Dancing Man: A Broadway Choreographer's Journey (Hardcover)
Tony and Olivier Award-winning Bob Avian's dazzling life story, Dancing Man: A Broadway Choreographer's Journey, is a memoir in three acts. Act I reveals the origins of one of Broadway's legendary choreographers who appeared onstage with stars like Barbra Streisand and Mary Martin all before he was thirty. Act II includes teaching Katharine Hepburn how to sing and dance in Coco and working with Stephen Sondheim and Michael Bennett while helping to choreograph the original productions of Company and Follies. During this time, Avian won a Tony Award as the cochoreographer of A Chorus Line and produced the spectacular Tony Award-winning Dreamgirls. For a triumphant third act, Avian choreographed Julie Andrews's return to the New York stage, devised all of the musical staging for Miss Saigon and Sunset Boulevard, and directed A Chorus Line on Broadway. He worked with the biggest names on Broadway, including Andrew Lloyd Webber, Carol Burnett, Jennifer Holliday, Patti LuPone, Elaine Stritch, and Glenn Close. Candid, witty, sometimes shocking, and always entertaining, here at last is the ultimate up-close and personal insider's view from a front row seat at the creation of the biggest, brightest, and best Broadway musicals of the past fifty years.
Bob Avian (1937-2021) was an award-winning Broadway choreographer known for his work on A Chorus Line, Miss Saigon, and Sunset Boulevard. He began his career on Broadway as a dancer in such classic shows as West Side Story, Funny Girl, and Hello, Dolly! He also served as an original producer of Dreamgirls in 1981 and directed the Broadway and London revivals of A Chorus Line in 2006 and 2013. Tom Santopietro is author of seven books, including the national best-selling The Sound of Music Story and the New York Times Editor's Choice, Considering Doris Day. Over the past thirty years, he has managed more than two dozen Broadway shows.