and the Tony goes to..
Last June Jerry Mitchell sat in an aisle seat in the cavernous Radio City Music Hall along with the other nominees waiting for the announcement of the 2005 Tony winner for choreography. He was nervous. Word of mouth was that he would be the one this year. He had already won the Outer Critics award and the Drama Desk award for the revival of "La Cage Aux Folles," but he was still nervous. He had formidable competition. Wayne Cilento, a veteran for "Sweet Charity," and Casey Nickolaw, a new kid on the block for "Spamalot." To complicate matters he was running against himself with two nominations--"La Cage" and the new hit "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." "It will be a split vote," advised his friend Jules Feiffer, the award-winning lighting designer. "Chalk it up to a loss."
Mitchell had his obligatory list of "thank-yous" ready just in case. "If you are lucky enough to win, you want to go up there and thank everyone in the small amount of time allotted to you," he said. "No one creates choreography for a Broadway show alone. It's collaboration on every level. Producers, director, the wonderful dancers....you want a chance to thank them all for their hard work in your favor."
"And the Tony goes to..." The presenters had no trouble with his name. Mitchell is celebrating his 25th year in New York as a respected member of the Broadway Community. Well-known first as a dancer in shows like the revival of "Brigadoon," "Woman of the Year," "On Your Toes," and "Will Rogers Follies, among others, he was also an assistant to Jerry Robbins on "Jerome Robbins Broadway" and Michael Bennett on "Scandal," then moved on to choreography, and skipping right into the future, approaching his first job as a director/choreographer of "Legally Blonde," set to open on Broadway in 2007.
Mitchell has climbed the ladder with grace, dignity, and talent, much admired and loved by his peers and especially by his dancers. "Because Jerry was a dancer he knows what being an ensemble member is like," said Sally Mae Dunn, one of Mitchell's dancers currently in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." "We are the lowest paid, and we work physically harder than anyone else. Jerry has gained a lot of respect from his dancers because he is respectful of us. He pushes you to the limit, but if the dancer can't do it, he will say 'O.K., let's go to Plan B and figure out something else. Not many choreographers are willing to do that.'" In return, Mitchell is a rousing cheerleader for them. "Broadway show dancing is truly about discipline," he emphasized. "Having to retain the level you hit on opening night, eight times a week no matter how you feel, is no mean feat. My dancers are so good, and often I only require them to use one-tenth of their ability. Yet they are the ones who make your work look great."
Mitchell's path to Broadway began with an accident that could have easily been the end of a career not yet started. A broken bicycle chain causing a bad fall actually led to a good decision, a life-long decision, and inadvertently set this talented teen-ager on the path to the Tonys. While biking at top speed to football practice as a first string tight end on Paw Paw, Michigan's high school football team, his bike chain snapped.
Mitchell fell over the handlebars breaking his collarbone, forcing him off the football field and into several weeks of rest. Or so it was supposed to be. But Mitchell was determined to keep his legs in shape while his collarbone mended. He decided to join a tap dance class. "I was hooked," Mitchell smiled, as he recalled the memory of his first encounter with dance of any kind.
How did his teammates accept his taking dance classes? "Well, it helped being popular, and an A student," Mitchell laughed, "but, bottom line, I didn't really care. From that point I knew exactly what I wanted to do in life." The proverbial dust did not settle under his dancing feet as he sought out conventions, competitions, summer programs in theater--any and all occasions that offered an opportunity to dance, to choreograph, and to dig into his newly discovered passion for theater. His football, track, and basketball days were on hold, his competitiveness channeled into a new endeavor.
While still in high school Mitchell joined The Young Americans tour of "West Side Story," the beginning of his association with a show that will always be a motivating force in his life. "Someday I would like to do a big revival of 'West Side,'" he mused. "A new generation of kids deserve to see Robbins' original choreography and hear Bernstein's original score. Together with the Arthur Laurents book and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, this is perhaps the most seamless piece of musical theater ever."
Returning home after the Young Americans tour he faced his parents, who expected that he would finish his senior year and go on to college. But Mitchell had already formulated a different plan for his future. Because he had gone on tour he had given up senior class president, starting forward on the varsity basketball team, and part of his senior year, but knew he could not give up his dream of musical theater. He applied to Webster College, a theater conservatory program in St. Louis. "I never investigated the campus, the dorms, things most college bound freshmen might do. I flew to Chicago and auditioned in a hotel room, won a scholarship in theater and dance, and that was it." At Webster, he was able to take several ballet classes, morning and evening plus his acting program during the day. The jumping he had done in track and basketball had developed his thigh muscles, and because his 'ballon" was amazing, and he was tall, strong, and able to lift the girls, he passed a chorus audition for the St. Louis Municipal opera, a summer stock theater, and received a coveted Equity card. With the extra money he made on a Dr. Pepper commercial, he was off to New York, and in short order snagged his first Broadway show, a revival of "Brigadoon," choreographed by Agnes DeMille, whose comments after his audition did not applaud his superb dancing but simply noted, "...he's tall enough, he can be a clan leader. Let's take him!"
A degree in musical theater did not seem important anymore. "I was already supporting myself in the theater," Mitchell said. "My parents assumed after my summer in New York, I would be back in college. But I had to explain, with carefully chosen words, that would not be the case. 'Don't worry,' I promised them, 'when I get famous they will give me an honorary degree.'" In May 2005, just four weeks before the Tony, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Webster College, and is now one of their better-known alumni.
Mitchell went from one show to another, getting the job, thinking about the next gig, and thinking more about creating dances instead of performing them. Inside his head there were images he needed to put on stage. Can I do it? If I get a picture up there on stage, can I shape it? Will it make sense? "For me, there was nothing more exciting than flying through the air as a dancer," Mitchell said, "unless it was watching someone else flying through the air doing something that I had given them to do." Mitchell recalled that early in his career as a dancer he seemed to always watch what everyone else was doing on stage. "I wanted to see the picture the dancers were making together," he said. "I know that a true dancer does not need to know what everyone else is doing. They should only be concerned with their part. This is probably what convinced me that I would someday be a choreographer."
From his experiences as an assistant to Jerome Robbins and Michael Bennett, he acquired the tools for moving a story along, a major necessity for a choreographer. "Michael once said to me--'if a show doesn't' give you hope at the end, why do it?' That has always stuck in my head. I want the audience to leave my shows thinking something in their lives will be better. I want them to be happy seeing a bunch of less than perfect-looking guys who have been losers all their lives, take off their clothes in 'The Full Monty' and feel great about themselves; or when a clumsy fat teen-ager moves gracefully enough to win a dance contest in 'Hairspray;' or when twelve guys jump in the air, land in a split, and do not get tangled in their feather boas in 'La Cage Aux Folles;' or when the unique elegance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers comes through in the dancing of Noah Racey and Nancy Lemenager in "Never Gonna Dance;" and when the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera is manipulated by two notorious scam artists and ends with hilarious consequences in 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.' Jerry (Robbins) and Michael (Bennett) knew what was essential to a choreographer. It is getting the story right. Mitchell attends to his long running hits by having cleanup rehearsals. While he is in the studio with his dancers he again clarifies the story. "Why are you doing that step, I ask my dancers? If they don't know, then I haven't done my job well, and we must take the time to go over it."
Collaborating with director Jack O'Brien has been another invaluable learning experience for Mitchell especially as he now prepares to embark on his own directing career. He and O'Brien worked together on "Hairspray," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and other musicals, and it has never been less than fulfilling for both of them. "A director is the person who knows how to get the ship going, and is very clear on what is needed," Mitchell explained. "I watch Jack as he allows everyone to talk first, because each person always thinks they have the right answer. What step, what joke, what costume will make the show better? The job of a director is to decide what is best, then live with that decision." Mitchell believes his successful work in choreography has offered him a comfort level in decision-making and the feeling that he can achieve the same when he becomes a director. "Believe me, that comfort level is not always generated by the critics' comments," he noted with some sarcasm. "Never mind, Jack and I know before the critics know when things are good, bad, or just getting by. When we have a real passion for the story then eighty percent of the project is already a given, and we can do the rest. Sometimes we have only sixty per cent in place, then we have to work harder. But we know and understand each other so well. When Jack O'Brien walked into my life, the word collaboration took on its rightful meaning."
In the early 1980's when the Broadway community was awakening to the beginning of a mega-catastrophe that had only initials to distinguish it and no medicine to curtail it, Jerry Mitchell was riding high as an A-list Broadway chorus dancer, making money, attending parties, having fun, on his way to an astounding career as a choreographer. But something was nagging at him. Yes, his ambition was clear, his aggressiveness toward moving ahead was on target, but his colleagues were dying - people that he had worked with and friends that he loved. It continued to disturb him until he hit upon a plan to give back to the community from which he had reaped so much happiness. He would raise money for Broadway Cares, the organization that helps AIDS patients in a score of different ways. "Well, I thought of writing a cookbook, selling brownies, getting the 'Will Rogers' dancers involved somehow," Mitchell began. "Then the light bulb went on. Why not get some great looking guys together, go down to Splash, a hangout on 17th Street, and perform a strip show on the bar. The money would go to Broadway Cares? We raised $8,000 in one night. Once I got started there was no stopping me. We went to a theater, added girls, a glitzy opening number, solo strips in between, and a big sparkling finale. We were shameless, but we accomplished our task and then some."
"Broadway Bares" has now become a yearly event, and in the past sixteen years it has raised three and a half million dollars. There are two performances on one Sunday evening in late spring. The theater is donated, as are the services of Mitchell's assistants and the dancers who contribute their time for one week of rehearsals and the two shows. Everything is done on a volunteer basis. One would assume dancers who work eight shows a week would not be interested in more extra work. On the contrary, Mitchell has had to turn away dancers because too many volunteer. He paused for an instant as if to get a handle on the magnitude of his accomplishment. "When I was a kid I was the one who raised money in the neighborhood going around with a Jerry Lewis fishbowl for muscular dystrophy," he recalled softly. "That was how I was brought up by my parents and grandparents. I feel that what is inside you at the beginning is inside you always. How you use it or not are the choices you make. 'Broadway Bares' is certainly one of the things in my life I am most proud of, and as long as this project is needed I will see to it that it continues."
On the weekend of the Tony award ceremony, Mitchell flew to Michigan to be with his nephew who was graduating high school. His family had gathered for the celebration, and he was not about to miss it. He had excused them from attending the awards ceremony in New York, insisting that the graduation was more important, and he wouldn't be winning anyhow. Hadn't his friend Jules warned him that it would be a lost cause? Mitchell had planned to return early Sunday morning for the final rehearsal of the opening number he had choreographed for the telecast. Plenty of time, he thought, until the announcement came over the PA system that his flight would be delayed for three hours stranding him in Paw Paw. He would miss the morning rehearsal leaving the last minute notes to his trusted dance captains Dennis Jones and Greg Graham. If he had enough time to change clothes and dash to the theater he would be lucky.
When his name was called, he felt a twinge of regret. It was the first time his parents had not been there with him. He stretched out his lanky frame, a little creaky from the flight and the long night of sitting, kissed his partner actor Eric Sherr, who was at his side, and with a few strides of his long legs got to the stage to claim his prize. Afterwards there was partying through the night, but the next day it was business as usual. "Hairspray" was to open in Las Vegas; "Legally Blonde" was not yet fully cast. He must call Wendy and Jeff at 101 Productions and apologize for, indeed, he had forgotten his general managers in his thank-you remarks, and oh yes,--he better get his nephew a graduation gift.