| The Red Shoes | |
|---|---|
 Original Playbill | |
| Music | Jule Styne |
| Lyrics | Marsha Norman Bob Merrill |
| Book | Marsha Norman |
| Basis | 1948 Film The Red Shoes |
| Productions | 1993 Broadway |
The Red Shoes is a musical with a book by Marsha Norman, lyrics by Norman and Bob Merrill (credited as Paul Stryker) and music by Jule Styne. Based on Powell and Pressburger's 1948 film, it tells the tale of a young ballerina who performs in an adaptation of the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen story.
Prior to the Broadway opening, the producer, Martin Starger, fired the original director, the male lead, featured performers, and the production manager. This resulted in a delay of the opening from December 2 to December 16. Starger, Styne and the eventual director, Stanley Donen, wanted the musical to essentially be a stage version of the 1948 film. However, the original director, Susan H. Schulman, Norman, choreographer Lar Lubovitch, and set designer Heidi Landesman felt that to follow the film closely would produce a "dull, dated show." [1] Bob Merrill was brought in to assist in re-writing the lyrics. [2] The Broadway production, in 1993, was a failure, losing nearly $8 million.
In 1921-1922 the Russian Ballet Lermontov company performs in London, Paris and Monte Carlo. Victoria Page is a ballet dancer with the company, which is led by Boris Lermontov. Julian Craster is an idealistic but egocentric young composer, who is in love with Victoria. Lermontov is a middle-aged impresario who wants to control Victoria, both on-stage and off. She is torn between the two men and her desire to dance, and ultimately commits suicide.
The Broadway production opened at the George Gershwin Theatre on December 16, 1993 and closed on December 19, 1993 after 51 previews and five performances. Directed by Stanley Donen and choreographed by Lar Lubovitch, the cast included Margaret Illmann as ballerina Victoria Page, Steve Barton (who replaced Roger Rees during previews) as Svengali-like Boris Lermontov, and Hugh Panaro as Julian Craster, as well as George de la Peña, and Leslie Browne in supporting roles.
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The musical received "uniform, stake-in-the-heart" negative reviews, and lost nearly $8 million. [3] John Simon, reviewing for New York magazine wrote that there were two good things about the musical; one was Margaret Illmann, who was a "marvellous dancer", although she could not sing. The other was the scenery of Heidi Landesman, who designed "inspired re-creations of known locales or inventions of unknown ones." Simon also noted that the "Red Shoes Ballet" "was still fun; it was here that Jule Styne's music, surprisingly, came to life and Lubovitch's choreography, obviously, became most unfettered." [4]
Jule Styne was an English-American songwriter and composer best known for a series of Broadway musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became successful films: Gypsy,Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Funny Girl.
The Red Shoes is a 1948 British drama film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It follows Victoria Page, a ballerina who joins the world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov, who tests her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between her career and her romance with composer Julian Craster.
The Red Shoes may refer to:
High Button Shoes is a 1947 musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn and book by George Abbott and Stephen Longstreet. It was based on the semi-autobiographical 1946 novel The Sisters Liked Them Handsome by Stephen Longstreet. The story concerns the comic entanglements of the Longstreet family with two con men in Atlantic City.
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and 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.
Henry Robert Merrill Levan was an American songwriter, theatrical composer, lyricist, and screenwriter. He was one of the most successful songwriters of the 1950s on the US and UK single charts. He wrote musicals for the Broadway stage, including Carnival! and Funny Girl (lyrics).
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Sir Matthew Christopher Bourne is a British choreographer whose work includes ballet, contemporary dance, dance theatre and musical theatre.
Lar Lubovitch is an American choreographer. He founded his own dance company, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968. Based in New York City, the company has performed in all 50 American states as well as in more than 30 countries. As of 2005, he had choreographed more than 100 dances for the company. In addition to the company, Lubovitch has also done creative work in ballet, ice-skating venues, and musical theater, notably Into the Woods. He has played a key role in raising funds to fight AIDS.
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George de la Peña is an American ballet dancer, musical theatre performer, choreographer, actor, and teacher. He was born in 1955 in New York City, New York.
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