ballet but Abbott felt it was similar to the original and vetoed it. Some sources claim that the producers went so far as to burn the $40,000 staircase used in the number in the alley behind the theater to prevent the sequence from being restored. Verdon said that she did not know who actually burned the set although she knew it wasn’t the producers, Abbott or Fosse. He would eventually restore the ballet, without the staircase but using a few chairs and an orchestration to replace the drum beat.
The opposition to the ballet highlighted an irony that the producers must have been aware of. The best option to save the show was to give Verdon more of what she did best—dancing. However, perhaps perversely, the only time she could attend dance rehearsals was after the show at night, since she was used in the daytime for revisions of her dramatic scenes. Verdon was working until three or four in the morning. Abbott suggested that a waltz number might replace the forbidden whorehouse ballet, but when he appeared at Fosse’s rehearsal, he saw the ballet being worked on. Verdon tried to speak to Abbott but was told by Harold Prince that he was too busy. In response she thought, “Then I’m too busy to go on.”
Verdon reported sick for three days (one source says that she was out for a week). Did she really have the flu or was she faking it as a strategic maneuver? Reportedly her part was so complicated that it had to be split into four different sections and played by four different understudies. One read Anna’s dialogue and sang, and the three others performed the dances. When Verdon returned, Abbott supposedly punished her by refusing to hire a stand-in for her. Fosse finally relented and reworked the ballet but the situation made him vow to never again work with Abbott and Harold Prince. The Boston tryouts also saw Verdon drop out of the last four performances because she reportedly knocked herself out from losing weight. She said that she got worn out because she was required to rehearse new material on her own as well as give performances.
The show was originally set to open on Broadway on May 8, 1957. The preview performance of May 13 was a party benefit for the Children’s Village at Dobbs Ferry. On February 16, the New York Times announced that the show would now open on May 9. On March 21, they reported that the May 7 preview was to be a benefit for the Rehearsal Club which aided young women seeking theatrical careers. This benefit was later postponed to June 24. The show finally opened on Broadway on May 14 and it ran till May 24, 1958, at the 46th Street Theatre.
It received a mixed review from Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times , who wrote that Verdon played with “great style and insight,” giving a complete characterization that was “sobering and admirable.” He wrote more about the show in May 26 Times article on George Abbott. Atkinson said that the finest thing about it was Verdon’s reticent, moving performance. “There is nothing hackneyed or superficial about Miss Verdon’s acting. It is an illuminating portrait of a wretched inarticulate creature.” In The Times of June 16, John Martin wrote that Verdon is a “marvelous, instinctive dancer, and once she starts, Pauline Lord and Eugene O’Neill, plot and drama, lines and gags, fade into a kind of gray unimportance. This is not just skill, it is magic.”
Fosse got to restore the whorehouse ballet, known as the “Red Light” or “Cathouse” ballet. He prepared for this by rehearsing the dancers and presented the ballet a month after the show opened. The date was June 23, his birthday. This was done without the permission of Abbott or Prince. The songs were also captured in an original cast recording done on May 26, 1957. At the Tony Awards ceremony held on April 13, 1958, at the Waldorf Astoria, there was a tie for Best Actress in a Musical for Verdon and Ritter. It lost for Best Musical, Best Featured Actor for Cameron Prud-homme,
The opposition to the ballet highlighted an irony that the producers must have been aware of. The best option to save the show was to give Verdon more of what she did best—dancing. However, perhaps perversely, the only time she could attend dance rehearsals was after the show at night, since she was used in the daytime for revisions of her dramatic scenes. Verdon was working until three or four in the morning. Abbott suggested that a waltz number might replace the forbidden whorehouse ballet, but when he appeared at Fosse’s rehearsal, he saw the ballet being worked on. Verdon tried to speak to Abbott but was told by Harold Prince that he was too busy. In response she thought, “Then I’m too busy to go on.”
Verdon reported sick for three days (one source says that she was out for a week). Did she really have the flu or was she faking it as a strategic maneuver? Reportedly her part was so complicated that it had to be split into four different sections and played by four different understudies. One read Anna’s dialogue and sang, and the three others performed the dances. When Verdon returned, Abbott supposedly punished her by refusing to hire a stand-in for her. Fosse finally relented and reworked the ballet but the situation made him vow to never again work with Abbott and Harold Prince. The Boston tryouts also saw Verdon drop out of the last four performances because she reportedly knocked herself out from losing weight. She said that she got worn out because she was required to rehearse new material on her own as well as give performances.
The show was originally set to open on Broadway on May 8, 1957. The preview performance of May 13 was a party benefit for the Children’s Village at Dobbs Ferry. On February 16, the New York Times announced that the show would now open on May 9. On March 21, they reported that the May 7 preview was to be a benefit for the Rehearsal Club which aided young women seeking theatrical careers. This benefit was later postponed to June 24. The show finally opened on Broadway on May 14 and it ran till May 24, 1958, at the 46th Street Theatre.
It received a mixed review from Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times , who wrote that Verdon played with “great style and insight,” giving a complete characterization that was “sobering and admirable.” He wrote more about the show in May 26 Times article on George Abbott. Atkinson said that the finest thing about it was Verdon’s reticent, moving performance. “There is nothing hackneyed or superficial about Miss Verdon’s acting. It is an illuminating portrait of a wretched inarticulate creature.” In The Times of June 16, John Martin wrote that Verdon is a “marvelous, instinctive dancer, and once she starts, Pauline Lord and Eugene O’Neill, plot and drama, lines and gags, fade into a kind of gray unimportance. This is not just skill, it is magic.”
Fosse got to restore the whorehouse ballet, known as the “Red Light” or “Cathouse” ballet. He prepared for this by rehearsing the dancers and presented the ballet a month after the show opened. The date was June 23, his birthday. This was done without the permission of Abbott or Prince. The songs were also captured in an original cast recording done on May 26, 1957. At the Tony Awards ceremony held on April 13, 1958, at the Waldorf Astoria, there was a tie for Best Actress in a Musical for Verdon and Ritter. It lost for Best Musical, Best Featured Actor for Cameron Prud-homme,
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