'Spring' brings rain, and shine, to Radio City
NEW YORK — The director and choreographer Warren Carlyle has lent his talents to numerous musical productions on Broadway, among them
After Midnight, which earned him a Tony Award last year, and this spring's soaring revival of On the Twentieth Century. But there's one chorus line in particular he's long yearned to work with.
"It's always been on my bucket list to choreograph the Rockettes," says Carlyle, who goes to Radio City Music Hall each year to watch the leggy ladies kick in perfect unison in the long-running Christmas Spectacular. Now Carlyle is living his dream, helming Radio City Music Hall's New York Spring Spectacular, which opened Thursday at that storied venue.
Jim Dolan,executive chairman of Radio City's parent Madison Square Garden Co., describes the show as being "in the style of the grand productions of spectaculars that Radio City was known to put on in the 1930s and '40s."
Still, the Spring Spectacular, a joint production of MSG Entertainment and Weinstein Live Entertainment, also is very much of its time, embracing contemporary pop culture while nodding fondly to the past. Various comedy, sports, media and fashion stars have lent their voices or appear in video clips, and the music includes everything from original tunes to hits by Beyoncé, Jessie J and Taylor Swift to golden oldies such as The Way You Look Tonight and Singin' in the Rain.
The latter standard is featured in one particularly splashy production number that Carlyle conceived "primarily for the Rockettes," though it's also become a showcase for leading man Derek Hough, of Dancing With the Stars fame, and co-star Jared Grimes, who worked with Carlyle in After Midnight.
In the scene (which also includes strains of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head), Hough, Grimes and the Rockettes tap-dance exuberantly as 500 gallons of water pour down on them. They wield umbrellas, and the women wear daffodil-yellow raincoats with bright purple trim, and matching boots fitted with waterproof mikes.
"I knew that I wanted all of the ladies dancing — and that they wouldn't appear like divorced housewives in raincoats," Carlyle quips. "In my mind, you never see the Rockettes as normal creatures — you always want to see them as magical."
A lot of technical work goes into providing that illusion, of course. For those gallons of rain, the show enlisted Water Sculptures, a U.K.-based company that has provided effects for numerous productions in England and New York. "We manage the water as you would a swimming pool," says William Elliot, who runs the company with his brother, Alasdair. "After it falls onstage it is collected and recycled to be used for the next performance."
The water also is heated, for which the dancers are grateful. "I'm one of those guys who can't just run and jump in a pool," Grimes says. "So there's an initial shock when the rain hits me. But it's kind of warm, and it's clean — so it's like, splish-splash, I'm taking a bath onstage."
Dancing in the rain also is safe, in this instance. Grimes initially feared he would have to put rubber on his tap shoes, as some hoofers do to avoid slipping. But "the floor" — a deck made of recycled plastic — "has this grip, so I can climb and jump and bounce all over the place."
"It's incredible to be on that massive stage, and to be part of something as iconic as the Rockettes, doing something that's new and kind of risky," Hough says. And "hearing the kids scream out — how amazing is that? But there are also people that aren't as vocal during a performance, who'll end up giving us the biggest standing ovations at the end."