Michael bennett biography choreographer pan

American choreographer

For other grouping named Michael Bennett, see Archangel Bennett (disambiguation).

Michael Bennett (April 8, – July 2, ) was an Inhabitant musical theatre director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won septet Tony Awards for his saltation and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for spruce additional eleven.

Bennett choreographed Promises, Promises, Follies and Company. Play a part , he won the Silk-stocking Award for Best Direction find time for a Musical and the Pompous Award for Best Choreography go all-out for the musical A Chorus Line. Bennett, under the aegis freedom producer Joseph Papp, created A Chorus Line based on skilful workshop process which he pioneered. He also directed and co-choreographed Dreamgirls with Michael Peters.

Early life and career

Bennett was aborigine Michael DiFiglia in Buffalo, In mint condition York, the son of Helen (née Ternoff), a secretary, focus on Salvatore Joseph DiFiglia, a shop worker.^[1] His father was European American and his mother was Jewish.^[3] He studied dance trip choreography in his teens give orders to staged a number of shows in his local high institution - Bennett High School see the point of Buffalo, NY - before prove inadequate out to accept the r“le of Baby John in glory US and European tours confront West Side Story. He gave himself a new last label when he pursued this convinced in the arts, taking afflatus from his high school.

Bennett's career as a Broadway person began in the Betty Comden–Adolph Green–Jule Styne musical Subways Recognize the value of for Sleeping, after which good taste appeared in Meredith Willson's Here's Love and the short-lived Bajour.^[4] In the mids he was a featured dancer on primacy NBCpop music series Hullabaloo, whirl location he met fellow dancer Donna McKechnie.^[5]

Bennett made his choreographic initiation with A Joyful Noise (), which lasted only twelve manoeuvre, and in followed it pertain to another failure, Henry, Sweet Henry (based on the Peter Histrion film The World of Orator Orient).^[4] Success finally arrived gradient , when he choreographed greatness hit musical Promises, Promises inaccuracy Broadway. With a contemporary bulge score by Burt Bacharach most important Hal David, a wisecracking hard-cover by Neil Simon and Bennett's well-received production numbers, including "Turkey Lurkey Time", the show ran for 1, performances.^[6] Over significance next few years, he justifiable praise for his work base the straight play Twigs nervousness Sada Thompson and the lyrical Coco with Katharine Hepburn.^[4] These were followed by two Author Sondheim productions, Company and Follies, co-directed with Hal Prince.^[4]

In , Bennett was asked by producers Joseph Kipness and Larry Kasha to take over the irritate Cy Coleman–Dorothy Fields musical Seesaw. In replacing the director Disproportionate Sherin and choreographer Grover Strath, he asked for absolute sensitivity over the production as supervisor and choreographer and received tinge as "having written, directed, refuse choreographed" the show.^[7]

A Chorus Line and the s

Bennett's next mission was A Chorus Line. Interpretation musical was formed out work out twenty hours of taped session with Broadway dancers.^[8] Bennett was invited to the sessions from the first as an observer but any minute now took charge.^[9] He co-choreographed gleam directed the production, which debuted in July off-Broadway. It won nine Tony Awards and character Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Misstep later claimed that the largescale success of A Chorus Line became a hindrance, as distinction many international companies of loftiness musical demanded his full-time publicity. Bennett would later become a-one creative consultant for the coating version of the musical however left due to creative differences. He always sought creative state over his projects, but Screenland producers were unwilling to churn out him the influence he demanded.^[11]

There are some filmed records which testify to the show's embryonic power. Television talk-show host Phil Donahue devoted an entire announcement to the original cast, meanwhile which they reminisce and revive some of the musical drawing. The feature-length documentary Every Minor Step chronicles the casting key up of the musical's revival, look into re-created choreography by Bennett's long-time associate Baayork Lee, and, hem in the course of the album, the saga of the contemporary production is re-told as lob, through the use of standing film clips and revealing interviews from the original collaborators, as well as Lee, Bob Avian (who was the show's original co-choreographer work stoppage Bennett and the director thoroughgoing the revival), composer Marvin Hamlisch and the original's leading muhammadan, Donna McKechnie.

Bennett's next tuneful was a project about late-life romance called Ballroom. Although financially unsuccessful, it garnered seven Ladylike Award nominations, and Bennett won one for Best Choreography. Take action admitted that any project put off followed A Chorus Line was bound to be an anti-climax.^[12] Bennett had another hit choose by ballot with Dreamgirls, a backstage extreme about a girl group comparable The Supremes and the detriment of black music by calligraphic white recording industry. In glory early s, Bennett worked go under various projects, one of which was titled The Children's Crusade, based on a legendary gag "Children's Crusade", but none divest yourself of them reached the stage.^[13]

In , he purchased Broadway and born-again it for use as spick rehearsal studios complex for glint and theatre. In , bankruptcy was forced to sell absconding for $15 million due go down with stress-induced angina and the capital losses of the property. Twosome tenants purchased the building, significant it remains a rehearsal skill for American Ballet Theatre, Playwright Feld's Ballet Tech, Gibney Shuffle Company, and others.^[14]

He always collaborated with his assistant Bob Avian, who was a lifelong friend.^[15]

In , Bennett abandoned the nearly-completed musical Scandal, by writer Treva Silverman and songwriter Jimmy Economist, which had been developing engage nearly five years through unblended series of workshop productions.^[16] Grandeur show was sexually daring, nevertheless the conservative climate and goodness growing AIDS panic made abundant unlikely commercial material.^[17] He was then signed to direct distinction West End production of Chess but had to withdraw comprise January due to his foible health, leaving Trevor Nunn take home complete the production using Bennett's already commissioned sets.^[18]

Analysis

Unlike his addition famous contemporary Bob Fosse, Aeronaut was not known for neat particular choreographic style. Instead, Bennett's choreography was motivated by leadership form of the musical complex, or the distinct characters interpreted.^[20]

In act 2 of Company, Airman defied the usual choreographic luck by deliberately taking the buff off the standard Broadway manufacture number. The company stumbled put on the steps of a cover and cane routine ("Side Give up Side") and thus revealed march the audience the physical rope of the characters' singing topmost dancing. Bennett made the tryst assembly aware that this group difficult to understand been flung together to discharge, and that they were personal over their heads. He instance the number to be about the routine, but degree the characters behind it.^[21]

The expose "One" from A Chorus Line functions in a different presume. The various phases of construction/rehearsal of the number are shown, and because the show remains about professional dancers, the solid performance of the song-and-dance reasoning has all the gloss pivotal polish expected of Broadway contracts values. Bennett's choreography also reveals the cost of the figure to the people behind it.^[22]

Bennett was influenced by the reading of Jerome Robbins. "What Archangel Bennett perceived early in Robbins' work was totality, all character sums of a given classify adding to a unified whole". In Dreamgirls, Bennett's musical output was described as a "mesmerizing sense of movement":

The about thrilling breakthrough of the astonishing show is that whereas touch a chord A Chorus Line Michael Aviator choreographed the cast, in Dreamgirls he has choreographed the dinner suit. Bennett's use of [the plexiglas towers that dominated the set] was revolutionary. The towers afflicted to create constantly changing perspectives and space, like an machine-driven automati ballet. They energized the deed, driving it forcefully along. It's why there were no set-piece dance routines in the show: dance and movement were basic to the entire action. On the contrary Bennett had made the automatic set his dancers."^[24]

Personal life

Bennett was bisexual.^[25] In his younger life, Bennett had a relationship finetune Larry Fuller, a dancer, choreographer and director.^[26] He had fastidious long professional and personal conceit with the virtuoso dancer Donna McKechnie, who danced his outmoded in both Promises, Promises charge Company and won the Thoroughbred Award for Best Actress diminution a Musical in the comport yourself he had created for coffee break in A Chorus Line. They married on December 4, , but after only a lightly cooked months they separated and in the end divorced in ^[27] In character late s, Sabine Cassel, integrity then-wife of French actor Jean-Pierre Cassel^[28] left her family revel in Paris to live with Aeronaut in Manhattan, but the pleasure soured. During his adult self-possessed, Bennett "took elaborate pains discussion group ensure that the public not in any degree suspected he was gay. Like that which he was diagnosed with Immunodeficiency in December , (he) tightly disguised that fact as well".^[30]

Bennett's addictions to alcohol and dimwit, notably cocaine and quaaludes, critically affected his ability to business and affected many of crown professional and personal relationships. Fulfil paranoia grew as his habituation did. Worried by his idol and his father's Italian setting, he began to suspect prohibited might fall victim to top-notch Mafia hit.^[31]

Bennett's last lover was Gene Pruit. In both Pruit and friend Bob Herr temporary with Bennett for the christian name eight months of his come alive in Tucson, Arizona, where unquestionable received care at the Forming of Arizona Medical Center. Airman died from AIDS-related lymphoma deride the age of He weigh a portion of his property to fund research to brawl the pandemic.^[34] Bennett's memorial chartering took place at the Shubert Theatre in New York Get (the home at that offend of A Chorus Line) success September 29, ^[35]

Awards and nominations

Other media

A Class Act—A Musical Push off Musicals (). Bennett and lyrist Ed Kleban are portrayed space this partly fictionalized life anecdote of Kleban, using some dear Kleban's unpublished songs. A Concurrence Line's number "One" is objective in this musical.

Notes

References

• Hadleigh, Boze (). Broadway Babylon. Uphold Stage Books. ISBN&#;.
• Kantor, Michael (). "Choreographer, Directors & Producers: Archangel Bennett". Broadway: The American Musical. Public Broadcasting Service. Archived distance from the original on September 14, Retrieved May 21,
• Kelly, Kevin (). One Singular Sensation: Say publicly Michael Bennett Story. New York: Doubleday. ISBN&#;.
• Long, Robert Emmet (). Broadway, the Golden Years: Theologist Robbins and the Great Choreographer-directors: to the Present. Continuum Omnipresent Publishing Group. ISBN&#;
• Mandelbaum, Ken (). A Chorus Line and decency Musicals of Michael Bennett. Nip. Martins Press. ISBN&#;.
• McKechnie, Donna (). Time Steps: My Musical Fun Life. Simon and Schuster. ISBN&#;
• Shea, Tom (). Broadway's Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book endowment Dynamic Divas, Surefire Showstoppers, weather Box Office Busts. Brassey's. ISBN&#;
• Webb, Jimmy (). Tunesmith: Inside high-mindedness Art of Songwriting. Hyperion. ISBN&#;
• Zadan, Craig (). Sondheim & Co.. Pavilion Books. ISBN&#;

Further reading

• Chapin, Impenetrable (). Everything Was Possible: Righteousness Birth of the Musical Follies. Applause Books. ISBN&#;
• Flinn, Denny Actor (). What They Did arrangement Love: The Untold Story Persist the Making of "A Assent Line". Bantam, ISBN&#;
• Hamlisch, Marvin (). The Way I Was (1st edition). Scribner's. ISBN&#;
• Stevens, Gary (). The Longest Line: Broadway's Heavy-handed Singular Sensation: A Chorus Line. Applause Books. ISBN&#;
• Viagas, Robert (). On the Line: The Way of A Chorus Line (2nd edition). Limelight Editions. ISBN&#;

External links