{"id":3140,"date":"2010-11-19T11:13:10","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T16:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2010-11-19T11:13:10","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T16:13:10","slug":"bob-fosse-gwen-verdon-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=3140","title":{"rendered":"Bob Fosse &#038; Gwen Verdon at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gwen_Verdon\">Gwen Verdon<\/a> appeared in seven Broadway musicals in her illustrious career, winning four Tony Awards in the process (in four consecutive Broadway outings, no less).\u00a0 Her stardom came with a supporting role in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Can-Can_%28musical%29\">Can-Can<\/a>, <\/em>choreographed by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Kidd\">Michael Kidd<\/a>. Her specialty dances stopped the show cold, so cold that on opening night she had already changed out of her costume when she was taken onstage for a bow in her robe. However, for the rest of her musical career, Verdon worked explicitly with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bob_Fosse\">Bob Fosse<\/a>, whom she would also marry. The combination of auteur and star worked &#8211; <em>Damn Yankees,<\/em> <em>New Girl in Town <\/em>(a musical adaptation of Eugene O&#8217;Neill&#8217;s <em>Anna Christie<\/em>), <em>Redhead, Sweet Charity <\/em>and <em>Chicago<\/em> were all hits. Even after they separated, they remained incredibly close and continued to collaborate. For the 20th anniversary revival of <em>Sweet Charity, <\/em>Verdon was credited as Fosse&#8217;s assistant and after his death continued to champion his legacy.<\/p>\n<p>The duo made a TV appearance in 1962 where Fosse was discussing his approach to choreography and acting through song. He and Verdon discuss the set up to her iconic &#8220;Whatever Lola Wants&#8221; from <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Damn_Yankees\">Damn Yankees<\/a> <\/em>and then she performs the number using him as her scene partner. The process is fascinating, and the execution is exquisite.<\/p>\n<p>%CODE1%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gwen Verdon appeared in seven Broadway musicals in her illustrious career, winning four Tony Awards in the process (in four consecutive Broadway outings, no less).\u00a0 Her stardom came with a supporting role in Can-Can, choreographed by Michael Kidd. Her specialty dances stopped the show cold, so cold that on opening night she had already changed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=3140\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bob Fosse &#038; Gwen Verdon at Work<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2084,1713,1820,2089],"class_list":["post-3140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bob-fosse","tag-damn-yankees","tag-gwen-verdon","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3140"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3143,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140\/revisions\/3143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}