Robbie Fairchild and Leanne Cope, photo by Matthew Murphy
I finally made it to see An American in Paris on Broadway last week, right before my NYCB colleague Robbie Fairchild ended his Tony-nominated run in the lead role of Jerry Mulligan. I’m afraid I can’t claim much objectivity where this production is concerned—I’ve danced with Robbie often, I’m friendly with his co-star Leanne Cope, and I’ve known the show’s director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon since I was 15 years old (I was also a beatnik in the original cast of his An American in Paris ballet in 2005)—but with that partiality established, I thought I’d share some of my impressions from the performance anyway.
Overall I had a wonderful time at the show, and I would recommend it to anyone. It made me so happy to watch Robbie, who clearly was having a ball. I fully expected him to be good, from years of watching him excel in Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story Suite and George Balanchine’s Who Cares?, and he did not disappoint. He looked like he was born to be up there, and his all-American look was perfectly suited the part of the yankee in Paree. Robbie is taking a breather from Broadway at the moment, but I suspect he’ll find his way back to The Great White Way someday.
Leanne Cope danced the role of Lise Dassin, his love interest, and I was completely blown away by her too. She has a luminous face with large, doll-like eyes and beautifully shaped legs and feet. Her British lilt was replaced with a convincing French accent, even in song, and her voice rang out crystal clear in “The Man I Love.” In the climactic ballet sequence towards the end of the show she was as confidently sexy as she was shyly sweet in her earlier scenes, an impressive display of range. She had the miserable task of switching back and forth between character heels and pointe shoes between nearly every scene, and I don’t know how she managed to do it so quickly and so often!
Robbie and Leanne’s balletic dream pas de deux was the highlight of the performance. That an intimate ballet number was the capstone in a big production (competing with splashy ensemble tap numbers, etc.) is a testament to Chris’s skill in partnering choreography, as well to the
Overall I had a wonderful time at the show, and I would recommend it to anyone. It made me so happy to watch Robbie, who clearly was having a ball. I fully expected him to be good, from years of watching him excel in Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story Suite and George Balanchine’s Who Cares?, and he did not disappoint. He looked like he was born to be up there, and his all-American look was perfectly suited the part of the yankee in Paree. Robbie is taking a breather from Broadway at the moment, but I suspect he’ll find his way back to The Great White Way someday.
Leanne Cope danced the role of Lise Dassin, his love interest, and I was completely blown away by her too. She has a luminous face with large, doll-like eyes and beautifully shaped legs and feet. Her British lilt was replaced with a convincing French accent, even in song, and her voice rang out crystal clear in “The Man I Love.” In the climactic ballet sequence towards the end of the show she was as confidently sexy as she was shyly sweet in her earlier scenes, an impressive display of range. She had the miserable task of switching back and forth between character heels and pointe shoes between nearly every scene, and I don’t know how she managed to do it so quickly and so often!
Robbie and Leanne’s balletic dream pas de deux was the highlight of the performance. That an intimate ballet number was the capstone in a big production (competing with splashy ensemble tap numbers, etc.) is a testament to Chris’s skill in partnering choreography, as well to the
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