Best of Broadway comes to town

One woman is responsible for choreographing a show that spans the history of Broadway. BERNADETTE RAE spoke to Mistinguett.

They do a dozen big shows in two hours - recreating musical history from Gershwin to Grease, from Oklahoma to Stomp - and all with a cast of 10.

"But you would swear," says choreographer Mistinguett, who has created at least 200 versions of Broadway Showstoppers in her time, "that there are double that number on stage."

The cast, she explains, are young, enthusiastic and multi-talented. And they have signed contracts that no one will be sick, let alone break a leg, for the duration of their tour down under.

Broadway Showstoppers has never actually played Broadway, but has recreated, in more than 8000 performances in casinos and resorts and on small-town stages all over America, the best of Broadway's musical tradition.

It opens in Hamilton's Founder's Theatre tomorrow night before a national tour.

"The show is a collection of several vignettes featuring the most-loved popular songs from Broadway," says Mistinguett, who uses this stage name, borrowed from one of the most famous dancers of the Folies-Bergere in the 1920s. "But the shows we have selected are all the first examples of certain things in Broadway's history. Oklahoma, for example, was the first Broadway show that had choreography, that emphasised the ballet aspect. West Side Story was the first show that had an unhappy ending. And Cats was the first show that had characters that were not people."

Mistinguett has been choreographing versions of the same show since 1978. The New Zealand version has a "pocket company" and a touring format designed to look spectacular in every venue, while remaining light enough to travel.

While the cast members are supremely young and fit, they are not without the wisdom of a senior trouper, Ben Lokey.

"Ben has been around Broadway and knows every form of show business," she says.

Mistinguett's career in show business began as the classic case of a little girl being put into ballet classes on a doctor's advice. "With me it was a bad case of pigeon toes."

But she loved dancing so much she never realised she was there as a form of therapy. She was less happy with the doctor's advice that she wear her shoes on the wrong feet - a cheap alternative to the orthopaedic shoes which were beyond her family's budget.

"I wore my shoes on the opposite feet for 10 years," she says. "That turned my feet out, while ballet turned out my knees."

She enjoyed a brief career as a professional dancer before taking a "proper" job as a graphic designer, and raising a family. Then, aged in her 30s, with what are traditionally the best years for a dancer behind her, she joined theatre producer Greg Thompson's company as a dancer and a Cher look-alike, described in her own publicity blurb as "5'10" [180cm] of voluptuous yet model-thin body, draped in Moroccan wraps, fluffy crinolines, skin-tight-rubber, feather boas, or swaggering in thigh-high boots or five inch [12cm] heels."

After two years Thompson recognised her choreographic talents, and she began to have a creative input into the company's shows.

She is a different person now, she declares, who dresses for smart comfort through her busy days behind stage, spends most evenings in hotel rooms with a cat called Elvis for a touch of homey company, and misses her musician boyfriend back in Seattle, with whom she plans to settle down one day.

In May 1999 her two decades as a choreographer were recognised - beyond her wildest dreams - when she was elected to the American Theatre Roundtable Musical Hall of Fame, alongside choreographers such as Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon, Ann Reinking and Susan Strossman.

"There has never been a crossover between Broadway and production shows - the companies that tour casinos and commercial theatres," she says. "But that is starting to change and Broadway is starting to recognise the beautiful stages the casinos offer, and the wonderful theatres full of tourists, demanding more entertainment.

"I see my place in the Musical Hall of Fame as an acknowledgment of the wonderful work that has been done for years, off Broadway.

"And I hope it also signals a return to a more human form of entertainment - where the main thing is the personal connection that takes place between dancers and singers up on a stage, performing their hearts out and the audience - and never mind all the special effects. I think the purpose of entertainment is a simple and human thing. And that is people entertaining other people."

* Broadway Showstoppers, Founders Theatre, Hamilton, Tuesday. National tour ends in Civic Theatre, Auckland, March 9.