At 3 p.m. on a late Tuesday afternoon watching January fall from the calendar, high kicks and paper top-hats are the name of the buzzing game for the Orlando Ballet.
Nestled in their current home at Loch Haven Neighborhood Center, the members of the ballet corps are sweating out a rehearsal to “One,” the famous crowd pleaser from A Chorus Line, as director Robert Hill does the hand gestures and the shouts of “one, and two and three” from the sidelines. “And stop! Now go!” A disco ball swings overhead.
It’s not typical ballet fare, but this isn’t for a typical ballet cause. This is for Harriet Lake, longtime supporter of Orlando’s arts community, its health concerns and a fabulous clothes horse, to boot. She’s no hoarder, though. Two years ago, Lake opened up her fantastic wardrobe for a 15-day sale of 3,000 items in order to help fund a level-one trauma unit at the Orlando Regional Medical Center.
“I have a hat for every outfit. I never buy them together, but when I see a hat, I buy it,” Lake told the Orlando Sentinel at the time. And now, as a woman in her mid-90s, she’s doing the best that she can with what she’s got. That sounds a lot like Broadway.
On February 25, the Orlando Ballet will reveal the full production of “Orlando Ballet presents Best of Broadway” at the Walt Disney Theater within the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. The event, meant to celebrate Lake’s contributions to the Orlando arts and cultural community, will be bookended by some glitzy champagne swishing to the romantic sounds of Michael Andrew, Hill says, and a ten-table gala in the DeVos “family room” at which each of the guest tables will be joined by two dancers from the event. The gala-sized tickets have already sold out 22 tables at the glamorous cost of $10,000 per sponsor, if that gives you any idea of the demand. Either way, it’s a red-carpet affair. Tickets for the main performance are still available starting at a more plebian $29.
Lake, who just recently kicked in a $2 million contribution match for the Orlando Ballet, according to Hill, has played a huge part in making this Great White Way dream come true. She wanted this. She gets this. The song list, the tone, the narrative thread – they’re all part of Harriet’s dream.
“We are always trying to think of ways to recognize Harriet or thank her, so it just seemed logical to try to fit it in this year. It’s something that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and it just seemed like now was the best time to do it,” Hill says. “She obviously loves Broadway and so she loved the idea, and she gave me a very long list of her favorite songs from her favorite shows. So we had a lot fun coming up with the songs. And, I have to say, we designed it in some order that the songs had a logical progression. But she also had her own ideas about how the show should start, which number should open.”
Hill, who has been captaining the sometimes-difficult ship of the Orlando Ballet – the company, like many arts organizations, has suffered through financing woes amid an economic crisis – is keen to point out that Orlando brings its own particular brand of arts appreciation to the table. That big-city-small-town feel often works in the company’s favor. You can bend the stringent rules a little bit.
“I’m trying,” Hill says. “I just came from a meeting with a potential funder and that was something that was important to them, and, it’s true. Between Uncorked and Battle of the Sexes. People, when they see what ballet is – they think they know what it is. … But then when they get them to come into rehearsals, the real contemporary kind of ones, they see that the dancers, they’re athletes. I had one person say to me, ‘They sweat!’ Yes, they do!”
And more people than usual will be sweating to impress Lake, Hill says. “We’re using some of the Orlando Ballet II, which is our junior company, so it’s the next step between school and becoming an apprentice or a company member.”
But does humanizing the ballet dilute the art form? Not really, Hill says, though he relishes the idea of some of the future performances in the season, including a Masterworks program with Serenade with choreography by George Balanchine and music from Tchaikovsky and Fancy Free with choreography by Jerome Robbins and music from Leonard Bernstein, there’s room for all tastes and types in the ballet. In fact, for an accomplished dancer who has worked with such esteemed companies as the American Ballet Theater, it’s as if the challenge of Broadway productions – which will be performed at this event as “collages,” Hill says – may even be more difficult. This particular performance will be accompanied by recorded vocal and musical tracks – the Orlando Philharmonic, which often joins with the ballet, will not be present – and is set to be a 75-90 minute run-through of all of Lake’s favorites.
Cabaret will be there. As will numbers from Contact, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, Singin’ in the Rain and many others.
“We are using Singin’ in the Rain!” he laughs when prompted with a litany of stage classics. “Had to use that one” But I think one of her favorites was Contact, the musical Contact. Fortunately, I had seen the original Broadway cast that was Susan Stroman’s debut as a theater director. I’m actually sort of a theater buff, so I’ve seen most of these things. I kind of wish she’d chosen Grey Gardens!”
To help achieve his lofty mash-up goal, Hill has enlisted the choreography support of members of his own company. Chiaki Yasukawa, Telmo Moreira and Arcadian Broad have choreographed the lion’s share of the evening’s selections, which is just fine by Hill. That gives him more time to direct, naturally.
“It’s nice for me, because I’m not only influencing their dancing talents but also their choreography talents,” Hill says. “Arcadian is also a composer. I’m pulling as much out of all of them as I can, and they love it.”
In her own way, Harriet Lake will be featured on stage as well, a fitting tribute to the woman who helped shape Orlando’s philanthropy and its fashion sense.
“I just talked to her last week and she was remembering things from movies and who wore what, and what actor or actress it was. Her memory of everything was still very much intact,” Hill says. “She still has so much that we’re actually using it in the show! We’re going to have this little red-carpet moment. At that, we’re going to have some people wearing her fashion going down the red carpet as if they’re going to the Tony Awards or something.”
As for the Orlando Ballet, things are looking up, Hill says. The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts has been more than generous with its time, allowing him input into the development of the Disney Theater’s floor – the theater, he says, is perfect for all performances, acoustic and dance. The prospect of a new theater is what led him to take the job as artistic director in Orlando a decade ago.
“We used to have to have our own sprung floor at the Bob Carr Theater, but we don’t have to do that anymore,” Hill says. “It’s a stage that’s ready for dance or any kind of performance. And, acoustically, that theater is wonderful. I don’t think they were anticipating it to be as good as it really is, but it’s really good. Having the [Orlando Philharmonic] in the pit has been wonderful.”
“The city is going through a major growth period. It’s phenomenal. And the ballet is going through a major growth period. We did just have Michael Kaiser here, the consultant to the companies around the world (Kaiser currently works as chairman of the Devos Intstitute’s training and consulting programs); ‘the turnaround king is his nickname. He turned the American Ballet Theater around when I was there, so that’s how I knew him. It got to a point where I thought, boy, we really need kick! Because it would want to go there, but then it goes ‘meh.’ We just needed some help. His involvement alone gave us a credibility that we didn’t have before. It was like, ‘Oh, they’re really serious about this.’ I pushed for it. I mean, look what the city gave us [rehearsal space]: 99 years, a dollar a year.”
Another part of that turnaround has seen the ballet becoming more user-friendly. And with the prospect of Phase II of the Dr. Phillips Center, which is intended to include a new stage for the ballet, Hill is optimistic and not at all stuffy. This Harriet Lake benefit is meant to be charming for audiences and for Lake. This is the people’s ballet.
“It’s very accessible. Even if you don’t go to Broadway musicals, a lot of these songs are just sort of everywhere. Even if not, they’re all fun,” he says. “One of the other things is that we’re going to have a bunch of our school students, because one of the sections Chiaki is doing is from Annie. So we’re going to have the kids doing ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘Hard-Knock Life.’ So, we’re going to have the ‘aw’ factor of the kids. Like they always say, have kids or pets! We didn’t have any pets for this one.”
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