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THE Phenomenon that is Dirty Dancing comes to
the Hippodrome for an extended run next month after breaking box office
records as it sweeps its way around the country. Roger Clarke has been talking to producer
Karl Sydow about the show and the film that made household names of
Jennifer Grey, daughter of Oscar winner Joel Grey, and ballet trained
actor, Patrick Swayze, seen above in an iconic still from the movie LOOK at all the evidence and Dirty
Dancing was a low budget chick-flick which should have fluttered
almost unnoticed around the cinemas, had a garish cover on video release
a few days later and then disappeared without a trace. It had a script that had been shelved by MGM and
then turned down by every film studio in the US. It was only the second script of screenwriter
Eleanor Bergstein and it had as director, Emile Ardolino, who had
produced profiles of dancers and choreographers for public broadcast
television and, although he won the 1983 Oscar for best documentary with
He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing, a biopic of former American ballet
star Jacques d'Amboise, he had never directed or worked on a feature
film. The film had only one recognisable star, the late
Jerry Orbach, who was an established Broadway musical theatre performer
– his last role, incidentally, up to his death from cancer in 2004, was
as Detective Lennie Briscoe in TV's Law & Order. The only studio willing to take it on was the
newly formed film making arm of leading independent video distribution
company Vestron. It was their first feature film. The average film budget back in 1987 was $12
million. Dirty dancing with an inexperienced writer,
a director who had never made a feature film and a new studio also
making its first film had a budget of $5 million. It had all the ingredients for
a well-roasted turkey with all the trimmings, a guaranteed flop,
except for one thing – the public liked it and continued to like it year
after year. It had mixed reviews but
became one of the top grossing films of 1987 taking $170 million
worldwide and was the No 1 video rental the following year. It was the
first video to sell more than one million units, and DVD sales run at
more than a million sales a year.
Bergstein tuned the film into a stage musical in 2004 and the show is now on its first UK tour . . .with the the producers probably looking wistfully at that initial $5 million budget. Producer of the touring
production, Karl Sydow said: “The American tour cost $12 million to
mount, more than twice what the film costs were,
and the London show cost £4.25 million ($6.6
million) to stage and the touring production will be more,
£5 million or so ($7.8 million). "The problem you face on tour
is that you have to move the show around but you still have to deliver
everything people expect. You cannot compromise on
quality; you still have to deliver. “The tour is
actually more expensive because not only do you have to deliver
everything, you then have to pick it up, put
it in trucks and move it on and and that costs
money. We take advantage of modern technology. LED screens and video
walls can create a scenic environment. They can deliver a world and they
are very advanced but they are still very expensive.” Sydow sees Dirty Dancing a not just a film but a social landmark. It made men who wanted to dance or learn to to dance cool. “Patrick Swayze in this
film liberated a lot of guys who wanted to dance but couldn't tell
anybody because they didn't want to be seen as a cissy.
Patrick Swayze is butch and in this film he beats up all the bad guys.
He's a tough character, he's the cool guy, the James Dean,
the Marlon Brando, he walks in in black leather and he can take anyone
in the place – and what did he want to do, he wanted to dance.” Swayze started as a dancer and completed his
training with the Harkness Ballet and Joffrey ballet schools New York. Sydow said: “His mother Patsy had a dance school
in Texas and he started there. His mother was a courageous woman. Debbie
Allen, who went on to do Fame, told me about how as a young black girl
she was taken in and given dance lessons by Patrick Swayze's mother and
went on to a career. Patsy gave dance lessons to a little black girl in
Texas and that could be dangerous.” So why does a low budget 25-year-old film, set in
a period 50 years ago still set pulses racing and generate so much
interest and excitement? “The story”, says Sydow, “It is just a true story that touched people. Paul-Michael Jones in action "There is an extraordinary convergence of talent. Emile Ardolino, the director and Kenny Ortega the choreographer were an amazingly powerful creative team, they were given the script by Eleanor and shaped it as a team, picking up a brilliant score and combining it with four modern tunes, which should never have worked. "So you have every other tune set in 1963 or
earlier with a theme tune which for this little independent picture won
the Oscar that year for best song. "It shouldn't work. Everything up to that moment
is set in 1963; you can't put in a song written in 1987 which is from
the time of 1987. "It is a 1963 story but then you drop in these
things like Hungry Eyes or Time of my Life, which are the
best songs of that moment, not 1963, and they are anthems of all time.
It shouldn't have worked but it did because it was all good enough.”
The show's casting has been announced for its run
at the Hippodrome which opens, appropriately enough, on American
Independence Day, July 4. American actress Jill Winternitz stars as
idealistic Baby Houseman, the role taken by Jennifer Grey in the film,
who discovers love and life in the summer she will never forget. Jill trained at RADA and her theatre credits
include Ophelia in Hamlet and The Prioress in The Canterbury Tales
(Queen Mary 2); Wounded (Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble); Nina in The
Seagull (MXAT) and Sunday in the Park with George (Interlochen Center
for the Arts). Nicky Griffiths will play Penny Johnson, with the
show since it opened in Bristol last year, Her other credits include
Lisa in Mamma Mia! (Prince of Wales); Lou-Anne in the original London
cast of Hairspray (Shaftesbury); the original London cast of Wicked
(Apollo Victoria) and Grease (UK tour). Paul-Michael Jones, stars as Johnny Castle, the role made famous by Swayze. He trained at Laine Theatre Arts, graduating in 2007. His theatre credits include Eddie in Mamma Mia! (Prince of Wales); We Will Rock You (Cologne) and dance captain in Fame – the Musical (European tour). He has also represented England as a Latin American and Ballroom Dancer at The World Championships in Singapore |
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