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NEW YORK -- When helium was archetypal asked to helm the Broadway deed philharmonic “Death Becomes Her,” manager and choreographer Christopher Gattelli loved it, but refused to enactment connected the big, splashy opening number. It was conscionable excessively delicious.
“When they sent it to me, I was cooking and I burnt meal due to the fact that my caput was spinning," helium says. "I was, like, ‘This is simply a gift. I volition ne'er get an opening fig similar this again.’”
So Gattelli worked retired everything other astir however to enactment Robert Zemeckis’ 1992 comic cult classical onto a signifier and lone past turned to the big, brassy song, “For the Gaze,” a winking valentine to cheery men, punning on the way.
“I was capable to bash the amusement and past person my afloat encephalon connected that fig due to the fact that I knew the imaginable of what it could be,” helium says.
What Gattelli crafted is an opening fig for the ages, led by Megan Hilty: There are mid-song costume changes, creation breaks, chorus boys hoisting Hilty, spangly jumpsuits and tuxedos, high-kicking Vegas showgirls with feather headdresses, a assemblage treble doing somersaults, a rainbow emblem of top-hatted dancers, and Hilty doing a Liza Minnelli cameo, each ending with the expansive finale of Hilty arsenic Judy Garland's Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” implicit with a small stuffed dog.
“I heard the pouch successful that song, and I was like, ‘I cognize there’s a elephantine laughter there. I tin perceive elephantine laughs, what’s that elephantine laugh?'” says Gattelli. “What’s the biggest cheery reference? Then I virtually I conscionable worked backwards.”
That fig telegraphs to the assemblage precisely what to expect for the remainder of the nighttime — a perfectly rehearsed, lushly costumed, silly, self-aware comedy.
“Once we deed ‘For the Gaze,’ the assemblage knows precisely what the amusement is," helium says. "And past I deliberation they’re successful for the ride.”
The enactment connected “For the Gaze” has helped Gattelli spot his amusement gain 10 Tony Award nominations, including 1 for his Broadway debut arsenic a manager and different for his choreography.
The philharmonic is based connected the film, which starred Meryl Streep arsenic a self-centered histrion and Goldie Hawn arsenic her suffering-in-the-shadows writer friend. Their communal hopeless measures for achieving eternal younker crook comically grotesque. Hilty plays the Streep role, portion Jennifer Simard plays the Hawn one.
“It felt similar conscionable the cleanable acceptable for what I bash and what I emotion to do," Gattelli says. "I emotion drama and I emotion to nonstop drama and I emotion to bash these large splashy numbers. It felt similar everything I’ve been itching to do.”
Gattelli — who was a dancer successful the archetypal “Cats” — has been a mainstay connected Broadway of late, capable to choreograph specified venerable works arsenic “The King and I” and “My Fair Lady” but besides irreverent musicals arsenic “SpongeBob SquarePants” and the jukebox variety, similar “The Cher Show.”
He made his directing debut off-Broadway successful 2011 with “Silence!” a parody philharmonic of “The Silence of the Lambs,” implicit with a chorus of dancing lambs moving crossed the stage.
Lowe Cunningham, pb shaper of “Death Becomes Her,” saw it successful Los Angeles and aboriginal asked Gattelli astir the experience, however helium collaborated and his attack to the work. She was impressed by his openness to each ideas and his caring.
“I deliberation archetypal and foremost, his endowment is wide and it’s been retired determination successful the satellite of choreography for a agelong time. He is innovative, helium does things different radical aren’t doing, but the different happening is that he’s renowned arsenic being an incredibly benignant quality being,” she says.
Gattelli, who won a 2012 Tony for choreographing “Newsies the Musical” — 1 of his show-stopping moments was dancers sliding connected newspapers — was brought successful comparatively precocious to “Death Becomes Her,” lone a twelvemonth and fractional earlier opening connected Broadway.
“It was a large acquisition successful trusting your instincts,” helium says. “They said, ‘We privation a lush, opulent, sexy, magical sparkling evening.’ And we conscionable started taking large swings.”
It started with — of each things — the curtain. The assemblage filing into the theatre is greeted by a purple, royal fabric. “When radical locomotion in, they instantly consciousness similar that it’s lush and sexy and mysterious.”
The philharmonic is filled with precise comic peculiar effects that are decidedly low-tech. At 1 point, the 2 starring ladies are replaced by 2 men duking it retired successful dresses and wigs. The assemblage roars astatine the deception and Gattelli adjacent advised 1 of the antheral combatants not to shave his limb hair.
“The assemblage is successful connected the joke,” helium says. “I emotion that they spell connected that thrust with us. They’re laughing with us. We’re each laughing unneurotic and it feels good.”
One country from the movie needed a batch of readying to marque it connected stage: The tumble down the elegant mansion stairs by Hilty's character. Hollywood CGI magic would person to beryllium replicated by Broadway ingenuity.
“The radical that cognize the movie and the fans particularly are going to go, ‘How are they going to bash it?’ It was keeping maine up astatine nighttime everlastingly due to the fact that we tried everything,” says Gattelli.
The originative squad — which besides included acceptable decorator Derek McLane, lighting decorator Justin Townsend and dependable decorator Peter Hylenski — decided to marque it a creation punctuated by dependable effects.
Warren Yang — an histrion with a gymnastics inheritance — wears Hilty's outfit and a wig arsenic helium tumbles slowly, acrobatically and theatrically down the stairs, somersaulting arsenic thunder sounds clang and we perceive what seems similar bones cracking. (The stairs were made of the rubber Neoprene for safety.)
“There are precise elemental techniques that marque a large impact,” says Gattelli. “I conscionable went backmost to it’s a beautiful, lush, gorgeous show, but, astatine the core, it’s conscionable theatrical magic and stagecraft.”
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