welcome welcome very very much a conversation is a pleasure to welcome to the program a man who's been very very involved with the stage production here in new york city called trip of love which i've had the pleasure of seeing and i'm overwhelmingly impressed with your piece of work if i may celebrating this sixty's music and so forth but share your own personal background a little bit and how you got into theater and we want to get into we got some clips from the show and so forth ok great a little of the on background please i started out as a dancer a little boy and when i came to new york city i pursued a career in the classical ballet yeah you did and i trained i did i trained very hard i dance for the food ballet companies and then one day i happened to walk into a probably house to see a show and it changed my life so i went and auditioned and got into a show that was playing on broadway at the time had you had a thought in your mind of being another  no no but you did it as a discipline and there's an artistic form the dance that correct is really important i love the storytelling of the ballets yeah and my to me it wasn't whether i was in the court a ballet or a soloist or whatever i just wanted to doing around just fooling around yeah yeah we had that we also had to learn folk and stylized dancing or the ballet and a tremendous amount of partner work and you took that up here in new york mostly or was it down virginia virginia virginia was in for ginia virginia with the gene hammett who was our ballet director who was an incredible d mentor he was one that trained many of us down and said just on our way you know new york city to to go into that world  it's true that new york is the mecca that's correct is two of the world i want to be fair to say you've got a feeling for well no i guess would be russia too and you know also yeah dance they really love theater and rush yes they go wild for it you know and every you had reason to go with your old dam your whole company that's great and we're going to get on to that and so we're but then you had a change in terms of going to think about a different kind of way of do expression use of that's correct i sort of just one day i just decided that i wasn't sure whether on your toes yeah i did sat in a fever was my last broadway show that i worked on and i did a lot of film and television out in california and here in new york but and there was always in the room a dance correct  and then that's when i started to meet choreographers that i was working with then they moved me from a dancer into a dance captain position and it was kind of maintaining their work when they left the show and kept a dance kept is that like part of being a choreographer i'll relate to erie i was sort of like a choreographer is assistant in some way ok the choreographer who will come in and set the piece they leave to go back to their prospective home or to the next project and the dance captain is there to sort of oversee the choreography of the show is you know like a drill sergeant in the military kind to have to everybody marching order in a military that was right and they take great pride in being able to do it that's correct is it similar in any way to a choreography well i think yeah i think  religion of it i think yes but it's a training i think it's a little bit more creative i wonder if you could just share with me a little bit the choreography of busby berkeley how in the hell did that ever happen i don't well the word between choreography how did that man pull it off i don't know he had an incredible vision and he was able to put it down on paper yeah and then they would bring all the engineers in the scenic designers and create the moving scenery that you worked on yeah he hired a tremendous amount of beautiful women very handsome man and yeah he would put them stage then and it was almost like an engineer who created this bird's eye view of what he wanted and then once he put it into action the scenery was moving the dancers are and also where you just let the cat out of the bag it has to do with singing the praises of the sixty's that's right and bobby dylan in the movie the music that was characteristic of the sixty's generation you know what and also you were the producer no not producers you  chad has to do with business because show business is a business career as well as being very creative it has got to keep all that in mind that's correct yeah well actually in our theatre we had to lose quite a few of the seats in the theater because we rate the orchestra pit i know it's seats to bring the soundboard into the theater we did yeah to set that up and we have surround sound in the theater and because it was a decade it is amazing music yeah the sound was extremely important and the idea the idea is important for a play there's all drew you to new york right as it does to a lot of other people are there more people interested or wanting to be involved in that than can posture to be accompanied by what the industry and and the overall the at trick or expression of things as an art form can handle by the realities of the world are there more people want to be stars or want to be in show business than show business can possibly accommodate or worse the reality of that but i think there is any  reality there are a lot of people out there who want to be involved in theatre in one way or another not all of them gravitate to new york you know you know some gravitate to chicago boston everywhere i mean new york the mecca yeah i think it is where everybody wants to get to i mean you something it does and how do they keep getting those lights that they have in times square do so huge like your television screen you must be aware of there because you're interested in lighting and all the rest of my life that's an art form and so i remember when i you know tell i can't believe the sign the big signs and never got it right when i st came to new york i didn't for the billboards yeah but now everything has been digital top you know digital and that makes for all kinds of possibilities for expressing things light wise and other well it's true it's like not being in times square now it's like being in the daytime twenty four hours a day yeah yeah right away like literally right right so i know you got this idea you could've had a lot of different ideas can you remember if i mean you were the it was your idea this idea of celeborn we are to just let the music and so when you ask what decade of music i like i said the sixty's is that the case yes and i really was so fascinated by the music of it and then an incredible well what i did was i spent a tremendous amount of time getting a catalog of music the show together and had you been that way as you were d whole mean how long after the sixty's where you got the idea that the best movie ever was a sixty's rather than the music that came up last week i think it was going to say what i'm so yes i think  it was more from might sell many many years ago when i started working on this project i never really thought about the music from the past and when i was asked to do this project then i started to explore and revisit the music and it was like my gosh i really connected to it in a way and it was music of a time that when you hear it it makes you think of something you might have lived at one point yeah for a very important time in our decade away during that decade  and so i was sad immediately you know that was that the music that i wanted to you as well thank you for that because i agree with you i think there was something major going on at that time yes that would you could be roughly a car associate or were it is called the generation around stuck moment i think there was something much more than just a big party going to harat it was something in their zite guised of the universe that was big that is right and failed at that time and i think it's very good the review you viewing that moment as a particularly important one for the whole world consciousness to concentrate i perhaps to the benefit of the future of humanity correct ok and the music of that decade also the sixty's was not just pop it had motown and we had bobb tiffany's broadway show songs were very popular on the hearts and of course with the beatles and we had tom jones and we had all the pop stars and there was owns the stones yes we're the rock n roll the acid r off yeah i think that that's what happened with this music for the show i just i was very meticulous and very careful of choosing this catalog yeah so it took years yeah bit and then to retain the rights all you have for public limitations of the law the rights of music and all these kind of things all right it's a big business proposition to put all this together and i wanted to pay a very special tribute to the music i wanted it to sound as exact as it possibly was because coming into the theater if you belive that music you want to hear it again not another updated rendition of an hour and so that was really important to me and having the orchestration stein and the dance arrangements and helpful arrangements to keep it as true as possible yeah and you got it all put together beautifully listen we have one of the problems in television we were we have a shortage of time i wish we had about twenty five hours or it would do it or another case yes but you would have some clips from or somebody that all got called and we have  things that could be run now so maybe maybe we could run the st of the we have three or forty five dollars b roll ok it is and maybe we could run those and you could make some comment about a truck maybe we could run that if you can run that right oh right magnificent that's really wonderful that's really good that's just the taste of it all that everything and it's such a it's such a beautiful well put together i don't know if we're right something else now and we're maybe well  then there emerges out of all of that the star yeah how do we handle with the idea of the stars like bobby dylan put it you know what i'm saying yes to both at the level of the idea that is be able to is a poetic wri account for the stardom and how do stardom play in terms of the overall theatrical world let's see limited i was thinking the artistic work but listen to this the atropos world right there the role of the stand out star i think it's case by case really for a show i mean from my there's a conversation of the entire cast being the star yeah and the music being the star right yeah yeah yeah yeah dick was the creation of it they do dance or sing together but the way i cast it yet so that each of them are very individual so they get one individual people even though they aren't sambal or their principals or what have you ok and how do you cheat that as a choreographer is have to release it a little bit yeah let them go grow look at their old creative yes i knew that they were not on the stage of they will interact you would like them have a little bit of freedom now to develop and let them bring them their selves out so that they all become so you have to sort of gauge it so that they do they do what is necessary as a group but you give them that moment for them to express themselves and to vigilantly and creatively on that is a tricky thing yeah because you know they could have become a seller of motivation of youth or of the human expression or is it in other fields too in intellectually or quantum mechanics you know that what's different about it in my show is i don't i i know i have we haven't sambal in principles but i how i see the overall debt and what it ought to be a choreographer or somebody like that it was it who said so animal farm right all animals are equal but some are more equal than others but there was that i forget who that was you know but you know the thing is a thing it's a deal with particularly when you're dealing with people who would like to be and have to capability to rise above the normal run your own i'm saying and it's also to get them the talent that i find is to give them a platform yeah to show the new york audiences their talent to kind of inspired me and kept me going yeah working with the producer and just we kept developing in developing and developing and i would go into the studio and i would dance and i would just try to find my footing and you would dance yourself wouldn't say that there's one is better than the other so knocked out by him i can't believe how those things happened back i mean it was amazing what he did yeah in the thirty's yes yes and i think that you know everybody i would never say that one is better than the other because it's sort of everybody brings their own unique right right right that's so it's just sort of how their style is created and that right mind my style has more of the palette a background in the alley where you get to it lastly because that right so therefore that's a very important part of that when the dancers come in all dition for me know when i'm i'm doing stuff that is very technically driven and for me for this show i wanted to pay tribute to as many styles of dance as possible many styles yes so that we  believe but verge there he was i know it's hard to believe in everybody knows me you know he was better than  same thing as choreographers of dancers they all of very different yeah you know what they all you know when you think about gene kelly and fred astaire they had such different styles but they're both brilliant dancers absolutely just this tender rodgers and situ race and and all of them were incredible dancers yeah right in their own right the same in singing i guess because i knew that acting and there are these all qualities thank god for the arts wouldn't be dull if everybody if we did it was the starting i mean what is that something we have to be able to pay more attention to wit practical yes now is it is it impractical to be in show business is it impractical that you have to become a clerk in order to live and be practical or else you're going to end up you understand the lesson i'm trying yeah get at real or can we make it a world save for the art when my art inexpressive and three well i'd rather just wait slave if you understand what i'm saying is that a lot of most people well i don't know that the big point that if you a lot of the people who never there is how many make it how many just have to say oh i'm going to get a job at the factory you know what i'm saying i can't cut it it won't work you know i think that's a hard thing to ever say what how it does it  the larger philosophical and you do because it's not only the theater like theater in every it's like all the arts are the things that are really creative seem to be the ones that they make it most difficult right then it could be then to be a clerk right or something you know what i'm saying well i think a lot of like a lot of my friends had gone to california and they worked there and then they just found that they were ready to move so they would come to the chicago where they would go to new york and had very good careers and yet are and so i think it's just wherever you come comfortable you find a group of people i mean i from the east coast originally so coming in new york was natural for me and i found a group of friends in the theat no industry and in my ballet world when i was in classical ballet that we sort of all supported each other you know and so that sort of helps you to grow and have you done many you know this thing you're a director creative director and choreographer if you do other pieces choreographers ok and so therefore i assisted choreographer agnes to male oh for several years and prior to that i worked for almost fifteen years with a british quadruple by the name of running philips and i did  production of starlight express with her which was on a roller skates and i mean it you had to do roller skating are you good at did you have to learn to roller skate i guess yet i'm going to do it went on ice skating sonja and well i actually was offered a show after a starlight that required ice skating so to know how did i i had to go learn to take ice skating lessons but eventually had i didn't do the show because you couldn't learn now i had a nother chop they came up that oh i see ok well i mean t was a different style of dance whether it was a choreographer or director i wanted to work with i mean starlight was one of those i was driven to because i thought how often could you ever say you did a show on roller skates well i wouldn't want to even numbers the and they get a great satisfaction i used to go dancing with bob marley music and yellow man and stuff got a great deal of satisfaction right up in the dark corrector got a good sense and it was a good workout great exercise that's right there's a lot to be said for yeah contributed so much to the music industry is that right really you know you had on the marvelettes and the bonds and martha reeves and i and i'm wrong on any droid there we are lot of motown it was a new sound that people had not heard before that was it just took the nation by storm yeah and it was i mean martha reeves is one of my favorites growing up that road again today or soon right i did and that was when i came to do wanted to do a song on the show which was a pain tribute to the girl groups martha reed for the st person i thought of and i just remember listening to her music with nowhere to run and dancing in the streets and you know it's an incredible sound yeah and so i that that number took a lot of time because i was trying to pay homage and tribute to all of those girls and their girl groups who didn't dance like they danced on my show i took a lot of their movement that when they sang at the microphones and turned it into choreography into its all being defined by the music you think it is the times and the like the fifty six thousand and seventy dollars day that are being defined by music particularly but also by the arts over over greater than has been the historical trend well i think the music as in some political person or some political event or and fascination or history or a war or the kind of things that make up the run of the mill news well i think the music of that decade was telling a story of how we were changing and also there's those moments because when i started working on the show we did focus groups yeah we all know it so we brought in a lot of vietnam that sweet housewives college students professors everybody to come in and we would sit around a table for an hour or more and play music and i knew which music i wanted to choose for the show  were listening to everyone's take on the music and that really helped us to sort of confirm the music that we were choosing you in rap you knew the pieces that were going to be part of an idea or you went in before i don't know why you're listening to people who are s in the end of the day when i look at everyone's nonny prouder match up with yours i'd say ninety percent wow that was pretty good you had a good way of calling it right i did and that's what i wanted to hear what other people felt especially people who lived a decade  celebrating bohemians i think so i do too you know because sometimes they're a little bit odd yeah you know but that's how the stage craft of the changing of the scenery and paris and those shows they did it the best so coming back and saying ok we've got and they're still doing it yes so it's a tradition that they have carried over it like games and i did and i came back and i was able to transform the stage from the girl from ipanema into moon river with theaters big yard you kept it under three hundred and ninety nine for i never knew what the difference was until this day that's correct i met with you and i've learned that theater and off the iter is four hundred and ninety nine seats and then  it's a big theater and you've got the orchestra down there we have the full orchestra a proposition yes and how many people are involved well over one hundred some one hundred staff yeah and that's counting talent talent and to and you told me that when you were doing you had to do something you had to test it like you have to you've got the thing going and that you had to go everybody had to go to japan well we back when we st started the development of a lot of people to move but we did take everybody but no what happened was when we developed it here in new york city yeah that's where you develop direction the bigger original how long to think over the whole period the development of the end was oh my gosh years because we had to go through research we had when did you launch we launched the show and osaka japan in twenty million eighty two thousand and eight yes and it played there yes did it play there successfully yes we did initially like it was it well the receipt yes and was it done in kinds of things and probably going on is it only the pattern coming out in new york and what broadway in new york or not the united states to set the pattern for the the world now now let's just say that the rest of the world it's just that that music was so popular around the world correct and you can go anywhere now play downtown and whether they were to happen even chinese or russian they still sing it means is there anything that comes from another land it does that with us that we all everybody knows i don't think so what sing matilda therefore you don't need to know the dialogue in the english language you come in and just sit back and had a great time probably that's a good way for them to learn you come in and where i live in right around six hundred next there's a place to teach english and it's just loaded with people from around the world trying to learn english is all the world trying to learn english now i think that is the pattern for the world still being the anglo saxon protestant english language and what's going on culturally you're  touch with the world will these kind of things be emerging out of other parts of the world to where it influences coming to us rather than us going to them in influencing them or or what's the dynamic that you can stretch from the things that are going on within the creative world of trid the iter particularly but of the arts in general in relationship to the power structures or the the fact that everybody lives in english or is ever going to end up speaking english or don't think out what do you i mean i know that it's as when i was going to school the two languages that here that were being taught school were spanish and latin i was i had to do latin too and and that's what i was it was i had and i couldn't speak any further than that yeah and but i know that from going traveling overseas and my friends who are foreigners english is one of their main languages to learn and to communicate and to travel well what about like i got a daughter isn't it i'm going to another program later that after this when she was in russia and russia they love theater yes there are a lot of all good traditions in the are either good popular culture of things coming not even english it's every country that i've worked in whether it was in germany or japan or when i went to paris everyone has their way of doing theater and it's it was it's very educational and even when we took our american able to understand in college or many of them did not speak english which we had you know we had interpreters and then we got to the point by opening night the interpreters were no longer with us because we all had learned to be able to communicate with one another and it was a great bonding experience it was a huge learning experience for all of us on both sides yeah better work and so when we lapped it was a very emotional like being pulled away from the family yeah right no i can as we had bonded so tightly right and that everybody was respectful for the way the japanese did theatre and the way the americans are doing theatre goes back here in the goes well back it's got a great tradition do you think the world's going to be able to be informed better by other parts of the human experience rather than broadway new york i mean soon to be broadway new york is like a mecca for in the entertainment field and in theater and then by extension also then what about the communications is developing we've got all this capability of electronic communication tension digital this and that all this kind of stuff that's going how is that going to affect theater and then how it's either going to mesh with or be involved or how's it going to be transform by the information technologies that are growing all around this well i think well one thing that firstly the cause of my mind is the use of mobile phones and the tablet carry lower weight and i feel that attention spans are getting shorter because they're such quick and fast and speed seems yeah and it seems even when you go into the theater it's becoming a problem because everyone wants to use their phone whether talbott during a live performance and it's  audience only understood that the cast that's on stage can see all of that that's going on and they can see it from the stage they've got is there a ring that people are on that and what's what's also a little annoying putting is like is somebody snoring in the middle correct and if you're sitting there is a humanitarian for like six rows in front of you someone turned on their tablet big light the light comes on and it takes your attention whether it's a drama or musical when i write my heartburn it takes her attention away from the stage right to what that person is think you're doing is it susceptible or could you make a great big steven spielberg movie out of it or could it be made a movie or could it be translated into a video format there could be going over home box office or the other things like that is it transportable or is it expandable by the electronic media that is there even though that right now yes yeah i mean can you see their ear thing becoming a major motion picture is it not suited for that as well now you've actually been approached you have yes you want to because share who the market people are o's approach you know i can i get some who can make a better  getting a proper book writer to come in and do the dialogue and piece it together and make we've been approached to do a full musical version of and you know break into some of the act but you have what a emerged out of see it are and then television emerged out of the movie right but sometimes there goes your going sometimes it goes from movie to stage it do yeah you know like a very popular movie well well like really important kind of thing a cultural development is going on now in the world is very very important to your schedules to keep and all that sort of thing and i really thank you for coming to which i will thank you for having me i'll get the very very they're going to run this thing is this more lasting they could run or not is  clip can you run that clip or ringback not i'm just we gotta get you on your way though this is a thing where they can just it was it was so meaningful i mean it it really is and they're coming right out into the theater on this thing that was really put this paying tribute to that that to have that kind of thing well ok that's good i'm sorry i know you got a can record appointments to keep we have appointments to keep and everything i appreciate very much and i wish you all the best just thank you very much just one or two more minutes to get into the wind and i would like it for you to become friends i'd like you to become friends maybe with this you know this is a man at neighborhood network television production new york city it's all part of the same bailey work and news of entertainment understand the human condition and i would wish you all the you think of be there for a while no i sure hope so would you like to move to another venue or do you like that but it's a very good a theater it's a beautiful pierre yang credible space we'd love to move to broadway but you know i don't know if that will happen or you would move to broadway and if you were another house member another house member under four hundred and ninety nine c five hundred about five hundred number up so that would be a whole quantum leap yes and you get into a whole nother thing correct so would you is that something you w to if we had the opportunity to move we would move i think it would be a very good thing for a lot of people who might help make that happen if they happen to see this yet is to get in touch with you and your people and to consider that because it would be a big improvement to the human condition writ large well what happened with us is when we went into this theater we became between that they told us that we broke a record of being the largest are probably show to ever be mounted while sitting really that's a fact because of the size and the scale of the show yeah yeah very ambitious what's happening with the cast of twenty four or five hundred costumes and with changes and shoes and the scenery as you saw yeah yeah everything is flown in the wings you know