Word: high
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...south, at the Imperial Theater -- Broadway welcomes another revue, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, with another cast of young hopefuls. But everything else about this show is bigger, riskier and very late '80s. For one thing, its co-sponsor is a Japanese liquor firm. For another, it carries an all-time-high ticket price of $55. And the cost of its opening is $8 million, a thousand times that of The Straw Hat Revue...
With this new show, Robbins is both appealing to Broadway tradition and bucking it. He is a man going up against his own legend -- as the premier American-born dancemaker, whose works for the ballet and Broadway suavely merged high art with pop culture. Robbins has always been a spellbinding storyteller; the narrative clarity of each movement instantly draws viewers into the roiling emotional life of his characters. In his comic ballets, visual gags fly past like precision pies in a Keystone caper. This show proves he is back where he belongs, on a street that belongs to him: Jerome...
Clearly, more is riding on this show than a mere $8 million. For Jerome Robbins' Broadway is a sacred remnant of the musical at its mid-century peak -- a fusion of wit, precision, melody and high spirits -- that an aging generation of theater lovers miss terribly and want back. "We are in an era of high school production numbers and arias set to a backbeat," says Jule Styne, who wrote songs for five Robbins musicals. "A lot of people will see this show and realize what they've missed." Co-producer Emanuel Azenberg must hope so too. "Shows that have...
...this show, that meant: go back. Because he had not recorded or notated any of his works, Robbins assembled casts and creators from the old productions and led a kind of seminar in Broadway archaeology. To reconstruct the bathing-beauty ballet from High Button Shoes, Robbins had the score and some silent footage that had been shot surreptitiously. Luckily, the national company's dance captain, Kevin Joe Jonson, had made notations of the ballet on tattered sheets of paper that he carted around through five marriages. For the Comedy Tonight number from Forum, an original cast member sketched...
...Jerome Robbins is Broadway's perennial prince charming, and his show is a kiss of life to the Sleeping Beauty of the American musical. "I always felt this might well be the most exciting piece of theater in my lifetime," Jacobs says with unaccustomed fervor. "I certainly hope so." High hopes, yes, but Robbins has usually soared to achieve them. "He is the real Peter Pan," says Mary Martin, who 35 years ago played that role for Robbins. "He loves...