On Your Toes @ Encores! — Page 2

The 1983 production was amazing because the HAD Balanchine, George Abbott and Hans Spialek, the original orchestrator all working on the production. There was 293 years of experience sitting in the front rows during rehearsals.

No revival has ever had the original creators around 53 years later to remount the show.

I saw both the original cast in New York and the London production at the Collesium (where On Your Toes played part of its original London run in 1937) and WOW is all I can say.

It is and has been and always will be my favorite musical comedy.

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...*Dvorovenko.

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I don't agree the music is slight. I also don't agree that the dance numbers had little to do with the story. That's just wrong. For 1936, this was a very forward-looking show. It was written in 1935 as a movie for Fred Astaire by Rodgers and Hart while they were under contract in Hollywood and he turned it down, saying he couldn't do the ballet numbers(which is why there is no Rogers and Hart Fred and Ginger movie.) Dick and Larry reworked it as a stage show and came to New York, looking for a backer. They played the show for the Shuberts, but Lee fell asleep during Princess Zenobia, so they left in disgust. On the street, they ran into Dwight Deere Wyman, a wealthy playboy who backed Broadway shows (including, ironically, Astaire's last show Gay Divorce). He readily agreed to do any show by Rodgers and Hart, and for his efforts, ended up getting ALL of the rest of their shows right up until Larry died. (edit, Except Pal Joey).

Back to the music and dance. How can you call the music in a show slight when it has "There's a Small Hotel," one of the most recorded songs in history and "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" which has been performed by every major orchestra you can name? Frankly, I think it is perhaps the most eerily evocative score I have ever heard. From the overture to Slaughter, no other show simply reeks of the 1930s, the depression, the New Deal, jazz, big band like On Your Toes. Then there's Hart's great lyrics, which he apparently tossed off on the backs of napkins and unpaid bills. Certainly, "I was made on lemonade" is clever, but for my money, a few verses down, "I've fallen twice with two at once" is a masterpiece of phrasing. It's so effortless and simple, but try writing something that clever and facile; it's enough to drive a man to dr... oh, wait a minute.....

As for the ballets, under Balanchine's watchful eye, both ballets were very significant in the development of Broadway musical theatre. Princess Zenobia was an utterly ridiculous satire on Russian ballet, which was all the pompous rage in the 20s and 30s, and the fact that Giorgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze, a Russian choreographer, chose to poke such sly fun at the hand and feet that fed him was pretty daring. Nobody dared do that back then. Slaughter was a different beast altogether. Balanchine was trying to tell a story through dance inside the ballet, while Rodgers and Hart were using the number to present the culmination of their entire musical's plot on the outside of the ballet. That was very complex staging for 1936 audiences that were used to lavish reviews and chock full 'o girls musicals starring Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson, or stand-in-a-line and sing operettas.

This show was, literally, a decade ahead of its time.

(One final self-serving note: if you haven't done so before, try one of my links listed below to treasure troves of old Broadway stuff.)

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Updated On: 5/11/13 at 12:41 AM

How's the stage door? Anyone go afterwards?

I stage doored on Friday night and everyone except Karen Ziemba came out and signed and took pictures. I am a huge fan of Christine Baranski and Walter Bobbie and am over the moon to have met them both! I must say that there are no barricades which is nice but it did make it very chaotic and you might miss some people.

I'm grateful for Allofmylife's posts about this show. And I agree the book is NOT slight.

It's a perfect musical comedy. Among the best of its era.

Hart's lyrics alone are searing, even in the "silliest of songs." He could cut to the truth faster than any of them (yesterday, today, or tomorrow).

Learn it, folks.

And above all else ... enjoy it!

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I really don't see how the book can be seen as not being slight. And that's hardly an insult. There's just not much in the way of plot, and what does happen does so extremely quickly (or off-stage). We don't see Frankie and Junior fall in love- they just sort of suddenly are. Morrosine manages to get off scot-free despite having put a hit on Junior. Songs happen often because- well, it's been five minutes and it's time for a song. The songs are lovely, but don't move the story or explore the characters. It's very much of its age in terms of book construction, despite its progressive use of dance.

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The last time I remember the cast actually using their scripts was Anyone Can Whistle. I don't remember Bells are Ringing though.

Encores has been fairly script-free for a while now. Fiorello, Superman and On Your Toes were all completely without script, but even back to the Anyone Can Whistle/Bells Are Ringing season it has been done with only a few books in hand.

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Wiley and Barrett both had binders in the opening scene as well, but I also couldn't tell if they were props. They never used them.

As far as usage of scripts go, it varies. The goal is to be off-book, but the focus is the score, the choreography and getting the show on it's feet, so if an actor needs their script, they are free to use it. If they are 100% off book, fantastic.If you refer to your program, it says that actors MAY be using scripts, so that would be why.

As far as the libretto goes, we can not judge it be the standards of a well crafted 21st century musical / drama. Look at it as a time capsule of it's period, which is part of what Encores! is about. On Your Toes was a revolutionary show and the book, for a musical, was a very important mile stone in integrating book, score, choreography, etc into a cohesive whole and paved the way for Oklahoma! So no, the book is NOT slight. Look at it with realistic perspective.

Again, a stand out season at Encores!

The title number of "Toes" was fantastic and still completely fresh in my brain. I would loved to have seen it again.

When the girls were tapping while laying on their backs in the title song? Thrilling.