December 2005 Archives

After so many disappointments [Rent and Chicago, excluded] it's such a rare treat to have a film adaptation of a Broadway musical, as in Mel Brooks' The Producers, work so well onscreen.

One writer's opinion, anyway. And, it would seem, the two packed auditoriums where I viewed the film with audiences that roared in laughter. The big question is will those three star raves and the thumb's up overide the neasayers.

Director/choreographer Susan Stroman, amazingly [well, not according to all critics] in her film directorial debut, deserves the lion's share of credit [or to read some of the reviews, blame].

There was never any illusion that the Broadway stage show would be classy. The material is tasteless and often vulgar, like in so many of Brooks films. Yet it worked, and won a record 12 Tony Awards.

Stroman has recaptured the production on film in a throwback to the old-fashioned movie musicals she popcorned her way through as a kid.

If anything, The Producers is better on film than onstage, mainly thanks to the repackaging of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, who saw their careers soar to dazzling heights in the career-defining roles of Bialystock and Bloom.

More so than onstage, Lane seems to be channeling Zero Mostel's unbeatable performance in the original film from the twisted mind of Brooks. Lane and Broderick play off each other with hilarious results, particlarly at their initial meeting in the "We Can Do It" sequence. Lane's gift for comedy is well known, but it's Broderick who's full of surprises. He explodes onscreen, expanding his stage persona with ab fab slapstick and never sounded better on the vocals.

At a press event, Broderick said, "My goal wasn't to just document the stage version, because then it would feel stale." He explained that onstage you have to deliver the material with a bit more subtly. "On film, you can't be very subtle. I wanted the movie Max to be its own, new thing." He succeeded.

Broderick, daydreaming, segues into a spectacular "I Wanna Be A Producer" production
number with girls, girls, girls in pearls, pearls, pearls>
The critical shellacing from some critics aside, there's much to enjoy in the film.

Some things can be done better onstage; others, bigger and better onscreen.

The latter is certainly true regarding what Stroman has done with Broderick's "I Wanna Be A Producer" number, where he transforms from mousy accountant to a Merrick-wanna-be. It's great fun when those file cabinets pop open revealing girls, beautiful girls, in miles and miles of smiles and pearls.

"Matthew really enjoyed learning the new choreography," points out Stroman. "He has a real song and dance man inside him."Stroman staged the number across three stylized sets: a shiny black floor with a backdrop that expands like an accordion, a riser of sparkling stairs and a multi-tiered platform that illuminates Bloom's name in thousands of lights [inspired, she says, by the unique photography of Busby Berkeley films].

Lane and Broderick's recreation of their stage performances should put an end to the gossip that in the The Odd Couple revival they are delivering the same performances they gave onstage in The Producers. These guys aren't copying anything. Seeing them again in these role, it becomes clear that they're not cloning their performances in TOC.

The duo were a team, became a team again [TOC] and are once more a team. But, says Lane, don't expect them to continue a career path where they become the new Martin and Lewis or Abbott and Costello. "Something like The Producers [onstage] really only happens once in a lifetime," explains Lane, "but not everything we do is going to be The Producers. It was such a phenomenon. No one could have predicted what would happen. Now, all you can hope is that lightning will strike twice!"

When Brooks started planning the film adaptation, he says, "I was adamant that as many as possible of the original talents responsible for the success of the Broadway show would return for the film version, including Susan and, it goes without saying, Nathan and Matthew."

These include Tony-winner Gary Beach and Tony-nominee Roger Bart, who created the roles of, respectively, "flamboyantly untalented" director Roger De Bris [and you don't get the impression in the film that he is that unsuccessful] and his "common-law" assistant Carmen Ghia. Onscreen, they seem even more outrageously over the top - if that is possible. It could be the contrast of seeing them on a giant screen as opposed to from Row R.

The list included the ensemble of very talented pigeons, but, sadly, not Brad as Third Reich playwright Franz Liebkind. Studios think they have to have names to guarantee box office, so Oscar is relegated to a blink-your-eye-and-he's-gone cameo and Will Ferrell fills his shoes. He's a gifted clown and acquits himself nicely.

The false note in the major casting is Uma Thurman as luscious Swedish secretary/ receptionist Ulla, whose charms land her a plum role in the designed-to-be-a-flop Bialystock plots. Uma's got it, and she certainly tries to flaunt it - it would seem with the help of a mighty push-up bra. Unfortunately, especially when singing [which she does quite okiedokie], she slips in and out of that Swedish accent.

The splashy opening number, "Opening Tonight" and other ensemble moments feature a rooster of theater names; among them: Brent Barrett [in high leather drag!], George Dvorsky, Kathy Fitzgerald [from the stage musical], Hunter Foster, Judy Kaye, Andrea Martin, Nancy Opel, Marilyn Sokol and Karen Ziemba [not to mention Jai Rodriguez as Sabu!]. John Barrowman, gone Germanic blonde, as the singing stormtrooper, adds a jolt of theatricality to the "Springtime for Hitler" number, especially with his clarion tenor.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. ... .. .. .... ... ... ... ... .... ... . ........Break a leg, if not box office records>

Beach interrupts Broderick and Lane walking off with the entire movie when, in the true spirit of the show-must-go-on legend, Ferrell, who's been cast as Hitler, breaks a leg and he's forced to go out there a gay director and come back a star. At first, the audience is aghast. Bialystock and Bloom are plotting their getaway in the face of the season's - no, the decade; nah, the century's - biggest flop. But Beach, flamboyant as ever, wins them over and, unfortunately for Bialystock and Bloom, critics rave and lines form at the box office.

What is Beach's little nod in the Broadway musical, still playing at the St. James, of a hint of Judy Garland's "Born in a Trunk" sequence in A Star Is Born is now an all-out tribute. Beach shines. Faithful fans will get the joke, but how Beach's big moment plays to the unknowing will be anybody's guess.

Tony Award-winning costume designer William Ivey Long is another veteran of the stage show who worked on the film.

There are several inside jokes. Tony-winning co-book writer Thomas Meehan also takes the liberty to salute the street he lives on in the far West Village. The timeline of the film has been pushed back from 1968 to 1959 when, as you can see in the Shubert Alley sequences featuring posters of The Sound of Music, West Side Story and Destry Rides Again, Broadway was abuzz with hits.

Production designer Mark Friedberg superbly recreated on a soundstage West 44th Street, including Sardi's, Shubert Alley and the Shubert Theatre [where Bialystock's office would logically be when he first spots Ulla getting out of that Rolls Royce]. In the continuity department, as you will catch in the Central Park scene at the Bethesda fountain [you'll have fun spotting which extras are there, then gone and suddenly back again], and with Broderick's quick-dry, no-wrinkle shirt [way before their time here!] somebody was not being alert.

Brooks was determined to shoot the film, just as he did the original 1968 film, in New York. "We're a Broadway story!" he says enthusiastically. "It would have been heartbreaking not to shoot here. And the studio was only eleven and a half blocks away from where I was born."

It was shot at the new, state-of-the-art Steiner Studios, a 100,000-square-foot facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Freidberg supervised construction of sets on four soundstages.

Stroman comes through with shining colors in her initial job behind the cameras, which, she says, "became like another dancer to me. One day on set, I watched as a camera crewman passed the crane up into space. It was as if he was passing a dancer into the air."

She had the production storyboarded, so every move was planned. "The cameramen loved shooting to the tempo of the music," she reports, "and scenes and production numbers were planned so the camera would partner the actors as if they were a dance couple. If the actor took eight counts to move from left to right, so did the camera."

Growing up, she was an avid fan of movie musicals and."wanted to be like Ginger and Fred and Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain. It was glorious the way they glided and danced." It was this love of dance that got her interested in theater. "I always imagined scenarios with hordes of people dancing through my head, but movie musicals faded away. We all thought the genre was gone. But musicals will always be alive in theater."

Stroman says she finds "something timelessly appealing" about the story of The Producers. "Like any good musical, each character fulfills all his hopes and dreams. Audiences either see themselves in Leo, a caterpillar who wants to become a butterfly, or they see themselves as Max, a man who was on top and wants to rise there again. We also have a love story ó the nerdy accountant wins the beautiful girl."

The idea of turning The Producers into a stage musical was an interesting journey. In 1998, David Geffen "hounded me," says Brooks, about turning the film [which won Brooks as screenplay Oscar] into a stage production. I'd been a fan of the theater since my Uncle Joe took me to see Cole Porter's Anything Goes when I was nine."

Unknown to Geffen, Brooks had long had the desire to be a Broadway composer/ lyricist. He had written songs for his films, including "Springtime for Hitler" and "Prisoners of Love" for The Producers.

Geffen suggested Brooks meet with Jerry Herman. When they discussed the project, Herman told Brooks he knew of a better candidate to write the score. He sat at the piano and played some of the composer's songs. The composer was Brooks.

He brought aboard Meehan, a friend and collaborator [Spaceballs, To Be or Not To Be] to co-write the book. It didn't hurt that he'd won a Tony for his Annie book.

Stroman was at work on Contact when she got a call from out of nowhere. "It was Mel and he said, ëI want to meet you. Tonight.'" She was about to say, "ButÖ" but realized this was Mel Brooks. "I knew all of his movies, all the lines. I got very excited."

She dropped everything, hurried home and before she knew it there was a knock at the door. "And there he was, this legend." But Brooks didn't speak. "He launched into full voice, singing ëThat Face' [the song that would open Act Two of The Producers]. He sang right past me, down my hall and then jumped on my sofa. He finished the song, looked down at me and said, ëHello, I'm Mel Brooks.'"

She laughs that when he offered her the job she thought, "No matter what happens with this show, it's going to be a great adventure. And it has been. In fact, it has been one of the greatest times of my life."

Twelve Tony Awards, two national touring companies and three international productions later, Brooks asked Stroman, "If we were to make this show into a movie, what movie would you want to make it like?"

She answered, "Singin' in the Rain," and Brooks told her "You've got the job!" He says that SITR is the classic of "a head-to-toe musical where you see the dancers, not just in quick cuts to faces or eyes or ears, but you see beautiful bodies in motion."

Stroman was excited to introduce a camera into the mix. She notes, "In the theater, the audience sees everything in a wide shot. On film, I was able to use the close-up to tell the story more immediately and in a more intimate way. Plus, getting a close-up on the humorous faces of Nathan, Matthew, Gary and Roger heightens the comedy even more."

Brooks did give Stroman advice. He told her that she must say "action" and then, when you're happy, "cut." Highly complimentary, Brooks says, "I knew that Susan would take to this. She has an incredible visual gift."

Broderick agrees. "Susan came extremely prepared and was a very hard worker. At rehearsals, we never had to fill the time. She had it all well planned. You could feel her strength and her smarts. Her transition to movies just seemed effortless."

Regarding the adaptation, Meehan explains that the structure of a movie is traditionally three acts, "but Broadway musicals are two acts. Just as Mel and I took his three-act screenplay and fashioned it into a two-act Broadway musical, we had to take the stage book apart and reconstruct it all over again."

He noted that the Act One finale "Along Came Bialy," which takes place in what he called "little old lady land" [with 50 of Bialystock's investor honeys on walkers], is in the middle of the film. "We didn't need a big orgasmic finish to send the curtains down," he laughs, "because the show is still rolling."

Expanding the production to the screen, says Meehan, "gives it a previously unexplored breadth. When you take it off the stage and put it in movies, you can do a lot more in terms of locations. This movie doesn't just take place in offices and theatres [a brief sequence was shot in the St. James], but throughout the city. Putting it onscreen, we gave it more room to breathe."

But, for Lane and Broderick, the transition from performing onstage to onscreen was initially a bit startling. For one thing, onstage, with applauding audiences in gales of laughter, they had to, as Lane describes, "put air between certain lines" until the laughter subsided. n front of the cameras, their audience of 1,500 people shrunk to a crew of 70, boom mikes and a rather large camera.

Lane jokes, "Matthew said that shooting this on film was like doing a very quiet Wednesday matinee. We were used to an audience who are an active part of the process. That gave us a certain rhythm. But in shooting the film, we had to let go of all that ó to go back to what it is your character wants and needs."

Observing the differences between the theater and film performance, Broderick adds, "Movies are very slow, with a lot of waiting around. You have to have energy when you need it over a three-month period. Onstage, you're sort of shot out of a cannon. You go out and it's boom, boom, and you don't stop. It's a very different feeling."

Douglas Besterman, who won a Tony for his orchestrations of the stage production, was back with a score arranged for a much larger orchestra: 70 musicians. Patrick Brady, the music director and frequent conductor of The Producers onstage, conducted and was vocal arranger and, since the majority of the numbers were pre-recorded, the resident lip-synch policeman, carefully scrutinizing each performance so the vocals were perfectly in synch. In a bit of a departure from traditional movie musical shooting, the actors didn't always have to be in sync with a playback. They were given the option to sing live.

The movie soundtrack [available on Sony] has 23 numbers [the original cast CD has 20], mostly in the same sequence as onstage. The deletion of "The King of Broadway," except as a bonus track, is puzzling. Missing also is the Lane/Broderick duet, "Where Did We Go Right?"

Brooks has written two new songs, "You'll Find Your Happiness in Rio" and "There's Nothing Like A Show On Broadway," which could become an opening number for the Tony Awards and a perennial in piano bars. It's heard in the closing credits sequence, which you don't want to miss.

The Producers was nominated for 14 2001 Tonys and won 12, setting a new record. It received Tonys in each nominated category, including three for Brooks [Musical, Score and Book, the latter shared with Meehan. It will surely be in the running for Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.

Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman - two "queens of comedy" and both six-time Emmy Award winners - top the spectacular cast in ABC's Sunday airing of the Mary Rodgers/Marshall Louis Barer musical comedy Once Upon A Mattress. Just days before it's release on DVD, it's a two-hour holiday presentation on The Wonderful World of Disney.

Burnett, who played the princess in the Off Broadway and Broadway original, now stars in the much-expanded role of Queen Aggravain, with Ullman as Princess Winnifred.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . Carol Burnett stars again, but in a different role>
The special, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall [Tony, Choreography, Wonderful Town], co-stars Zooey Deschanel, Michael Boatman, Edward Hibbert [Fraiser] and Matthew Morrison [The Light in the Piazza, Hairspray].

Denis O'Hare [Drama Desk winner, Sweet Charity; Tony winner, Take Me Out] plays Prince Dauntless. The legendary Tom Smothers is King Sextimus, the benevolent but mute ruler to Burnett's conniving queen [the running gag is that he'd rather be deaf than mute!].

Bob Mackie, the legendary designer of some pretty incredible frocks for Ms. Burnett [who is the executive producer] is onhand with some dazzling costumes and headpieces.

Denis O'Hare plays Prince Dauntless;
and with Carol Burnett, as Queen Aggravain>
The story tells of Dauntless, desperate to find a wife, who comes in the unlikely person of Winnifred. The hitch is that the Queen's not too happy about his choice and sets an edict that the bride-to-be must be so sensitive that she can feel a pea under a mountain of mattresses.

Burnett created the role of Princess Winnifred in 1959 when the play premiered off-Broadway. The show then moved from the East Village to The Great White Way and Burnett made her Broadway debut." She later starred in 1964 and 1972 TV productions of the musical.

Marc Platt [Legally Blonde; Broadway's Wicked], Burnett and Burnett veteran Marty Tudor are executive producers. Janet Brownell [Eloise at the Plaza, Gilda Radner: It's Always Something] wrote the teleplay, based on the original stage book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller and Martin Barer.

Marshall is director-in-residence for City Center Encores!, where she served as artistic director for four seasons.
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Chita Rivera and The Dancer's Life company in a recreation of the gym sequence from West Side Story. The Jerome Robbins choreography is reproduced by Alan Johnson.

Those piercing eyes! That radiant smile! The fiery way she flips her dress and tosses her hair. And, oh, yeah, those legs!!! Could that describe anyone other than the one, the only, the seemingly indestructible Chita Rivera?

Have you met any theaterlover in the last two weeks who hasn't seen Broadway's legendary gypsy in her autobiographical musical revue Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life at least twice - and who's not planning to go back a third and forth time?

If not, you're not getting around much anymore. [One reason they keep going back is that they think CR might reveal more juicy gossip about her youthful, passionate flings!]

CR:TDL is a "living memoir" told by the survivor herself. There's plenty to celebrate with the seemingly unstoppable - amazing considering those pins and the fact that next month she turns 73 - Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero.

Directed and choreographed by multiple Tony and Drama Desk winner Graciela Daniele, the show has a book by Tony, Drama Desk and Pulitzer Prize-winning Terrence McNally, with songs from a long list of musicals Rivera was featured or starred in. There are also two new songs by Tony and Drama Desk-winning composers Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, including the poignant "A Woman the World Has Never Seen." Music direction and the superb orchestra arrangements are by Mark Hummel.

In addition to Daniele's staging, two respected choreographers in their own right, Tony Stevens, a veteran CR dancer who's choreographed for her, and Alan Johnson recreate, respectively, the Jerome Robbins/Peter Gennaro and Bob Fosse choreography.

In CR:TDL, it's not just La Conchita onstage alone. She benefits greatly from a superb lineup of nine seasoned dancers, several veteran CR dancers: Richard Amaro [Jerome Robbins' Broadway], Lloyd Culbreath, Edgar Gallardo, Deidre Goodwin [a Chicago Velma], Malinda Farrington, Richard Montoya, Lainie Sakakura, Alex Sanchez and Allison Tucker. Some of the backstory is responsible for the two-hour revue starting out the gate a bit slow, but the show ignites with the recreation of Gennaro's choreography of WSS's Jets/Sharks' gym dance [which Rivera reports he was never given credit for], and really fires up with Daniele's Act Two tango sequence, which Rivera uses to salute the choreographers who've influenced her.

Rivera's reminences of her long-time idol, mentor and eventual co-star Gwen Verdon are particularly poignant - and quite funny. CR's 11:00 "duet" with the ghost of Verdon is the stuff of theater business magic.

Needless to say, Rivera and Daniele's recreations of numbers from many of her shows, not to mention a song from 1955's Shoestring Revue, "Garbage" by Sheldon Harnick, which Bea Arthur did as a torch singer and in which Rivera danced, are showstoppers.

The audiences for CR:TDL provide a virtual lovefest for the Broadway legend and eight-time Tony-nominee [winner of two] and Rivera radiates the love right back.

Like that TV battery bunny, Rivera's going, going, going - and has no plans to do anything but keep going. Rivera's been entertaining with pizzazz and panache for five decades, a milestone she officially celebrated in May. That's an amazing track record in fickle show business.

If you think she's going to retire and rest those gorgeous gams when the run of TDL ends, think ago. Martin Richards, one of the show's lead producers, and Rivera have something up their sleeve that, says Richards, "will rock the socks off everyone!" - a musical with a distinctive Latin beat.

It's hard to find anyone onstage in musical theater who's not been influenced by her or who doesn't love her for her heart, which is as big, if not bigger than her talent.

Rivera's career trajectory "has been a journey from a dream to dancing for those out there somewhere in the dark." It's been, as she sings in the show, "a lovely ride," a wonderful, rewarding adventure.

"With each job," she explains, "I feel as if I'm being pushed into a new area with these great playwrights and creative teams who trust me and want to direct me and take me further and further down this path of the theatrical unknown."

Rivera did it the old-fashioned way; paying her dues, winning her stripes and Tonys and Drama Desks the hard way. She's also a pioneer, one of the very first Hispanic women to break into theater stardom.

Conchita was born, not in Puerto Rico, but on Flagler Place in N.W. Washington, D.C., the daughter of Pedro Julio Figueroa, who played saxophone and clarinet in the U.S. Navy Band, and Katherine Anderson. Her dad died when CR was seven and her mom was forced to go to work [as a secretary at the Pentagon] to support the family.

"We were a large family [two brothers and her two sisters]," says Rivera, "with never a dull moment, especially at meal times. I was a rambunctious tomboy, but I loved to dance. Once I was actually dancing on our kitchen table and the table broke In an attempt to tone me down, Mom enrolled me in ballet school. I was eleven. It worked. I had the most dedicated, most strict teacher, Miss Jones, who rid me of all my attitude and really drove me to correct posture at the bar."

When an instructor from New York's American School of Ballet - run by the esteemed George Ballachine - visited, Rivera and another student were chosen to audition for a scholarship.

"I was scared out of my wits," she remembers. "Miss Jones calmed me down. She told me, ëConchita, don't worry about the long bodies and blond ponytails lined up next to you, just be who you are!'"

She was and won a scholarship. At ABT, her teachers included Maria Tallchief and Edward Villella.

It was the dance world's loss and show biz's gain when the 17-year-old Rivera accompanied a friend to the auditions for the tour of Call Me Madam and she ended up landing the part. Elaine Stritch was the star, and teen chorus member del Rivero was quite scared of her. "She's a bit scary, don't you think?" Rivera asks in the show and gets a huge laugh.

In Rivera's eyes, she was a ballerina, and becoming a gypsy was a step down. As a ballerina, she danced to be seen. She quickly found out that as an ensemble dancer she was mainly there to do crossovers as they changed the scenery.

As intimidated as she was of Stritch, she admired her onstage style - greatly impressed that she was "all legs." Rivera recalls, "I stood stary-eyed in the wings, watching every move Elaine made and I learned from her."

In the mid-50s, it was suggested her name was too long to fit into "lights" on a theatre marquee, and Chita Rivera was born. She made her Broadway debut in Cole Porter's Can-Can, [a show she later did internationally with the Radio City Rockettes], followed quickly by the Victor Young/Stella Unger musical adaptation of Seventh Heaven.

OPENING NIGHT:
Chita Rivera on the red carpet [daughter Lisa is in foreground];
with Bebe Neuwirth and Ben Vereen; Barbara Cook dueting with
Harvey Evans; ageless Liliane Montevecchi and Tommy Tune.

[Photos: ELLIS NASSOUR]

She began her rise out of the chorus in 1957 with Mr. Wonderful, [music and lyrics by Jerry Bock/Larry Holofcener/George Weiss and a book co-authored by Joseph Stein] headling Sammy Davis Jr., "who," says Rivera, "was the most talented performer I'd ever seen. I fell in love with him."

Literally. In CR:TDL, she makes it clear that though they had an affair, the love was very one-sided. After all, as she puts it quite succinctly, "I was a gyspy. He was a star."

After six terrible auditions for Hal Prince's production of Bernstein/Sondheim/Laurents' 1957 West Side Story, Bernstein, recognizing something in her that she didn't know she had, came to the rescue. After correcting her on the pronunciation of his name, he sat at the piano cajoling and pushing until she got what the character Anita was experiencing. "I finally got it, and the job," she says joyously.

She talks about the creative process and how the gypsies bonded as a family [one of the things she loves so much about theater]. Her electric performance started her on the road to stardom. Amazingly, she was not recognized by the Tony nominating committee, an egregious oversight if ever there was one.

WSS led to a serious romance with 5'6" dynamo and dancer extraordinaire Tony Mordente, who played Jet gang member A-Rab. They were married in December 1957, about two months into the run.

Rivera's critical acclaim equaled that of stars Larry Kert and Carol Lawrence, so much so that Prince delayed the WSS West End opening until Rivera gave birth to her daughter, Lisa, and was back in shape.

Mordente, who went on to assist Gower Champion on Birdie, choreograph and direct, was Italian. Though madly in love - "madly" being the optimum word, two combustible temperaments led to a rocky, tempestuous union, especially, says Rivera, because of his insane jealously.

"If I said ëHello' to a cab driver," laughs Rivera, "he wanted to know how I knew him. I would say, ëI just said Hello!' He'd reply, ëAnd as we were getting out, he said Goodbye.' And that's the way it was." The couple divorced in 1965, with Rivera citing that "as one of the saddest events in my life."

But, explains CR, like the late Fred Ebb wrote [in a lyric], "the world goes 'round and 'round. We moved on. Life went on. People change and now we are extraordinarly close friends. Tony is responsible for the very best production of my life, our daughter Lisa.

[Mordente, who's evidently cultivated a different persona, was not only a beaming-with-pride special opening night guest of Rivera, but was also Lisa's date. And he and CR engaged in some oh-the-times-we've had laughs.]

Birdie, was the first time she received billing above the title, starring as Rosie opposite Dick Van Dyke, whom she says was a joy to work with. Three years later, Rivera was hand-picked by Gennaro to appear opposite Herschel Bernardi and Nancy Dussault in Bajour, where as Anyanka she was featured doing some spectacular dancing alongside "this brilliant kid Michael Bennett," who was just beginning to branch out into choreography.

Most know about her theater credits, but - "and for good reason," laughs Rivera - not about her 1973 season with Van Dyke and Hope Lange on The New Dick Van Dyke Show. "I was Dick's neighbor," recollects Rivera. "It was a great opportunity, but I didn't have a lot to do. On one show I was to come in loaded with groceries and find Dick all doped up after being at the dentist. I was to try to rouse him. My lines were, 'Dick. Dick? Dick!' I knew I had to make the most of it, so I really rehearsed ways to have the most impact. 'Dick!! Dick?? DICK!' We did it and I immediately felt it was time to throw in the towel. Done in by three Dicks, I headed back to New York."

In 1975, as jealous jail-house rival Velma Kelly, Rivera and Verdon, as the infamous Roxie Hart, created the razzle-dazzle for Fosse and Kander & Ebb's Chicago. [She has a cameo in the Oscar-winning film adaptation, produced by the original Chicago's capitalizer [a casting director then, he raised all the production money; but because Verdon didn't like seeing more than two producer's names above the title - oh, those where the days! - he was denied credit], Martin Richards, a lead producer of CR:TDL.]

She was back on Broadway as the Queen in Elmer Bernstein/Don Black's 1983 Merlin, which co-starred Nathan Lane and, lackluster though it was, managed a six-month run mainly due to Doug Henning's magic.

Among many career highlights, in 1984, she received acclaim and a Tony playing Liza Minelli's free-spirited mom, Anna, in Kander and Ebb's The Rink, which through its trials and tribulations managed six months on Broadway. A year and a half later, she was co-headling with Dorothy Loudon and Leslie Uggams in Herman's Jerry's Girls.

Chita Rivera has had star billing on Broadway, London, Toronto, Tokyo and Vegas. She's taken home awards by the dozens, but she's considered more than a theatrical icon.

In addition to her many awards and honors, she became a "national treasure" as a recipient of a 2002 Kennedy Center Honor. More recently, she's been featured in a Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition, Our Journey/Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement, showcasing the historical and cultural achievements of Hispanics in America.

When many stars her age are sitting home collecting their hard-earned pensions or doing those musical theater cruises to Alaska or Antarctica, Rivera, in more than top form, is wowing them on Broadway, dancing up a storm with an ensemble of the best dancers to be found anywhere.

"I've been so fortunate throughout," she says, "to have great leading men - Van Dyke, O'Connor, Brent Carver and Anthony Crivello, John McMartin [Kander and Ebb's The Visit, Chicago's Goodman], Antonio Banderas and to have worked with such giants as Sondheim, Bernstein, Prince, Laurents, Frank Galati [The Visit] and now Graciela."

She cannot overlook the actors: Kert, Verdon and Jerry Orbach [Chicago], Bennett; or the composers: Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, Herman and Kander and Ebb, with whom she became intimate friends. Nor the choreographers: Robbins, Gennaro [later a brilliant choreographer in his own right, and Robbins' WSS assistant], Jack Cole, Fosse, Ann Reinking [The Visit] and Rob Marshall [co-choreographer, Spider Woman].

Rivera says her style, "is a little bit of Jerry [Robbins]'s athletic grace, Peter [Gennaro]'s Latin fire and Bob [Fosse]'s minimalism and erotic movements." She credits her incredible footwork to Gennaro, who she claims had the fastest feet in the business.

"I'm a little of each of those people," Rivera adds. "I'm still learning! I'm, first and foremost, a dancer. I've grown into many other things with the help of these geniuses. God truly blessed me! He said, ëOkay, I'll let you go there.' And everyday, I'm still learning."

In CR:TDL, the star pays a special tribute to Cole, who started as a modern dancer with Ruth St. Denis and who's considered the father of jazz dance technique. "Jack had a background in East Indian dancing and even the Lindy hop," notes Rivera. "He blended these elements to create a distinctive style that brought him great acclaim not only onstage but also in big screen musicals."

DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH CHITA RIVERA

Rivera is one of the few artists who worked for Robbins who doesn't remember him as an arrogant, mean taskmaster. "He was very handsome," she recalls, "I idolized him. He was my ëBig Daddy' and I would do anything for him."

Of Fosse, she says, "He had an incredible sense of humor, but there was this other side: very dark and on the edge."

Her 50-year career in theater, Rivera says, "has been a wonderful and rewarding adventure. With each job, I feel as if I'm being pushed into a new area with these great composers, choreographers, directors and playwrights who trust me and want to direct me and take me further and further down this path of theatrical adventure."

She is quick to point out that's she's always been realistic about her career, "I was never a dreamer. There's nothing easy about show business. It's so seldom that the good guy wins." She, of course, is one of the exceptions.

For Martin Richards and Marty Bell, among the lead producers, of the show, getting this show up and to Broadway has been a labor of love. Both have, for many years, been dazzled by La Conchita's talent.

THE COLOR PURPLE:

If Oprah promotes it, audiences will come. And they're coming to The Color Purple. And not sitting in those tight Broadway Theatre seats quietly, either. They're talking back to the cast and clapping hands when the music moves them.

Thanks to a huge infusion of cash from Oprah, only six weeks prior to the first Broadway preview, and first-time-at-bat lead producer [and a veteran TV/film producer] Scott Sanders' 13 additional investors [which include the Nederlander Presentations, Quincy Jones, who co-produced and scored the film] and the Bob and Harvey Wienstein], the $11-million plus show has made it to Broadway after a shaky start in Atlanta.

Sanders, now 48, aged a few years raising the capital to put his dream show on the boards. It's not the best-kept secret in theatrical circles that there's the perception that "black shows" do not attract white audiences, and that African-Americans don't go to theater."

So he approached non-traditional sources, such as Wall Street financier Roy Furman, who has invested in shows and, though moved by the story, "found an earlier version needing real work." But with their seed money, the work got done. And then came Queen Oprah.

The story of Celie's coming of age - from being sold into a loveless marriage where she's a virtual slave to becoming a successful business woman who finally discovers her real family - is a triumphant one. The core audience already knows the material from Speilberg's 1985 film adaptation and AliceWalker's 1982 best-seller.

The critics have weighed in on Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman's adaptation of Walker's book and the score by Grammy Award-winning composers/lyricist Brenda Russell, Alee Willis and Stephen Bray. There are pros and cons. In the latter category, which hasn't seemed to detract the least at the box office, it's been called it a "plot-crammed" musical with a plot line that "frenetically skims the surface of" the book.

Maybe Norman's Broadway book has been embellished a bit too much with more incidents from late in the book, maybe the score and choreography [or acrobatics] are not as dynamic as they could be and maybe it could have been cut by a good 20 minutes - or, better still, used that 20 minutes to develop the characters a bit more. But you can't say a majority of audiences don't leave, if not humming the score, at least ebullient at the "happy" ending.

That's thanks to a talented cast and a robust-voiced ensemble, with special appreciation for LaChanze, so memorable last season Off Broadway as a slave in LCT's Dessa Rose, for which she received Drama Desk and Obie nominations. [She received Tony and DD nominations for Once On This Island]. As Celie, she carries the bulk of the show - aging 40 years from an "ugly" young backwoods and backward teen to a confident and successful adulthood.

LaChance is a big fan of Walker's book. "I really relate to Celie's passive-aggressive qualities and the strength in her vulnerability."

But Celie doesn't have the smarts to develop into such a strong woman on her own. That comes from the irrepressible juke-joint blues singer Shrug Avery, played by Elizabeth Withers-Mendes. Their Act One finale duet, "What About Love?" is a heart-breaker.

There are two other memorable musical moments: Celie singing "Somebody Gonna Love You" early in Act One and, late in the act, Shug's "Too Beautiful for Words."

Director Gary Griffin is blessed with a strong supporting cast. It's highlighted by Felicia P. Fields as the buxom, sassy "Just Say No" Sofia [the role played so memorably on film by Oprah]; Brandon Victor Dixon as Harpo, who falls under Sofia's spell and, eventually, her domination; and a divine trio of blatant scene-stealers, the Church Ladies, Kimberly Ann Harris, Maia Knenge Wilson and Virginia Ann Woodruff, who perform as a sort of Greek chorus - prancing onstage, always stunningly costumed as if they really were at Sunday services, to nudge the plot forward and make sarcastic comments on it.

The Color Purple original cast CD from Angel Records will be in stores January 24th. For photos, downloadable music samples, background features and a making-of video, visit www.colorpurple.com.

THE WOMAN IN WHITE:

Andrew Lloyd Webber/David Zippel/Charlotte Jones' The Woman in White, which is "freely" adapted from Wilkie Collins' classic Gothic thriller, pits West End stars Maria Friedman and Michael Ball [who, over there, has had more than his share of chart-topping songs] against a dizzying array of high resolution projections.

William Dudley's video design and the Mesmer projection system advances a millennium on those of a similar nature by John Napierd, Lisa Podguy Cuscuns, Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer for 2001's Jane Eyre, but audiences either love or hate them [some members complain of becoming so dizzy that they want to run to the concession kiosks to buy Dramamine].

One must wonder why Michael Crawford, who scored so well with critics in the West End with his Count Fosco, didn't return to Broadway and repeat his role as a bit of redemption for his shameless antics in that dud of a musical, Dance of the Vampires. Audiences can be quite forgiving. After all, he was the Phantom of the opera. Maybe he was afraid that, in that amazing foppish getup, padding, make-up and wig, audiences wouldn't recognize him; but then he was the man behind the mask.

Friedman as the most loving, most giving heroine in some eons is the glue that holds the show together. Like that other British tiny dynamo, Elaine Paige, she really knows how to command the stage. Ball, so memorable in ALW/Don Black/Charles Hart's Aspects of Love, acquits himself quite well, even he's too over-the-top, as Fosco, a role that is, alas, built to be hammy.

The plot, absurd as it is, isn't that hard to follow, but some things are hard to swallow [such as the supposed resemblance between Laura and the title character; and when the good/bad count's vaudeville starts, it detracts in a not-always pleasant comic relief way from the dastardly deeds of Sir Percival Glyde [a menacing villain if ever there was one and beautifully played by Ron Bohmer].

Director Trevor Nunn keeps everything moving at break-neck speed [unfortunately not as fast as that train; speaking of which, wouldn't it have been fun if this projection was be 3-D and the audience had glasses so that the train could roar offstage and right at ëem].

The score, soon a two-CD cast recording from Angel Records, has echoes of ALW motifs from Song and Dance, Jesus Christ Superstar, Aspects and Sunset Boulevard, but then he can only be accused of stealing from himself.

How does the score rate? It depends how big a ALW fan you are. Not all of it is memorable, but there are standout moments, such as Act One's "I Believe My Heart," a duet for Friedman and Adam Brazier as the put-upon but thoroughly smitten tutor Walter Hartright], Friedman's poignant self-sacrificing anthem "All for Laura," the soaring Act One finale, "The Trio" [Friedman, Jill Paice, Angela Christian] and Brazier's heartbreaking Act Two solo "Evermore without You" on his loss of Laura, for which Zippel has written a very poignant line or two "... I'll never know a thought or feeling that isn't about you.../Though I've lost you, you're someone I can't let go of/Every living day, ever filled with sorrow/How can I face a life without you or even tomorrow?..."

RENT: