INTERVIEW: Corinne McFadden Herrera on reviving Fosse’s style on Broadway
Photo: Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ features, from left, Peter John Chursin, Manuel Herrera, Yeman Brown and Jacob Guzman. Photo courtesy of Julieta Cervantes / Provided by DKC O&M with permission.
The high-energy revival of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’, now playing at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, features the choreographer’s characteristic style and dance vocabulary — all packaged together in a thrilling two-hour show. What audience members might be surprised about is how diverse and varied Fosse’s movements actually were; this is not the realm of only jazz hands and tipped bowler hats. Fosse, perhaps unbeknownst to modern theatergoers, dabbled in just about every dance genre and style available to a choreographer, and his artistic breadth is on full display.
Tasked with keeping the Fosse energy alive are a few key creative team members who have been working tirelessly for the past few years to bring Dancin’ to Broadway. Wayne Cilento, a Tony nominee for the original Dancin’, returns to the show as director and musical stager. Corinne McFadden Herrera wears many hats for the production: associate director, musical stager and additional choreographic reconstruction.
For McFadden Herrera, seeing Fosse’s vision (and her vision) come to life on stage has been a wonderful experience — an experience many years in the making.
“Day one was during the pandemic,” the choreographer said in a recent phone interview. “Wayne and I have worked together for about 25 years since I was performing and started assisting him, and then eventually associate and co-choreographing with him. … So it’s been about two-and-a-half / three years for me, and it started with ideas and runorder and what it could potentially be.”
The two started working with some instrumental behind-the-scenes players, including Nicole Fosse, daughter of Bob; Kirsten Childs, text consultant who was responsible for additional material in the show; and David Dabbon, responsible for new music and dance arrangements, among many other professionals. What they revived is a show unlike anything else on Broadway. As McFadden Herrera described it, this is not a book musical, this is not a revue, this is certainly not a play. Without a clear designation, perhaps it’s best to describe it as … well … Dancin’.
“There was a vaudevillian introduction,” McFadden Herrera said about the original version of the show in the 1970s. “So we wanted to hold on to some of that but make it feel a little bit more modern and approach it in the sense of what would [Fosse] do today, 45 years later, if he had the capability that he had with the forward-thinking and artistry that he always put out there.”
McFadden Herrera was immediately sold on the idea of bringing Dancin’ to a modern audience. She describes herself as coming from a dance-first background, but she has worked with numerous actors throughout the years of her illustrious career, which includes being associate choreographer on the Broadway revival of Sweet Charity and a little show known as Wicked.
“It feels like a dance concert, so for me, that’s exactly where I come from,” she said. “I think our show is interesting because our cast spans from [20] years old to 45 years old. I think for me even though I was born the year this show opened on Broadway — I was actually born in March of 1978 when the show opened — in terms of my training and my youth and the amount of legendary teachers that trained me when I was young, in terms of jazz, I think it’s a root that feels like home to me. The basis of it feels like home. It didn’t take much convincing for me. I didn’t need to be convinced. I think that after the pandemic, especially for the dance community, a piece like this sits in its own wheelhouse, in a crack somewhere. It’s not a revue. It’s not a book show, but I think we geared it in a way that it allows for the idea of the well-rounded dancer, the triple threat, kind of having a place or a space in the theatrical piece that feels like a concert piece.”
Her many roles for the production blend together. She would like to think her reconstruction of Fosse’s choreography and her musical staging are perfectly distinct, but there’s a gray area where it’s difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends.
“I’ve been by Wayne’s side since day one, working with Kirsten on what the development of the text and the book would sound like and how the show would transition,” McFadden Herrera said. “It all kind of bleeds together. Wayne and I have a short-hand because we have worked together for so long.”
She added: “Wayne has some very beautiful and strong visual ideas, and Finn Ross, I think, really enhanced those ideas. And we were thrilled to have him, and then the actors of course. Some of the actors or the dancers have done TV and film and crossed over, and some of them are more seasoned in that aspect. And then some of them are younger and were speaking and hearing themselves for the first time, so that was a really interesting process in terms of the directorial bit of it. Dancers are natural actors, and when they really learn to use their voice in the way that they use their bodies, it’s pretty remarkable what they can tap into. So that was really fun for me to approach from the opposite direction that I usually do, which is helping actors to move and make sense out of why they’re moving and what they’re doing. This was definitely a growth for me to go through this process with the dancers and the actors. It was really special.”
McFadden Herrera hopes that people walk away from the show with a greater appreciation for the artistry of the performers and creative team, and perhaps a renewed sense of how diverse Fosse was in his choreographic genius.
“So many people are not familiar with the scope of the types of styles he explored,” she said.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Bob Fosse’s Dancin’, featuring work by Corinne McFadden Herrera, continues at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
