Bennett on the cover of his 1990 biography by Kevin Kelly

Michael Bennett (April 8, 1943 - July 2, 1987) was a Tony Award-winning American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... April 8 is the 98th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (99th in leap years). ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... What is popularly called the Tony Award (formally, the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre) is an annual award celebrating achievements in live American theater, including musical theater, primarily honoring productions on Broadway in New York. ... Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... A theatre director is a principal in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a play by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... Choreography (also known as dance composition) is the art of making structures in which movement occurs, the term composition may also refer to the navigation or connection of these movement structures. ... A contemporary dancer rehearsing in a dance studio Dance generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting. ...

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. The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... Nickname: Location of Buffalo in New York State County Erie County Government  - Mayor Byron Brown Area  - City 52. ... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... World map showing the location of Europe. ... For The Games song, see Westside Story (song). ...

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. Broadway theatre[1] is the most prestigious form of professional theatre in the U.S., as well as the most well known to the general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows. ... Comden and Green was the writing duo of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. ... Adolph Green (December 2, 1914 – October 23, 2002) was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freeds production unit at MGM, during the genres heyday. ... Jule Styne (December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was a British born American songwriter. ... Subways Are for Sleeping was a Broadway musical produced by David Merrick with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. ... Robert Meredith Willson (18 May 1902 – 15 June 1984) was an American composer and playwright, best known as the writer of The Music Man. ... Heres Love is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson. ... Bajour is a Broadway musical that first opened on 23 Nov 1964 at the Shubert Theatre, with music and lyrics by Walter Marks, and book by Ernest Kinoy based on stories by Joseph Mitchell originally published in The New Yorker. ... NBC (a former acronym for National Broadcasting Company) is an American television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ... Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more of the mass media. ... Guest host Petula Clark introducing her new single, Round Every Corner, on the October 25, 1965 broadcast Hullabaloo was a musical variety series that ran on NBC from January 12, 1965 through August 29, 1966. ... Donna McKechnie is a Tony Award-winning American musical theater dancer, singer. ...

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. For the next few years, he earned kudos for his work on Twigs with Sada Thompson, Coco with Katharine Hepburn, two Stephen Sondheim productions - Company and Follies (which he co-directed with Hal Prince) - and the Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields' hit Seesaw, for which he was also the director and librettist. A Joyful Noise is a musical with a book by Edward Padula and music and lyrics by Oscar Brand and Paul Nassau. ... Henry, Sweet Henry is a musical with a book by Nunnally Johnson and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill. ... Richard Henry Peter Sellers, CBE (8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English comedian, actor, and performer, who came to prominence on the BBC radio series The Goon Show and later became a film star. ... The World of Henry Orient is a 1964 comedy film directed by George Roy Hill. ... Promises, Promises is a musical, based on the film The Apartment by Billy Wilder. ... The Apartment is a 1960 romantic comedy-drama directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. ... Burt Bacharach (IPA: , born May 12, 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an award-winning American pianist and composer. ... Hal David (born May 25, 1921 in New York City, New York) is a Jewish-American lyricist and songwriter. ... Original Broadway poster Twigs is a play by George Furth, with incidental music by Stephen Sondheim. ... Sada Thompson (September 27, 1929 in Des Moines, Iowa) is an acclaimed American stage, film and television actress. ... Coco logo Coco is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by André Previn. ... Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an iconic four-time Academy Award-winning American star of film, television and stage, widely recognized for her sharp wit, New England gentility and fierce independence. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. ... Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. ... Hal Prince (born January 30, 1928), full name Harold Smith Prince, is a American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century. ... Cy Coleman (June 14, 1929 - November 18, 2004) was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist. ... Dorothy Fields was immortalised on a USPS postage stamp. ... Seesaw is a musical comedy based on William Gibsons play, Two for the Seesaw which ran on Broadway in the late 1950s. ...

The process of taking over the troubled Seesaw on the road, just six months before it was scheduled to open, convinced Bennett the usual way of developing musicals - rehearsals, out-of-town tryouts, previews, and opening - was no longer efficient and devised a better plan. He decided to do a show about the lives of "gypsies" - chorus boys and girls - but rather than commission a script or write one of his own he let the story-line evolve through a series of group therapy-style workshops in which fellow dancers shared their feelings and frustrations about their careers. Hundreds of hours of audio tapes eventually led to the creation of his biggest and most personally-felt triumph, A Chorus Line, which opened in July 1975 at Joseph Papp's Public Theater in lower Manhattan. The reviews were ecstatic and the demand for tickets so huge it transferred uptown to the Shubert Theater, where it remained a sell-out hit for fifteen years. It won nine Tony Awards, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The sixth studio album by alternative rock band Concrete Blonde, after their break-up and reunion. ... A Chorus Line is a musical with a book by James Kirkwood, Jr. ... Joseph Papp (1921 - 1991) was an American theatre producer and director. ... The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization. ... Manhattan is a borough of New York City, USA, coterminous with New York County. ... Shubert Theatre, Boston The Shubert Organization was founded by the Shubert brothers, Sam Shubert, Lee Shubert, and Jacob J. Shubert of Syracuse, New York in the late 19th century in upstate New York, entering into New York City productions in 1900. ... What is popularly called the Tony Award® but is formally the Antoinette Perry Award is an annual American award celebrating achievements in theater, including musical theater. ... The New York Drama Critics Circle is comprised of nineteen drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines, and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. ... The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918. ...

As its creator, choreographer, and director, Bennett devoted the next several years of his life to the show, auditioning, rehearsing, and directing productions throughout the world. Realizing it was very much a theatrical piece intended to be played on a proscenium stage, he declined an offer to direct the screen version, although he agreed to join the project as a creative consultant, a position he left early on due to differences with the studio (Bennett believed the movie should be about the audition process for the filming of the stage play, rather than a movie version of the play itself). Director Richard Attenborough declined to use Bennett's original choreography, instead opting to hire Jeffrey Hornaday, and the end result was a disappointing critical and commercial failure. The interior of the Auditorium Building in Chicago built in 1887. ... Sir Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE (born August 29, 1923) is a prolific English film and stage actor, and Academy Award, BAFTA and three-time Golden Globe winning director, producer and entrepreneur. ...

Although A Chorus Line was very much an ensemble piece, the original cast's standout star was Bennett's old friend McKechnie. The two married in 1976, but separated three months later and eventually divorced, but remained close friends. The bisexual Bennett's relationships with men, including an early one with fellow dancer Larry Fuller, were more discreet, less-publicized, and tended to be lengthy. In human sexuality, bisexuality describes a man or woman having a sexual orientation to persons of either or both sexes (a man or woman who sexually likes both sexes; people who are sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females). ... Larry Fuller is an American choreographer, theatre director, dancer, and actor. ...

A Chorus Line was a tough act to follow. Bennett's next musical was the unsuccessful Ballroom starring Dorothy Loudon, but he found himself at the top again in 1981 with Dreamgirls, with a book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Henry Krieger. Original cast recording Ballroom was a 1978 Broadway musical based on the 1975 Emmy Award-winning television drama Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. ... Dorothy Loudon (September 17, 1933 - November 15, 2003) was a Broadway actress noted for her comedy and belting singing voice, which she used to deliver a wide range of musical comedy and Roaring Twenties songs. ... Dreamgirls is a Broadway musical, which opened on December 20, 1981 at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway. ... Tom Eyen Tom Eyen (August 14, 1940 - May 26, 1991) was a Tony Award-winning, Grammy Award-winning, and Emmy Award-nominated playwright, lyricist, television writer, and theatre director. ... Henry Krieger is an American composer who wrote the music for Dreamgirls, Side Show, and other works of musical theatre. ...

In the early 1980s, Bennett worked on various projects, but none of them reached the stage. His addictions to alcohol and drugs, notably cocaine and qualudes, severely affected his ability to work and impacted on many of his professional and personal relationships. In 1985, he abandoned the nearly-completed musical Scandal, which he had been developing for nearly five years through a series of workshop productions, and signed to direct the West End production of Chess, but he 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 funding research to fight the epidemic. Cocaine (see also: crack) is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. ... Methaqualone tablets and capsules. ... // West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre in London, or sometimes more specifically for shows staged in the large theatres of Londons Theatreland . Along with New Yorks Broadway Theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of theatre in the... Björn Ulvaeus, Tim Rice, and Benny Andersson, the creators of Chess Chess is a musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, formerly of ABBA. The story involves a romantic triangle between two players in a world chess championship, and a woman... Sir Trevor King (born 14 January 1940) is a loser and film director. ... Nickname: The Old Pueblo Location in Pima County and the state of Arizona Coordinates: Country United States State Arizona Counties Pima Government  - Mayor Bob Walkup (R) Area  - City  195. ... Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS or Aids) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). ... This article is about lymphoma in humans. ...

Awards and nominations

• 1984 Drama Desk Award Special Award commemmorating the 3,389th performance of A Chorus Line, winner)
• 1983 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play (Third Street, nominee)
• 1982 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Dreamgirls, winner)
• 1982 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (Dreamgirls, nominee)
• 1982 Tony Award for Best Musical (Dreamgirls, nominee)
• 1982 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical (Dreamgirls, nominee)
• 1982 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical (Dreamgirls, nominee)
• 1979 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Ballroom, winner)
• 1979 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (Ballroom, nominee)
• 1979 Tony Award for Best Musical (Ballroom, nominee)
• 1979 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography (Ballroom, winner)
• 1979 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical (Ballroom, nominee)
• 1976 Tony Award for Best Choreography (A Chorus Line, winner)
• 1976 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (A Chorus Line, winner)
• 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (A Chorus Line, winner)
• 1976 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography (A Chorus Line, winner)
• 1976 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical (A Chorus Line, winner)
• 1974 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (Seesaw, nominee)
• 1974 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Seesaw, winner)
• 1974 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (Seesaw, nominee)
• 1972 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Follies, winner)
• 1972 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (Follies, winner)
• 1971 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Company, nominee)
• 1971 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography (Follies, winner)
• 1971 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director (Follies, winner)
• 1970 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Coco, nominee)
• 1969 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Promises, Promises, nominee)
• 1968 Tony Award for Best Choreography (Henry, Sweet Henry, nominee)
• 1967 Tony Award for Best Choreography (A Joyful Noise, nominee)

Created in 1955, the Drama Desk Award was created to recognize Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway shows in addition to Broadway shows. ...

Reference

One Singular Sensation: The Michael Bennett Story by Kevin Kelly, published by Doubleday, January 1990 ISBN: 0-385-26125 Doubleday is one of the largest book publishing companies in the world. ...

External link

Internet Broadway Database listing