Books: Legacy of Choreographer/Director Agnes de Mille

Sadly, today, only those of a certain age know about Agnes de Mille’s trailblazing influence on choreography and musical staging re: Broadway musicals. It’s not only unequivocally massive, but also unequivocally brilliant and innovative – and still felt. She impacted numerous young choreographers, some who danced in her acclaimed classical companies, who passed the torch.

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Kara Anne Gardner’s Agnes de Mille:Telling Stories in Broadway Dance (Oxford University Press; 231 pages; hardcover/e-book; dozens of B&W photos; source notes; bibliography, and index) reveals keen insights into Ms. de Mille and how she approached her dance and collaborations using untapped materials such as her papers, correspondence with dancers and colleagues (including Stephen Sondheim), and dozens of interviews.

Ms. de Mille [1905-1993] had a jaw-dropping body of work from the 40s into the late 60s: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ground-breaking “Oklahoma!,” where her dance story-telling changed the way musicals would be conceived; Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash’s One Touch of Venus; Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg’s Bloomer Girl with her brilliant, show-stopping “Civil War Ballet;” her ravishing ballet for R&H’s Carousel; her lilting choreography for Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon; and R&H’s Allegro. She worked side-by-side directors, respectively: Rouben Mamoulian [also a veteran film director; who met Ms. de Mille, while teaching at University of Rochester’s School of Music], Elia Kazan, Harburg and William Schoor, Mamoulian again, Robert Lewis, and herself as “stager” with Arminia Marshall, a co-producer with husband Lawrence Langer of the Theatre Guild, as assistant director.

Gardner, associate dean of faculty at the Minerva Schools of California’s Keck Graduate Institute and who’s written extensively on dance and music, explores these musicals in depth. There were other successful and short-lived shows, some you might be surprised to find Ms. de Mille attached to: Jule Styne and Leo Robin’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; Cole Porter’s Out of This World; Lerner and Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon; The Girl in Pink Tights, where Robin set his lyrics to music by Romberg; Goldilocks, music by Leroy Anderson and lyrics by Joan Ford and Walter and Mary Kerr; Marc Blitzstein’s Juno; Richard Adler’s controversial-for-its-time [interracial romance] Kwamina; Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s 110 in the Shade; and David Baker and Will Holtz’s Come Summer, her last Broadway outing.

Keeping in mind that the Tonys weren’t awarded until 1947, Ms. de Mille only received one for Brigadoon [that year], with nominations for Goldilocks and Kwamina. In 1986, Drama Desk honored her “enduring legacy of cherished choreography.”

Character development remained at the heart of Ms. de Mille’s theatrical work. One of her innovations was taking minor characters with minimal or no dialogue and fleshing out their background stories with dance.

Not unexpectedly, especially in the 40s when she was working in the male-dominated world of directors, what inspired Ms. de Mille’s anything-but-one-two-three choreography was at odds with her collaborators. She also saw choreography as a core element of musicals and felt she should be given the same rights and billing as the librettist and composer. And she didn’t mind stirring the pot to receive her due. Billing, she got; but Lerner and Loewe were the only team who cut her in on Brigadoon royalties.

Ellis Nassour is an Ole Miss alum and noted arts journalist and author who recently donated an ever-growing exhibition of performing arts history to the University of Mississippi. He is the author of the best-selling Patsy Cline biography, Honky Tonk Angel, as well as the hit musical revue, Always, Patsy Cline.

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