Michael Bennett
| Michael Bennett | |||||||
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| Born | Michael Bennett DiFiglia April 8, 1943(1943-04-08) Buffalo, New York, USA |
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| Died | July 2, 1987 (aged 44) Tucson, Arizona, USA |
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| Other name(s) | Choreographer, dancer, director, writer | ||||||
| Spouse(s) | Donna McKechnie (1976-1977) | ||||||
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Michael Bennett (April 8, 1943 - July 2, 1987) was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer.
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Biography
Early life
Born Michael Bennett DiFiglia to a Roman Catholic father and a Jewish mother in Buffalo, New York, he studied dance and choreography in his teens and staged a number of shows in his local high school before dropping out to accept the role of Baby John in the US and European tours of West Side Story.
Early career
Bennett's career as a Broadway dancer began in the 1961 Betty Comden-Adolph Green-Jule Styne musical Subways Are For Sleeping, after which he appeared in Meredith Willson's Here's Love and the short-lived Bajour. In the mid-1960s he was a featured dancer on the NBC pop music series Hullabaloo, where he met fellow dancer Donna McKechnie.
Bennett made his choreographic debut with A Joyful Noise (1966), which lasted only twelve performances, and in 1967 followed it with another failure, Henry, Sweet Henry (based on the Peter Sellers film The World of Henry Orient). Success finally arrived in 1968 in the form of Promises, Promises, an adaptation of the film The Apartment. With a hip contemporary score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and Bennett's dazzling production number Turkey Lurkey Time, the show ran for 1281 performances. For the next few years, he earned praise for his work on the straight play Twigs with Sada Thompson and Coco with Katharine Hepburn. Then came two revolutionary Stephen Sondheim productions - Company and Follies (which he co-directed with Hal Prince).
Michael had enough self-belief now to want total control. In 1973 he got his chance and went solo, taking over direction of the ailing Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields' Seesaw, for which he was dubiously credited as writer.
A Chorus Line and Broadway
Bennett's next project was A Chorus Line. The musical was formed out of hundreds of hours of taped sessions with real Broadway dancers. Bennett was invited to the sessions originally as an observer but soon took control. He co-choreographed and directed the play. The musical debuted in July 1975 off-Broadway. It won nine Tony Awards and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
He later claimed that the worldwide success of A Chorus Line became a hindrance, as the many international companies of that musical- demanded his full-time attention.
Bennett would later become a creative consultant for the 1985 film version of the musical but left due to creative differences. Michael grew disillusioned with Hollywood and having to kowtow to the studio heads. He feared nothing as much as the loss of complete creative control.
Bennett's next musical was the unsuccessful Ballroom starring Dorothy Loudon. He readily admitted that any work after A Chorus Line would seem an anti-climax, but Ballroom did have its charms. He later found more success in 1981 with Dreamgirls, with a book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Henry Krieger.
In the early 1980s, Bennett worked on various projects, one of which was titled The Children's Crusade but none of them reached the stage.
He always collaborated with his assistant Bob Avian, who was a lifelong friend.
The genius of Bennett
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Unlike his more famous contemporary Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett never had a particular choreographic style. Any physical movement suggested by Bennett was motivated by the form of the musical involved, or the distinct characters interpreted.
In Act 2 of Sondheim/Furth's musical Company, Michael Bennett defied the usual choreographic expectations. He deliberately took the polish off the standard Broadway production number. The chorus/company stumbled through the steps of a hat and cane routine ("Side By Side") and thus revealed to the audience the physical limitations of the characters singing and dancing. Bennett made the audience aware that this group had been flung together to perform for us, and that they were in over their heads. He intended it not to be about the routine but the characters behind it.
("One") from A Chorus Line functions in a different way. We encounter the number through its various phases of construction/rehearsal and because the show is about professional dancers, the final ("One") has all the gloss and polish we have come to expect of Broadway production values. Michael made us aware of the number, at the cost of the people behind it.
Personal life
In his younger days, Michael had a relationship with dancer Larry Fuller, the future choreographer of the musicals Evita, Merrily We Roll Along and A Doll's Life.
He married Donna McKechnie on December 4, 1976, but after only a few months they separated and eventually divorced in 1979.[1]
His addictions to alcohol and drugs, notably cocaine and quaaludes, severely affected his ability to work and impacted on many of his professional and personal relationships. His paranoia grew, as his dependency did. Convinced of his own celebrity and aware of his father's Italian background, he began to suspect he might fall victim to a Mafia hit.
He began an affair with Sabine Cassel, the then-wife of French actor Jean-Pierre Cassel. She left her family in Paris to live with Michael in Manhattan but the relationship soured.
In 1985, he abandoned the nearly-completed musical Scandal (written by songwriter Jimmy Webb), which had been developing for nearly five years through a series of workshop productions. It was speculated that the material was too sexually progressive for the current conservative climate and its unfolding AIDS panic. Many involved in this production thought it Bennett's greatest and most personal choreography.
He was then signed to direct the West End production of Chess but had to withdraw in January 1986 due to his increasingly failing health, leaving Trevor Nunn to complete the production using Bennett's already commissioned sets. He moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he remained until his death from AIDS-related lymphoma at the age of forty-four. He left a sizable portion of his estate to fund research to fight the epidemic.
Awards and nominations
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Notes
- ^ McKechnie, pp. 140 and 150
Other media
A Class Act - A Musical About Musicals (2001). Michael Bennett and lyricist Ed Kleban are portrayed in this partly ficionalised life story of Ed Eleban, using some of Kleban's unpublished songs. A Chorus Line's number "One" is featured in this new musical.
References
- Michael Kantor (2004). "Choreographer, Directors & Producers: Michael Bennett". Broadway: The American Musical. Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved on 2008-05-21.
Further reading
- Mandelbaum, Ken (1990). A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett. St Martins Press, ISBN-10: 0312042809
- Kelly, Kevin (1990). One Singular Sensation: The Michael Bennett Story. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 038526125X.
- McKechnie, Donna (2006). Time Steps:My Musical Comedy Life, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0743255208
- Viagas, Robert (1990, 2nd edition). On the Line - The Creation of A Chorus Line. Limelight Editions, ISBN-10: 0879103361
- Stevens, Gary (2000). The Longest Line: Broadway's Most Singular Sensation: A Chorus Line. Applause Books, ISBN-10: 1557832218
- Flinn, Denny Martin (1989). What They Did for Love: The Untold Story Behind the Making of "A Chorus Line" Bantam, ISBN-10: 0553345931
- Emmett Long, Robert (2001). Broadway, the Golden Years. Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN-10: 082641883X
- Chapin, Ted (2005). Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies. Applause Books, ISBN-10: 1557836531
- Hamlisch, Marvin (1992, 1st edition). The way I was. Scribner, ISBN-10: 0684193272
External links
- Turkey Lurkey Time (Promises, Promises)
- The Music and the Mirror (A Chorus Line)
- Michael Bennett at the Internet Broadway Database
- Michael Bennett at the Internet Movie Database
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