JoAnne Tucker shares her experiences in dance from directly a modern dance company to leading movement activities for women in prison and domestic violence survivors.
I am a regular listener to Sirius, Channel 72, playing Broadway music, and while I have never recorded and sent in an answer to this question that they regularly ask, I often smile when I think of my first experience. I was about five years old and my grandmother took me to see Peter Pan with Veronica Lake. When I recently mentioned that to Murray, he joyfully shared that was also the first Broadway show he saw. We both remember sitting in very good seats at the Old Nixon Theater in Pittsburgh when the production toured back in the late 40’s. It was a glorious experience for me and started my love of live theater. Of course, it was not the musical we are all familiar with but rather the original drama of 1904, written by J.M. Barrie.
Veronica Lake in Peter Pan. Found on the Internet. Photographer unknown.
In 1954 the
musical version of Peter Pan premiered
on Broadway with Mary Martin and Cyril Richards, featuring the wonderful music of
Mark Charlap with some additional music by Jules Styne. Lyrics were by Carolyn Leigh with additional
lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
And of course there was the wonderful direction and choreography of
Jerome Robbins. The television audience
was first introduced to Mary Martin and Cyril Richards recreating their roles
in 1955 on NBC and again in 1956, live in color. The 1955 TV program had the largest TV
audience ever, with 65 million viewers.
In 1960 they videotaped a slightly longer version in color and this was rebroadcast often, first by NBC and then by the Disney Channel. I saw the TV version many times and at some point, probably in the 80’s, we videotaped it. When our first grandchild, Jessica, was about 2 we introduced her to the taped version of Peter Pan and it was one of her favorites when she came to visit.
Mary Martin as Peter Pan. Photograph found on the Internet. Photographer unknown.
Then in 1999
when the production with Cathy Rigby was playing on Broadway, three generations
went together. Jessica, her Aunt Julie, and I (Grandma) were caught up in the
magic created on Broadway. Since Aunt
Julie (our daughter) is a casting director we had perfect seats and she had
arranged a backstage tour for us.
The Broadway
cast was used to children coming backstage and had designed a perfect way to
introduce the new theatergoers to the magic of Broadway. Jessica was given a small cup with fairy dust
in it and cautioned in its use. We then
met the actor who had played Captain Hook.
When Jessica took a step away from him, he reassured her that in real
life he was really a very nice person. I
am sure that I had as much fun as Jessica.
Many times since then Jessica has attended Broadway shows and the last show that we attended together, along with her Mom and Aunt Julie was Finding Neverland with Matthew Morrison. When I knew we would be in New York City at the same time, I asked what Broadway show Jessica wanted to see. With no hesitation she suggested Finding Neverland with Matthew Morrison, as she was a big fan of his from the television show Glee. I hadn’t even heard of the show, or of Morrison. We got tickets and I loved the show. Of course, Julie arranged for us to go backstage and meet Morrison. Here’s a fun picture of us all together with Morrison.
From l. to r, Rachel, me, Matthew Morrison, Jessica and Julie after seeing Finding Neverland in 2015.
I end by asking if you remember your first Broadway show or musical and whether it made you a fan of later Broadway productions?
In an earlier blog I wrote about an intensive discussion I had at about the age of 8 with Regina, a very good friend who lived down the street from me, about who was the better ballerina, Moira Shearer or Margot Fonteyn. In this blog I want to share the great fun I had dancing in Regina’s very large living room.
I am not sure where Regina got the half parachute that we played with, but what a joy it was to wave it, dance under it and use our imagination to turn it into whatever we wanted.
We lived on the same street about a half a block from each other. Regina is only about two months older than I am, but because her birthday is at the end of November and mine isn’t until January and the cut off date for kindergarten was December 31, we weren’t in the same grade. She was a half year ahead, having started kindergarten in September while I began in February. (The Pittsburgh School district had admissions to start in both September and February, and one could even graduate in February from High School. I doubt this still exists.)
Anyway, back to the living room. It was very large, reminding me of the living room in my grandmother’s house that I use to dance in as a toddler. There was lots of open space for us to move in. I remember in one part of this magical space, close to where you entered, was a record player along with lots of musical theatre records. During our grade school years and into the beginning of middle school I remember spending so many afternoons listening to musicals of that period such as The King and I, Oklahoma, and Kiss Me Kate. Regina had a lovely singing voice and she would sing along. I did not, so I was strictly about dancing. We talked about a favorite actress, Gertrude Lawrence, who was the original Anna in The King and I and was on the recording we regularly listened to. Her biography, Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A, became a favorite of mine. I saved that book for many years, occasionally returning to re-read it. That book and Agnes de Mille’s Dance to the Piper were major sources of inspiration during my pre-teen and early teen years.
Another favorite actress that I remember liking during this time was Celeste Holm, who was the original Ado Annie in Oklahoma. With my awful, out of tune voice, I sometimes tried to sing I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No. Alas… even this kind of song did not work for me. It was a good thing I liked to dance, ‘cause a triple threat (singer, dancer, actress) I would never be.
l. to r. JoAnne, JoAnne’s sister Peggy, Regina at Peggy’s birthday party. The only photo I could find of us at the age when we were having fun in Regina’s living room.
Those early after-school/weekend times influenced me in several specific ways.
Many years later, when I built the Creative Dance Center in Tallahassee, Florida (See https://mostlydance.com/2018/11/09/feminism-meets-the-bank-building-a-dance-studio/) one of the first things that I made sure to have was a parachute as a prop to use both with children and adults. This time it was a full parachute that I was able to purchase from an Army Surplus Store. It was an all-time favorite of all ages. Sometimes we just made a large circle and watched the wonderful waves it made. Other times we lifted it as high as we could, making the shape it would be in when it floated down from the sky and then brought it back to the ground. Sometimes I would invite a child to be in charge of how she wanted the rest of the class to hold the parachute so she could dance under or around or what she was imagining it to be, such as a roaring ocean waves.
When I do a search for creative movement with a parachute, the results are usually focused on pre-schoolers or young school-age children, and there are lots of fun ways the parachute has been used. However, nothing comes up for use with adults, and I found that use equally satisfying. Leading adult workshops, particularly in Tallahassee when I was doing “permission” workshops as part of Transactional Analysis Training (that’s another later blog), I used it with great success especially with encouraging adults to find or rediscover their inner child.
Clearly those afternoons fostered and reinforced my love for musical theatre, which led not only to attending theater but also choreographing and directing some musical theater.
Regina and I continue our friendship and creative journey to today. Over the years we have led workshops together, and sometimes as we are dancing around a room with 20 or so participants, we pass each other and smile remembering those times so many years ago when we were doing something similar in her living room.
Regina and JoAnne attending a film festival, September 2014. JoAnne and Regina are Board Members and filmmakers with Healing Voices – Personal Stories. The organization was honored that its film “Jessica’s Story” was selected for the Festival and won best LGBT film in the Festival. Photography by Murray Tucker.
A business trip back in the early 1990s, on which I was able to accompany my husband Murray, still has special significance to me. Murray had a case in Singapore that required him to travel there for some onsite research. We decided to begin our trip with a five-day visit to Thailand. After a long day of flying, which included changing planes in Tokyo, we arrived around 1 AM in Bangkok. I still have a very vivid memory of our taxi ride from the airport to our hotel as traffic was bumper to bumper! And that is how it seemed all the time in Bangkok – never a time when there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the roads. A quick Google search as I am writing this post shows that traffic in Bangkok is still a major problem. Murray and I soon learned that many of the tourist sites were close to one another along the river and that it was possible to take a water taxi on the Chao Phraya River that connected The Grand Palace, Temple of the Reclining Buddha and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We also took a river trip to the old capital and another river trip in smaller canals to get a flavor of local life. While we did not stay at a hotel on the river we determined that should we ever return, we would certainly do that, to radically limit our time on traffic-filled streets.
While the trip to the old capital was very interesting and I loved the various Buddha statues, my favorite part of the trip was the time in Bangkok at The Grand Palace. Upon entering the grounds my immediate reaction was that I was on the set of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s play The King and I. Everything felt so familiar to me, having been such a fan of the musical. Of course I realized that this was where so many of the set ideas had come from. And for choreographer Jerome Robbins, the position of the figures in many of the facades were woven into the dances.
My own history with The King and I goes back to shortly after the original production starring Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner opened on Broadway in March 1951. My good friend Regina had an original recording of the show. We would dance to the songs in her living room. In 1956 the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical came out, and what a dazzling production with amazing sets! Jerome Robbins recreated his ballet Small House of Uncle Thomas for the film, and I loved that ballet.
In 1964, after returning to Pittsburgh following my two years at Juilliard, I was asked to choreograph a production of The King and I that was being done at Taylor Allderdice High School, the very high school that I had attended. I had a wonderful time doing it. There are three wonderful dance moments in the musical: of course, the sixteen-minute ballet Small House of Uncle Thomas; The March of the Children, when they are introduced to their new teacher; and the duet between Anna and the King. Working with the two leads in the high school production was particularly fun and they were very appreciative of my help.
Over the years I have enjoyed watching the movie quite a few times and seeing revivals of the production. While I didn’t see the 2015 Broadway revival with Kelli O’Hara I was pleased when it won a Tony for best revival. There is even talk right now of a remake of the film. What a great contribution Rodgers and Hammerstein have made to musical theater!
I conclude this blog with a few pictures from our trip to Thailand and welcome your comments related to your connection to the award-winning The King and I.
Photograph taken of a Buddha during our tour to the Old Capital
Images on a façade at The Grand Palace that might have inspired Jerome Robbins’ choreography.
Murray and me on the grounds of The Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand.
Much to my surprise and delight I found that Disney+ was streaming the 1955 movie of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma (that duo’s first musical,created for the stage in 1943). When the movie first came out I wasn’t a big fan, as I didn’t like the casting of the main leads. I loved the original Broadway cast album of Oklahoma that featured Joan Roberts, Alfred Drake and Celeste Holmes. None of them were in the movie so I did not see the movie until many years later. What attracted me to watching the movie this month was that it is one of the few examples of Agnes de Mille’s choreography that we can see today. Since I was a teenager and read Dance to the Piper (published 1952) I had always admired de Mille, who despite being discouraged by her parents from becoming a dancer, and facing numerous struggles as a dancer and choreographer, achieved success through her sheer determination.
De Mille choreographed the movie just as she did the Broadway show. She was hired by Rodgers and Hammerstein following the 1942 success of the ballet Rodeo which she choreographed for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She asked Aaron Copeland to create the score for the piece. It premiered in the fall of 1942 at the Met in New York City with deMille dancing the lead cowgirl. She received 22 curtain calls, and the ballet’s success led to her choreographing the Broadway show which changed the use of dance in musicals. For her, dance was not just an entertainment but rather a way to advance the emotions of the characters and the plot.
The original lead dancers in the dream ballet were Marc Platt, Katherine Sergava and George Church. They doubled for the leading actors, and John Martin in a review in The New York Times wrote that Ms. Sergava, dancing the alter ego of heroine Laurey, “with her strangely remote quality of beauty becomes the ideal heroine of a rather terrifying dream.” Neither Katherine Sergava nor George Church was in the movie. Marc Platt was, but not in his original role of Curly. Instead he had a role dancing and speaking as one of Curly’s pals. The dance leads in the movie were Bambi Linn as Dream Laurey and James Mitchell as Dream Curly. Bambi Lynn made her debut in Oklahoma as a dancer and later went on to a career as a ballroom dancer with her husband Rod Alexander. James Mitchell began as a modern dancer and for 25 years was an assistant to de Mille.
In the movie there is a very graceful transition from the actress Shirley Jones to the dancer Bambi Lynn where for just a moment they mirror each other and then the dream ballet really begins as Laurey runs into and is lifted by Curly and the two dance a very lovely duet. A chorus of women soon joins in and it is a celebration with Laurey imagining her wedding, with a veil that floats down and is put on her head. The scene builds as townspeople gather and an imaginary wedding is about to take place. Curly begins to lift Laurey’s veil when suddenly instead of Curly it is Jud. Laurey flees from Jud and ends up running into a scene of women dancers (women of the night) doing the cancan as Jud watches and at times joins in with them. Laurey continues to be a part of the scene, confused, sad and bewildered, and at times even trying to dance with them. One of the dancers puts Laurey into Jud’s arms and Laurey flees from him and up an open stairway that dramatically is a dead end into open space.
A transition within the ballet is then made with sound effects and lighting suggesting a thunderstorm or tornado, and a trio with Curly, Jud and Laurey begins. Following their struggle, townspeople enter as the energy builds, ending with Jud killing Curly and lifting and carrying Laurey off. This is where the dream ballet ends and the actor Jud appears ready to take the actress Laurey to the party as she awakens from her dream terrified!
As I watched the ballet several times I was struck by what a beautiful ballet de Mille created and what a wonderful score Richard Rogers created using melodies from all different songs in the musical. The dancing is well executed and the way it was filmed added to the richness of the choreography. I also
noted that it was danced on a good soundstage so the dancers could be at their best. We are so lucky to have this available to watch, and I hope I have whet your appetite and you might watch this very well done sixteen minutes of dance. I think that Disney+ still might have a 7-day free subscription trial.
There are other good dance moments in the movie too. One comes about 24 minutes into the film, beginning with a kind of two-step which becomes a vigorous tap dance solo building into a full ensemble dance taking place at the train station. The ending is fun as three of the dancers end up on the roof of the train and two women dancers jump off the train into the arms of waiting men as the train leaves with the male dancer still dancing on the train’s roof!! Another lovely moment is a women’s ballet to the song “Many A New Day.” A square dance in Act II to the “Farmers and the Cowboys Should be Friends” is lively and is used to point out the tension that exists between the cowboys and the farmers, ending with a well choreographed full stage brawl!
While I have to point out that the story doesn’t really work for me anymore the dances sure do, along with the songs! I grew up listening to the music and also remember my Mom mentioning how she had seen the show shortly after it opened with my Dad, who was in the army about to be shipped overseas. She had loved it and talked about the enthusiasm of the audience. I wanted to know more about Oklahoma’s impact at the time related to World War II and found two excellent pieces online related to this. In a blog written by Ryan Raul Banagale he points out that “Oklahoma can be seen as a work that captures an optimistic vision of America at a moment when its future remained very much up in the air.” (https://theconversation.com/oklahoma-at-75-has-the-musical-withstood-the-test-of-time-94110 )
In an article in The New York Times, Todd S. Purdum mentions that “at every performance, there were rows of men in uniform, sitting in seats especially reserved for them, or taking standing room before shipping out overseas.
Both of these articles clearly point out how Oklahoma changed musicals and how the show remains relevant today. I am thrilled we have this example of de Mille’s choreography to watch today. Reading her book, and learning about her, strongly impacted my decision to be a dancer.
In searching for a picture to include I found this wonderful interview of Agnes de Mille talking about the stage version of Oklahoma. While it was uploaded to YouTube in 2013 it is actually from a PBS series done in 1979. We see excerpts from the stage version. It is curious that she never mentions the movie. While the choreography in this clip is similar to the movie I think the movie is actually more interesting and stronger.
It wasn’t until 2011 that I learned that Agnes de Mille had been at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado during the 1930’s. If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that the summer I spent at Perry-Mansfield as a teenager in 1958 was life-changing and that Agnes de Mille’s autobiography Dance to the Piper was also a big influence during that period in my life. In 2011 I was a member of the Board of Directors of Perry-Mansfield and was asked to chair a book-signing event for Dorothy Wickenden’s new book Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West. In discussion with Dorothy I learned that the reason she wanted to have her book signing at Perry-Mansfield instead of the local bookstore was she wanted square dancing and if possible an excerpt from de Mille’s Rodeo to be part of the event. She felt this would set the ideal mood for her book and draw people out to the event.
Wickenden’s book Nothing Daunted tells the adventures of two young women, graduates of Smith College, who in the summer of 1916 left their society life in New York state and headed to Colorado to teach school in rural northwestern Colorado. One of the women was Dorothy’s grandmother, and nearly a hundred years later Dorothy discovered her grandmother’s letters. These letters helped her recreate the womens’ saga.
Perry-Mansfield was founded in 1913 by two other Smith College women, Portia Mansfield and Charlotte Perry. “The Ladies,” as they were usually referred to, shared their purpose in the following statement: “Creative practice through art and nature manifests in a thoughtful, insightful, and courageous life.” Certainly Charlotte and Portia knew the two women written about in Nothing Daunted.
C. S. Carley, in one of her blogs at Castleandcoffeehouse.com, notes, “The story of Agnes de Mille in Steamboat Springs is one of the many historical nuggets in Dorothy Wickenden’s bestselling book . . .” Carley goes on to describe de Mille’s stay in Steamboat:
During her stay . . . ,Agnes asked to be taken to a square dance, an important regular social event in the local schoolhouse. Not only was she fascinated with the actual cowboys and girls dancing in actual cowboy boots, but she went out on the floor and did a solo turn, to much applause.
The event for the book signing was planned. It included some square dancing, a duet from Rodeo and of course Dorothy Wickenden speaking.
Dorothy Wickenden speaking at Perry-Mansfield (photo by Murray Tucker)
Sharing the duet from Rodeo was the beginning of a project by Linda Kent, who at the time was the director of dance at Perry-Mansfield. She brought the project to culmination two years later by presenting an
excerpt from the second half of the dance as part of the 100-year celebration of the performing arts camp.
Paul Sutherland is the sole répétiteur of the ballet Rodeo, having been appointed by the choreographer in 1979. There is a wonderful article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that shares the important role Rodeohas played in Sutherland’s life. He first saw the ballet when he was 18, when someone gave him a ticket. The next morning he signed up for a ballet class and two years later he had a contract with The American Ballet Theatre. His first role was dancing one of the cowboys in Rodeo. Here’s the link to the article which shares additional information. http://ticket.heraldtribune.com/2011/12/03/stager-paul-sutherland-is-still-in-the-saddle/
Linda arranged for Paul to come to Juilliard and teach the dance to her student Ellie (who would be a scholarship student at Perry-Mansfield in the summer), and to a young man from the Ailey BFA program, who also planned to be at P-M. When the dancer from the Ailey program was unable to attend, Ellie (then at P-M), taught the dance (with Paul’s permission) to Raffles Durbin, who was a scholarship student from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas.
The event was a success with a packed, enthusiastic crowd.
Steamboat Sprints Pilot Newspaper, saved by Linda Kent, publicizing the book-signing event! (Credited to John F. Russell/Staff)
One of the challenges that Linda Kent faced when she was Director of Dance at Perry-Mansfield was to provide really meaningful experiences for the dance students after their concert which was held the fourth week of camp. That meant there were still two weeks left of the six-week program. She came up with the idea of bringing guest artists to P-M so the students would be exposed to both master classes and a lecture demonstration by an outstanding artist.
In 2007, P-M faculty member Christina Paolucci arranged an amazing experience featuring Gemze de Lappe sharing work of Agnes de Mille, along with two dancers and a musician. (At that time I did not know about Agnes de Mille’s history with P-M. Check out Part I of this blog to learn about it.) I was thrilled that the students would be able to have master classes and a lecture demonstration, and so Murray and I made a contribution to P-M to help fund it.
Christina at the time was Educational Director/Associate Artistic Director at New York Theatre Ballet, and Gemze had been working extensively with NYTB from 2005 until her death in 2017 as NYTB presented many excerpts from de Mille’s ballets. A highlight of NYTB’s work on de Mille was a production called Dance/Speak. A description in TheatreMania describes it well:
The New York Theatre Ballet celebrates its 30th Anniversary season with the World Premiere of Dance/Speak: The Life of Agnes de Mille, a dance/drama which tells the story of choreographer Agnes de Mille’s struggle for success in the American theatre. Written by Anderson Ferrell, novelist and director of The de Mille Working Group; Directed by Scott Alan Evans; Staged by Gemze de Lappe (including dances from Oklahoma!, Carousel, Brigadoon as well as Fall River Legend, Three Virgins and a Devil, Rodeo, and Debut at the Opera) with Additional Choreography by Liza Gennaro. All performances are followed by an intimate panel discussion with the creators.
Diana Byer, Sallie Wilson, Gemze deLappe and Paul Sutherland at a post-performance conversation after an evening of de Mille works produced by NYTB. Photo by Christina PaolucciElena Zahlmann and Terence Duncan in Oklahoma! Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of New York Theatre Ballet
An obituary in The New York Times helped me understand better the contribution that Gemze made to the dance world and to keeping the integrity of de Mille’s choreography. Richard Sandomer described it well in this quote:
Miss de Lappe understood that de Mille’s dancers had to be actors, and that her choreography — which was celebrated for incorporating elements of folk dancing and classical ballet — was as much about forging character as it was about learning the steps. When she recreated de Mille’s choreography, Miss de Lappe used her mentor’s vocabulary, vivid with motivational similes, to inform even the subtlest of movements.
The obituary also pointed out:
Miss de Lappe’s association with de Mille began in 1943 when she was cast in a small part in the first national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s“Oklahoma!”
…“She was the potter’s clay for Agnes and one of her foremost interpreters,” Anderson Ferrell, director of the de Mille Working Group, which licenses performances of de Mille’s dances, said in a telephone interview. “Gemze was her muse.”
Over the course of three days Gemze along with dancers Terence Duncan and Julie-Anne Taylor and music director Ferdy Tumakaka conducted a Repertory class for P-M dancers, held two master classes open to the public and presented an hour-long lecture demonstration. Repertory from Carousel, Brigadoon and Oklahoma were introduced. Christina and Terence remember that Gemze’s master class focused on the breath and very detailed characterization from Carousel.
Gemze (center) teaching at Perry-Mansfield. Photo by Christina Paolucci
Five years later in 2013, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Perry-Mansfield Linda Kent turned to de Mille’s Rodeo and shared the following with me:
I wanted to celebrate our history and our dance present and future. Rodeo seemed the most perfect look back. I had great ambition and very little budget!!! Paul Sutherland and the de Mille estate worked with us and we did an excerpt of the second half of the dance. Paul has been the exclusive restager of Rodeo since 1979 and he gives the dancers so much more than steps!! It was a miracle to see contemporary 16-21 year olds ransformed into the gals and cowboys of de Mille’s first encounters. Our cowgirl, Cleo Person, was a delight in her awkward mooning over Keil Weiler as our Champion Roper (and fantastic tap dancer). Paul Sutherland was delighted and I was thrilled that we could bring this back to the community where the inspiration began.
Murray and I had already moved from Steamboat Springs to Santa Fe in late 2009 and while at first we returned in the summers, by 2013 we were busy sharing our artwork at fairs and didn’t make it up to Perry-Mansfield for the celebration. We did hear raves from our friends about how well the evening of dance went.
One of the most delightful things of writing the blog posts for Mostly Dance is the interaction I get with other artists sharing memories. I am very grateful to Linda Kent, Christina Paolucci and Terence Duncan for going through notes, photos and memories that made this post possible.
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