This is a weekly
feature on BroadwayLiving.com. It’s
just like the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. You
know how it goes…someone throws out an actor’s
name and you have to try to connect them to Kevin Bacon
in six steps or less.
I thought it might
be fun to do the same thing with the theater’s luminaries. I
will be trying to connect them to the longest running
show in Broadway history, The Phantom of the Opera and
its very first “Phantom”, Michael Crawford.
Chita Rivera was a pivotal part of the original production
of West Side Story (1957), which celebrated
its 50th Anniversary this week. Ms. Rivera played
Anita in that monumental show.
She was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa
del Rivero in Washington D.C. in 1933. A rambunctious tomboy,
her mother enrolled her in dance classes to reel in
her rowdiness. When she was 15 she was chosen
to audition for George Balanchine’s School of
American Ballet. She won a scholarship and was
admitted. In the end it was not ballet, but musical
theatre, that would eventually send Chita soaring.
She made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Can-Can (1953). She
followed that up with small parts and a standby position
in Seventh Heaven (1955), Mr. Wonderful (1956)
and Shinebone Alley (1957), but it was her
portrayal off Anita in West Side Story that
would solidify her presence on the Broadway stage.
Since that time she has become
an icon of musical theatre. She has had starring
roles in Bye,
Bye Birdie (1960), Chicago (1975), The
Rink (1984), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993)
and her own biographical show, Chita Rivera: The
Dancer’s Life (2005) to name a few. She’s
been nominated for nine Tony Awards and has taken home
two: one each as Best Actress in a Musical for The
Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman.
1) Chita Rivera was in Merlin with
George Lee Andrews
2) George Lee Andrews was the original
Don Attillo/Passarino in Phantom
of the Opera with Michael Crawford
“I like the island Manhattan –
Smoke on your pipe and put that in!”
Anita
in West Side Story
So that’s the game. Join
me each week as I try to come up with new ways of
connecting Michael Crawford to the entire theater
community.
