Casting lights - the difficulty in giving performance critiques and corrections to dancers

Dance Magazine, May, 1994 by Marian Horosko

LISA LEGUILLOU, in addition to playing a nurse and dancing in the ensemble, is dance captain for Broadway's rock show The Who's Tommy. In 1993 the show won five Tony, six Drama Desk, three Outer Critics Circle, and two American Theatre Wing design awards. Its choreographer, Wayne Cilento, won the Astaire Award.

At one point, during Tommy's pre-Broadway performances in La Jolla, California, Cilento said to Leguillou: "I hate to do this to you, but you're the dance captain."

Most dancers imagine this job as akin to being a staff sergeant - a watchful, demanding perfectionist who commands obedience and eventually becomes disliked. That approach doesn't work with talented, experienced, and sensitive performers. Although directions given by the stage manager or dance captain must be executed without question, dance captains must have the ability to articulate the choreographer's intentions with tact and understanding.

"Often," says Leguillou, "I find this the most frequently misunderstood aspect of rehearsing - a dancer will feel that he or she is doing exactly as the choreography demands. But because I stand at a distance during a performance, I can see that the movement is not full - although it may feel full-out to the dancer; that the dancer's place onstage is not correct - although it may seem so from his or her viewpoint; and that a count or accent is late or early - although the dancer is musical, but may not hear the orchestra at the same split second as the audience. Then I have to write that dancer a note and deliver it after the show privately."

Weekly run-throughs are held for understudies, cleanup, recasting because of illness, or replacement (only two actors and a swing person so far). "This show has only a few sections in unison," Leguillou explains. "It's a question of constantly watching and taking notes so that the individual choreography fits into the whole harmoniously and correctly. I feel that I'm still learning the entire show. Then, too, at times, Cilento will come in and say: |I don't like that anymore. Let's do this instead.' And away we go."

Leguillou comes to her job having danced in Jerome Robbins' Broadway, A Chorus Line, and West Side Story. Brooklyn-born and a rebel from birth, at the age of eleven she walked into a tap class taught by John Mullen (now in Florida) and asked to take lessons. She plunked down $10 and began in the middle of the course. "Simple," she says, not adding that she is a quick study. "Audition for the High School of Performing Arts? Not me. Intimidating. I chickened out. AH those talented kids? I never thought I had a chance." She continued study with Chuck Kelley at New York City's Broadway Dance Center, then, at sixteen, went to an open call - A Chorus Line. "I did the combination. Everyone was dismissed; I was asked to stay.

"The lesson here is to go to every audition you hear about at your studio and learn from them. Do as you are told, don't embellish or change any combination given by the choreographer or, yes, the dance captain. Bob Fosse said it best. |Copy it!' Be observant and enjoy the work. Don't show disappointment, criticism, anger."

Tommy is a show of relationships. The cast must know who they are as characters, and to whom they must relate. it's a triple-threat show - hard to cast because singers must dance, dancers sing, and everybody act. There's little leeway here. For instance, if an actor has his characterization down pat and is conscientious, but makes a move just a bit differently from the way the step should be done, "It's okay," according to Leguillou. "It's right for the character, not permissible for a dancer, any more than the director would permit an actor to change a line, no matter how pat the characterization.

"There are barometers for giving notes to the cast. On occasion, when I go backstage, the morale is not high enough for corrections. It's not a night for someone to take home a note about his or her performance. I wait a few days until the performer can be less emotional and more objective."

She waits a couple of days for a note to sink in and for the performer to have a few tries. If the performer hasn't made the correction sufficiently he gets another note. "Of course, some performers give me a hard time. I'm tough with them; they're tough with me. But it's all for the good of the performance."

With some performers, it is necessary to be matter-of-fact when making a correction; with others, tough; still others accept criticism only if it is given in what seems to be a kidding manner. Leguillou communicates with each performer on an individual basis.

Especially difficult is choosing under-studies (extra pay is given for covering a role). The choreographer makes this decision, although dance captains are consulted to a certain extent. Not to be chosen for understudy is depressing and seems unfair to some performers.

Best advice concerning corrections: Trust the captain's eye. Even if you disagree with the correction and think the captain wrong, do what you have been asked to do. Don't feel that correction is personal. The more professional you are, the more you welcome corrections and the better you are able to distance your performance from your subjective reactions.