By Christopher Rawson
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
For a youthful biographical sketch of Baayork Lee, the director of "Bombay Dreams," the national tour of which opens tonight at Pittsburgh CLO, just consult your memories of "A Chorus Line."
'Bombay Dreams'
Where: Pittsburgh CLO at Benedum Center, Downtown.
When: Tues-Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 and 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $16.50-$52.50; 412-456-6666.
Connie Wong, the diminutive, 4-foot-10 Asian dancer who grew up in New York's Chinatown and wanted to be a ballerina -- that's Lee. Literally. Not just because she played Connie in the original 1975 "Chorus Line," but because she was there at the first workshop, as Michael Bennett's assistant, and then the second, when he decided to include her story (and her) on stage.
Lee points out that "Bombay Dreams" and "Chorus Line" have more in common than her. "Chorus Line" was something new, like "Oklahoma!" and "West Side Story," and "Bombay Dreams" also defeats pigeonholing: "It's the first Southeast Asian musical. It's breaking traditions," introducing many Americans to "Bollywood," the exotic world of melodramatic musical movies made in Bombay.
When Lee did the original "Chorus Line," she was already a Broadway gypsy, a veteran of 10 Broadway shows, having started in 1951 when she was 5 in "The King and I," then appearing a few years later in "Flower Drum Song." Even as she worked steadily as a grown-up dancer, "most of my Broadway credits were playing kids: " 'Here's Love,' 'Mr. President,' 'Golden Boy.' "
Right now, Lee is in San Francisco, directing a revival of "Chorus Line," which is arriving back on Broadway to start previews Sept. 18. Lead roles are being played by Michael Berresse and Charlotte d'Amboise, and the Pittsburghers in the cast are Paul McGill and Tony Yazbeck.
Talking from her San Francisco hotel, Lee sounds younger than any Broadway legend should be. "That's because I'm so small," she laughs.
She may be tiny in size, but she has been big in influence. Bennett asked her to handle some of the international tours, and she's directed and choreographed more than three dozen "Chorus Lines" around the world.
Since then, her choreography and directing career has taken many paths. "I was resident choreographer at the Washington Opera for many, many years. Then I directed 'Porgy & Bess' in Europe. And I've had an incredible career in Asia. I started a musical theater school in Seoul, bringing over my teachers from America and producing musicals there. In Japan I also had a school, and they built me a 400-seat theater for musicals."
Doing "Chorus Line" in Italy led to another mini-career there, staging musicals where there had been none before. And she returned to Broadway as Tommy Tune's associate choreographer on "My One and Only."
"I've had a wonderful career. ... The latest wrinkle came when I was hired to direct Sandy Duncan in the latest tour of 'The King and I.' I went to Chinatown, where I'm from, and I auditioned at P.S. 124 and got my 10 children, and they toured for over a year and had the opportunity I had."
Lee's a veteran of the battles that Asian performers long fought for recognition. "I can't help anyone unless I've got my foot in the door. Now that I've had the opportunity to direct and choreograph, I've been able to help. When I directed 'Cinderella' at N.Y. City Opera, I had eight Asians involved.
"But Michael Bennett was the first one, giving me the role in 'Chorus Line.' For 30 years it's given an opportunity for an Asian woman to have a role on Broadway -- and not hopping around with an accent, but playing an American, born and raised in Chinatown."
Lee was elated when she was invited to direct "Bombay Dreams" for the tour. It ran just 284 performances on Broadway in 2004, when the cast was led by two young Pittsburghers, Manu Narayan and Anisha Nagarajan. Lee says she loved the dancing and singing but knew it needed work to tour. So they hired original co-librettist Tom Meehan ("Annie," "The Producers," "Hairspray") to help shorten the book, focusing better on the central story of Akash, the boy from the slums who becomes a big Bollywood star.
The result is 20 minutes shorter than on Broadway, although they restored two songs from the London production. "Touring, we really had to gear this not only to the Asian community but also subscription audiences," Lee says. "We have a pre-show with videotapes of Bollywood movies, so you get a sense of what it's about." And there's a narrator for further orientation.
"We have some new young performers that I'm very proud of," Lee says. She did not choreograph "Bombay Dreams" -- they hired Lisa Stevens, the original assistant choreographer in London and New York, because "this is a style you have to study for years and years, you can't just pick up. It's a whole vocabulary I'm not familiar with.
"We worked on it for almost a year. So there have been the London, Broadway and now my touring company, and I'm very proud of it."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Post-Gazette theater editor Christopher Rawson can be reached at crawson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1666. )
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06213/710053-325.stm
"People have their opinions and that doesn't mean that their opinions are wrong or right. I just take it with a grain of salt because opinions are like as*holes, everyone has one".
-Felicia Finley-
Updated On: 8/4/06 at 03:38 PM
