Harvey Evans Love Thread — Page 2

I toured in La Cage with Harvey back in '87. I was as green as could be, my first big tour. He was so kind and encouraging and down to earth. I've never worked with someone so accomplished with so little ego on display. I learned so much from him, most of all to remember, in spite of all the pressure to be good and get it all right, to have fun being on stage, which he clearly did every night. I never once saw him phone-in a performance.

I was scared out of my wits in rehearsal. He knew it, and he told me that he was too. I was like "Really? Mr. million Broadway shows/Sondheim writes songs specifically for your voice (Follies)/major movie musicals/danced with Gwen Verdon on Broadway and TV?" He told me to work hard and learn my show, but also to embrace that fear and to find the guts to bring my real, vulnerable self on stage. Watching him in rehearsal and in performance, I then saw that was indeed what he did. It's what made him such an engaging, warm and authentically human presence on stage, on top of all that triple-threat talent.

He was unfailingly generous to everyone with whom he shared that stage, old pro or neophyte, glittery opening night in Boston, or Wednesday matinee in Bloomington, Indiana.

I will always adore Harvey. He is, as they say, the real deal.

I found the picture I took of Harvey speaking to my friend.

I just recently watched him in EXPERIMENT IN TERROR on Blu-ray.

An 2012 interview with Harvey on Krtizerland website, in which he talks about Mary Poppins, among other things:


I had the pleasure of doing a wonderful interview with Harvey Evans, the original Young Buddy in the original production of Follies. He talks about his life on Broadway and how it was to appear in the

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For those of us who don't live in New York and will never have the chance to brunch with him, I wish that he would write a book. I would devour that thing.

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Happy 76th birthday, Harvey. We love you!

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Traveled to Ann Arbor when Harvey and his three former colleagues (Kurt Peterson, Virginia Sandifur, Marti Rolph) did a concert version of FOLLIES in 2003, playing the older counterparts of the younger roles they had played (along with Donna McKechnie, a knockout as Carlotta). Sent flowers, a card and the original opening night program of FOLLIES backstage. Harvey came bounding out after the show, looking for me, telling me his colleagues were very eager to meet me, and were amazed that we had come all the way from New York to see them. It was an amazing event, and Harvey was as warm and wonderful as everyone has said.

"Good choreography tells a story, bad choreography is a series of back handsprings."

This may be one of my favorite quotes about choreography.