The Fred Astaire Awards

This season there were so many musicals with incredible choreography, it was an embarrassment of riches: “On The Town”, ” An American In Paris” ” On The Twentieth Century”  ” The King And I” and ” Something Rotten” all had excellent choreography and all of the dancers from the nominated shows danced to perfection. Some of the dance highlights at the awards was the cast of ” On The Town” performing the iconic “New York, New York” and what a great way to open up the show!

The show was written by talented playwright Jenny Lyn Bader, who did a great job as the Fred Astaire Awards were a magical event. In addition, the incredible dancers from ” On The Twentieth Century” dazzled us with ” Life Is Like A Train” choreographed by the talented Warren Carlyle.

The adorable hostess of the show was “Forbidden Broadway” star Christina Bianco who did funny impersonations throughout the evening such as Bernadette Peters, Kristin Chenoweth and of course Liza when Joel Grey was honored.

The speech by Jennifer Grey was heart warming and touching and the evening was a spectacular event. As someone who is very passionate about theater and dance it was a joyful event to cover. Hoping that Broadway will continue to produce magical shows that feature amazing choreography. This season was a winner and so was this years Fred Astaire Awards.

In my opinion every single nominee this season was a winner! So go and see: ” An American In Paris” “On The Town”, ” On The Twentieth Century”

“The King And I” and ” Something Rotten” all of these shows had incredible dance and made the theater season a delight. I adored the hilarious Annaleigh Ashford in “You Can’t Take It With You” she was a joy to watch. I wish the show was still running and I also adored the fabulous dance numbers in ” Honeymoon in Vegas” and Tony Danza’s tap number was a thrill to watch. Both sadly have closed.  What a fantastic dance season. Looking forward to seeing more great dance on Broadway as well as Off Broadway. The most exciting part of the night is both male leads tied Robert Fairchild from “An American In Paris” and Tony Yazbeck from ” On The Town” hoping that will also happen at this years Tonys.

Corine Dana Cohen

Winners list:

Best Female Dancer:
Annaleigh Ashford – You Can’t Take it With You
* Leanne Cope – An American in Paris
Jill Paice – An American in Paris
Megan Fairchild – On the Town
Erin Davie – Sideshow
Emily Padgett – Sideshow
XiaoChuan Xie – The King and I
Melanie Moore – Finding Neverland

Best Male Dancer:
* Robert Fairchild – American in Paris (tie)
Clyde Alves – On the Town
*Tony Yazbeck – On the Town (tie)
Jay Armstrong Johnson – On the Town
Phillip Attmore – On the Twentieth Century
Rick Faugno – On the Twentieth Century
Drew King – On the Twentieth Century
Richard Riaz Yoder – On the Twentieth Century
Christian Borle – Something Rotten!
Alex Sharp – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Best Choreographer:
* Christopher Wheeldon – American in Paris (tie)
* Joshua Bergasse – On the Town (tie)
Christopher Gattelli – The King and I
Warren Carlyle – On the Twentieth Century
Casey Nicholaw – Something Rotten!
Scott Graham & Steven Hoggett for Frantic Assembly – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Steven Hoggett – The Last Ship
Mia Michaels – Finding Neverland

Joel Grey was honored with The Douglas Watt Lifetime achievement award and Harvey Weinstein was honored for his many contributions to film and theater. He made a funny speech at the awards and mentioned how critics didn’t embrace ” Woman In Gold” a film that I adored! Weinstein has done so much for dance and also announced that he would be bringing the ” Spring Spectacular” to Madison Square Garden every year. I have loved his work in film and hope to see his work on the stage. ( I am a giant fan of all his films especially: “Chicago,” ” The Kings Speech,” ” The Iron Lady,” “Chocolat”, “My Left Foot,” ” The Aviator,” “Shakespeare In Love,”

“Big Eyes,” ” The Butler,” “Woman In Gold,” “Finding Neverland,” “The Imitation Game,” and adored “Begin Again” He has brought magic to film and I hope to see his new show “Finding Neverland” as it was the only show this season that I didn’t get to see.