilento and produced by Joey Parnes by special arrangement with Nicole Fosse, would play at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, with opening night on March 19, 2023.
The new staging played a pre-Broadway try-out run at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in the summer of 2022, and featured new material, including songs from Fosse's final Broadway musical Big Deal and restoration of the "Big City Mime" sequence that had been cut from the original production out of town in Boston.
The new production also makes a nod to the film universe of Fosse, with a set design featuring scaffolding reminiscent of his film All That Jazz, and the inclusion of short dances from Fosse's early career in Hollywood, like "From This Moment On" from the film of Kiss Me, Kate, and the "Alley Dance" from the film My Sister Eileen.
In May 2023, it was announced that the production would close on May 14, 2023 due to declining sales and being completely shut out of the 2023 Tony Awards.

Song list

Original 1978 Broadway production

Act 1

Opening
  • Prologue - Music and Lyrics by Neil Diamond, as adapted by Lee Holdridge
  • Crunchy Granola Suite - Music and Lyrics by Neil Diamond
Recollections of an Old Dancer
The Dream Barre
Percussion
  • Part I
  • Part II
  • Part III
  • Part IV - Ionisation - Music by Edgard Varèse

    Act 2

Dancin' Man
Three In One
  • Big Noise from Winnetka - Music by Bob Haggart, Ray Bauduc, Gil Rodin, and Bob Crosby
Joint Endeavor
A Manic Depressive's Lament
Fourteen Feet
Benny's Number
The Female Star Spot
America
Improvisation