Broadway was a gleaming repository of the world's best and brightest performers who found feast or famine at Fate's whim. And the Broadway theaters were opulent and spacious, not the least bit tatty or cramped. The evening's circumstances conspired with a beautifully produced and performed show to create a memorable Broadway experience. Mark Bramble directs the new production, with musical staging and new choreography by Randy Skinner, who was an assistant on the 1980 production, and who has revived Gower Champion's sparkling dances from the original. Glamorous costumes by Roger Kirk are set off nicely against sets by Douglas Schmidt, bathed in lighting by Paul Gallo.
Side stories involve men, thugs, tarnished and burnished hopes, and the pricelessness of camraderie.
Because the plot revolves around a hoofer, there was plenty of hoofing to dig into. The big production numbers were dazzling from the first curtain, which rose thigh-high to reveal dozens of, you guessed it, tapping feet. I thought for sure I'd tire of tap dance during the evening, but the choreography was nuanced and varied enough to retain my interest. The style of tap was streamlined and updated, which charitably distanced it from the stiff-bodied, Vaudevillean sort I've never found interesting. And the dancers were coached to military precision without losing their own identities.