 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2013) |
Onna White | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 24, 1922 Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Died | April 8, 2005 (aged 83) |
| Occupation(s) | Choreographer and dancer |
| Spouse | Larry Douglas (1948–1959) |
| Children | Two |
Onna White (March 24, 1922 – April 8, 2005) was a Canadian choreographer and dancer, nominated for eight Tony Awards. [1]
Born in Inverness, Nova Scotia, White began taking dance lessons at the age of twelve, and eventually her studies took her to the San Francisco Ballet, where she danced in the first full-length U.S. production of The Nutcracker . [2]
Her first Broadway performance was in Finian's Rainbow in 1947. Her next Broadway assignment was in Hold It! (1948), where she had progressed to dance captain. By 1950, in the long-running Broadway production of Guys and Dolls , she both performed and assisted the choreographer, Michael Kidd, beginning an association that lasted through Silk Stockings various productions until, in 1956, she choreographed her first Broadway show, Carmen Jones . She choreographed both the Broadway (1957) and screen (1962) versions of The Music Man . Other Broadway shows included Take Me Along (1959), Irma La Douce (1960), I Had a Ball (1964), Half a Sixpence (1965), Mame (1966, and the 'film version in 1974), 1776 (musical) (1969 and the film version in 1972), Gigi (1973) and I Love My Wife (1977), among others. [3]
She married actor Larry Douglas in 1948, who was an understudy to Robert Preston in The Music Man; they divorced in 1959. [4] They had two children: Jeanne and Stuart. In 1964, Douglas married Susan Luckey, who played the role of Zaneeta in the film of The Music Man.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted White an Academy Honorary Award for Oliver! (1968), one of the rare occasions that the Academy recognized choreography in film. [5] Other recipients include Gene Kelly for "career achievements", Jerome Robbins for "choreographic achievement on film", Michael Kidd (White's mentor) for "services to the art of dance in the art of the screen" and Stanley Donen for "body of work". Fred Astaire's was much earlier, and was for his body of work.
White's Oscar is the only one that states the name of a film, i.e. "To Onna White for her outstanding choreography achievement for Oliver! " [ citation needed ]
Robert Louis Fosse was an American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director. Known for his work on stage and screen, he is arguably the most influential figure in the field of jazz dance in the twentieth century. He received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and 9 Tony Awards.
Finian's Rainbow is a musical with a book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane, produced by Lee Sabinson. The original 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances, while a film version was released in 1968 and several revivals have followed.
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot.
Jerome Robbins was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Herbert David Ross was an American actor, choreographer, director and producer who worked predominantly in theater and film. He was nominated for two Academy Awards and a Tony Award.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Peter Gennaro was an American dancer and choreographer.
Geoffrey Lamont Holder was a Trinidadian-American actor, dancer, musician, director, choreographer, and artist. He was a principal dancer for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet before his film career began in 1957 with an appearance in Carib Gold. In 1973, he played the villainous Baron Samedi in the Bond film Live and Let Die. He also carried out advertising work as the pitchman for 7 Up.
Shani Wallis is an English actress and singer, who has worked in theatre, film, and television in both her native United Kingdom and in the United States. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she is known for her roles in the West End and for the role of Nancy in the 1968 Oscar-winning film musical Oliver!
Hope Clarke is an American actress, dancer, vocalist, choreographer, and director. Clarke performed as principal dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the 1960s; as an actress on stage, film, and television, 1970s–1980s; and as choreographer and director from the 1980s onwards. She served on the Tony Awards Nominating Committee for the 2011–12 Broadway season. Clarke made history in 1995 when she became the first African American, as well as the first African-American woman, to direct and choreograph a major staging of the opera-musical Porgy and Bess. Clarke's production of the George Gershwin classic was staged in celebration of the work's 60h anniversary, and it toured not only major American cities but Japan and Europe as well. Clarke drew critical acclaim for her commitment to staging the show as a monument to African-American community and pride, giving a more hopeful, positive aura to a story that has been criticized for its stereotypes. As for the director herself, the success of Porgy and Bess is just the latest accolade in a long career devoted to dance and drama.
Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne was an English ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director, noted for her theatre choreography associated with two of the longest-running shows in Broadway history, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. At age 87, she was made a DBE in the 2014 New Year Honours List.
Illya Darling is a musical with a book by Jules Dassin, music by Manos Hadjidakis, and lyrics by Joe Darion, based on Dassin's 1960 film Never on Sunday.
Graciela Daniele is an Argentine-American dancer, choreographer, and theatre director.
Grover Dale is an American actor, dancer, choreographer, theater director, and publisher.
Irma la douce is a 1956 French musical with music by Marguerite Monnot and lyrics and book by Alexandre Breffort. The musical premiered in Paris in 1956, and was subsequently produced in the West End in 1958 and on Broadway, by David Merrick, in 1960. The English lyrics and book (1958) are by Julian More, David Heneker, and Monty Norman.
Warren Carlyle is a British director and choreographer who was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England. He received Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Director of a Musical for the 2009 revival of Finian's Rainbow.
The American Dance Machine was a theatrical dance company created by Lee Theodore, which played on Broadway at the Century Theatre, opening Jun 14, 1978 and in total running 199 performances. It was duplicated with a second cast for the American Dance Festival at Duke University in 1978. The show was a "Living Archive" of Broadway theatre dance; great theatre dances saved from oblivion. Films were made of the performances to preserve original Broadway choreography and can be found at the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts in New York City. Broadway legend Gwen Verdon appeared a film version of the show in 1981 for Showtime. Choreographers included: Agnes De Mille, Jack Cole, Joe Layton, Michael Kidd, Ron Field, Bob Fosse, Onna White and Peter Gennaro. Featured dancers and guest artists included Janet Eilber, Carol Estey, Harold Cromer, Liza Gennaro, Patti Mariano, Nancy Chismar, Randy Skinner and Donald Young.
Lee (Becker) Theodore was an American Broadway theater director, choreographer, performer and dance archivist.
Denise Faye Greenbaum is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, and director. She is the recipient of an American Choreography Award, as well as a Screen Actor's Guild Award for the 2002 film Chicago. Faye won the Dance Track Magazine Artist Award for best choreography in a feature film for her work in Burlesque. Additionally, she received nominations including the Fred and Adele Astaire Award and The World Dance Awards for her choreography in Burlesque.
Parker Esse is an American choreographer. Esse began training at 9-years old at the Houston Ballet. After being cast in Fosse on Broadway in 2000, he proceeded to work on dozens of productions in prestigious regional theatres across the United States. In Washington, D.C. he worked as the assistant choreographer in the musical Mame and Babes in Arms. He also choreographed Smokey Joe's Cafe, The Music Man, Carousel and Fiddler on the Roof. In New York directed and choreographed The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. He was the associate director and choreographer for Lucky Guy at Goodspeed Theatre.
