This interview was done for City Info Magazine. Since the site was redesigned it was never put back on the homepage. For those who missed it, I hope you enjoy it. I dined with Jerry Mitchell on my Birthday a few years ago. It was a wonderful experience and I wanted to share it with you.
In addition, Mr Mitchell's Broadway Bares is happening this Weekend. To buy tickets check out http://www.broadwaycares.org.
Corine: First of all congratulations on winning both a Drama Desk and a Tony for "LA CAGE".
Jerry: And Outer Critics Circle.
Corine: And Outer Critics Circle. That is wonderful. I was rooting for you for LA CAGE,Time to order. I want the shrimp cocktail please and that's it.
Jerry: I'm going to have the gazpacho and the salad with the dressing on the side please. Jeff (waiter City Crab) the gazpacho was written up in Time Out New York as the best gazpacho in the City.
Corine: Great to know. I think your shrimp cocktail is the best in the City.
Jerry: That's what I like to hear. Great!! Thanks, Jeff!
Corine: Thanks, Jeff! So congratulations on all those awards. That is incredible.
Jerry: This is my 25Th year. Living and working in New York City.
Corine: Where did you grow up?
Jerry: I grew up in a little town called Paw Paw Michigan.
Corine: How was it there? When did you start dancing?
Jerry: I started performing when I was very young. I played in the Paw Paw village players. The dance teacher; had asked me numerous times to come take classes. It's a very Billy Elliott story. My Chorus Line story. And I wouldn’t go, I was afraid to go and eventually, I broke my collar bone playing football and decided I would take dance class to keep my legs in shape for basketball. I was always very athletic. And what happened, once I got there my teacher knew that she had the hook in my mouth and she offered me a job teaching tap as I was already tapping.
Corine: How old were you?
Jerry: I was fifteen. So she paid me, and gave the keys to the studio so I could go anytime and just dance. So, it was literally like a gift. A special gift for me and she saw something in me that I didn't know I had in me yet. She helped bring it out. Jerry: During my Senior year I went on a National tour of West Side Story.
Corine: I love West Side Story.
Jerry: It was great. Than I graduated and apprenticed at The Hope repertoire theater in Holland Mich. and then I went to Webster College, a conservatory program for two years and got my equity card at the sophomore spring break, I went to visit some close friends in New York City, that I had met at the Muni. And they were going to the Equity auditions for Brigadoon. The 1980 revival. I walked in at my first audition and they literally hired me on the spot.
Corine: That must have been very exciting! To be hired on your first audition. You were how old?
Jerry: I was 20 years old. It was my first New York audition. Hired on the spot.
Corine: That is incredible!
Jerry: So, I went back to College and told them I got a job, so they gave me independent credit to come back to New York and do the show. The show closed about six months later and I had just turned 21. My parents came at different times because they owned a bar in Michigan and they had to spot each other. Well, the week the show closed my Father said well you better come home with me, and I said Dad, I have to go and audition for another show, this is sink or swim time.
Corine: That must have been very exciting for you.
Jerry: It was. A week before the show closed, I had auditioned for Woman of the Year, which was just opening at the Palace with Lauren Bacall and I got the male swing part, I went right from Brigadoon to Woman of the year.
Corine: So you were a hot chorus boy first! (Laughs)
Jerry: (Laughing) Hot chorus boy from six months to the day and then got the movie Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and went out to California to make the movie and my school asked me if I wanted to come back, and I said absolutely not, I am working and doing everything I want to be doing. My Mom and Dad always stressed education. My Mom reminded me of this recently. I said Oh, Mom; don’t worry, when I become famous they will give me an honorary degree.
About three months ago, just before the Tony awards, my College called me and they wanted to honor me with an honorary degree.
It is located in St. Louis, so I went and I was the speaker, In a big stadium with a whole bunch of kids and they gave me a Doctorate of letters and my parents got to see that and than a month later I won the Tony, Drama Desk and the outer critics award for La Cage!
Winning an award is a wonderful thing, and I am very fortunate and happy to have had that honor, but more importantly, I am most happy that I received the awards when my parents were around to see it.
Corine: That is touching. Congratulations, they must be very proud of you.
Jerry: It’s a testament for all they’re love and support.
Corine: Did they come to the Tony awards?
Jerry: They have come to every Tony award, this year they did not. Because the day before my nephew was graduating, so I was at home in Paw Paw Michigan and flying back for the actual ceremony. So, my parents didn’t come as my Dad hates to fly. And my cousin was graduating on Monday and I said you have to be here for their graduation.
Corine: Well, they could watch you on TV. You deserved to win. That Cage Dance was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. Andy Pellick was incredible!
Jerry: Andy Pellick came into my life when I was asked to go to Vegas and restage EFX with Rick Springfield; Tommy Tune was starring in it. And they wanted to give the show a brush up, a freshen up, so I went and saw the show and was hired by the MGM Grand, a wonderful man named Richard Sterm and Bill Ray. We went to work on the show and cut 17 minutes from the show. It was a wonderful experience and there was this boy in it doing a ballet solo with all the fairies and the nymphs and his technique was outstanding! I said to Andy, I can put you in the show, but I said if I were you, I‘d get my ass on the next plane to New York. You are going to be working on Broadway like that! And as I was working with him, I remember his acrobatic dance; he is literally an Olympic gymnast. He is so flexible! He has so many gifts.
Corine: I met Andy at my La Cage event and he wowed me. He blew me away in that Cage dance; it was the most exquisite dancing I have seen in a long time. So congratulations for hiring Andy Pellick. He is also very sweet, he did my talkback at La Cage and everyone in my group wanted to talk to Andy.
Jerry: He is a wonderful person.
Corine: How did you come up with that dance?
Jerry: I thought about the Bird Cage, and a caged bird and had this idea.
Corine: It was the most incredible spectacle I have ever seen. I was trying to lobby to save La Cage from closing. With all of those awards, Tony, Drama Desk, Lortel and Outer Critic Circle, I don't understand why it closed! Such a shame!
Jerry: I had an amazing time. I think revivals, anyone who is getting ready to produce a revival has to go and look at the material, and there are two ways to do it. You can do a carbon copy of the original or you can let a new creative team do the material in a fresh way, which is what happened with Chicago and Cabaret.
Two revivals, everything else has been pretty close to the original. All my choreography was new and different. I really believe the theater is about looking at things in a fresh way, when you just put up the same old show again you get into trouble but Jerry Zaks and I tried very hard to put up a new version of the show.
Corine: What did Harvey think of the new version of the show?
Jerry: You would have to ask Harvey.
Corine; I would love to ask Harvey, someday, I hope! Harvey if your reading this call me, we will do lunch. (LAUGHS)
Jerry: Me and Jerry Z. were happy at times and unhappy at other times. It is very hard when you have something that is so successful; it is very difficult to look at it in another light.
Corine: Well, I thought it was brilliant. I loved it. I loved the writing but the Cagelles really made the show fun and entertaining. I also loved the Can Can number. It was so much fun. I also loved the part when Gary Beach is learning how to walk, it was very funny. He is hilarious!
Jerry: Gary is the sweetest, most wonderful artist you could ever ask to work with.
Corine: The Cagelles were amazing, they had such beautiful figures.
Jerry: I want to clear up any rumors. There was a rumor going around that I made my dancers take Ex-lax so they could retain they’re gorgeous figures, I never made them do that! I want that on record! (Laughs)
Corine: (Laughs) I never heard that! That is funny. There are so many rumors spread that are never true! That is very funny though.
Jerry: I would never do anything to hurt the well being of my dancers! That Can Can number was balls to the walls. They really worked hard in that Can Can.
Corine: I loved that! It was so much fun! I wished it did not close!
Jerry: They were sweating bullets. Splits and jumps and turns and cartwheels.
Corine: The Cagelles were all wonderful. So, what was it like to work with Harvey Fierstein?
Jerry: The first time I worked with Harvey was on Hairspray.
Corine: I loved him as Edna!
Jerry: The gift that Harvey has as a writer only enhances his performance as an actor. Because he knows when it’s funny and he knows when it isn’t.
Corine: Right. He is very funny. I loved his ad libs.
Jerry: He was very involved with writing some of the jokes; he was very involved in the process of Hairspray. He was a great collaborator. Who would not love Harvey?
Corine: I saw him in Fiddler and just thought he was marvelous.
Jerry: When you hear an entire audience laugh at the same time, there is nothing more powerful than that!
Corine: Yes. I agree. He is brilliant! Did you help Bruce Vilanch as well?
Jerry: Yes, he was the original Edna on Hairspray Tour. Bruce and Harvey have supported Broadway Bares for me, they have been hosts. They have always been there when I have called. Being in the City for 25 years, I feel I have a new community that has been such an important part of my life.
Corine: Tell me more about Broadway Bares.
Jerry: Broadway Bares, we do every June, just like the Tony awards. For the last two years I have become the Executive Producer and have decided to pass on the torch to other young Directors and Choreographers to try and help shepard their careers. Broadway Bares has given me the opportunity to work with the best dancers on Broadway and help raise money for Broadway Cares; little did I know that by doing that the whole town could see what I do. Which lead me to being hired on The Full Monty?
Corine: I loved The Full Monty. It was hot!
Jerry: It did not get its just desserts.
Corine; I loved it, it was incredible. I was most impressed with Denis Jones, the guy who played the stripper.
Jerry: Denis is amazing. Well, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are working on the score of Catch Me If You Can and I am working with them on that.
Corine: So what is it like to work with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman?
Jerry: I have known them for a very long time. When I first came to the City in the mid 80’s, Scott was doing a lot of extravaganzas at the Palladium and the Limelight. What I do at Broadway Bares, and I danced in some of those and performed in some for Scott. And Scott and I developed a show for Mandalay Entertainment. Scott Directed and Marc Shaiman contributed some original songs. First of all, they are both two of the most generous men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. They know more about music and musical theater than anyone I know. They just drip talent. They have a real knowledge of what Broadway was and what Broadway can be. They really love Broadway.
Corine: Hairspray is one of my favorite shows.
Jerry: Wait till you hear what they are writing for Catch Me If You Can, it is really spectacular.
Corine: And what are you doing next?
Jerry: Because of Broadway Bares, I have created a new burlesque show called Peep Show; this will feature a lot more woman than men since it is appearing in Vegas. Although there will be some men in it too. It is basically a romp, where Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and she has to learn to be a bad girl.
Corine: That is hilarious. Will there be Broadway dancers in it?
Jerry: Well, I hope. I don’t know how many of them want to relocate to Las Vegas.
Corine: Well, John Tartaglia is now in Avenue Q in Vegas.
Jerry: Well he is only in it for 6 weeks. They are going to want the dancers to sign a year contract. It is going to be an expensive venture and I am going to get the best dancers that I possibly can find.
Corine: How about the Cagelles? Does Andy need a job?
Jerry: Andy always has a job
Corine: What is he in now?
Jerry: I don’t know what he is doing but I know he did the workshop for Tarzan. He might end up swinging from a vine.
Corine: There was a rumor for awhile that it was going to be Matt Morrison. I wonder who will play Tarzan. Matt Morrison is wonderful. Did you teach Matt how to move?
Jerry: Matt is another one; I worship the ground he walks on. I first saw Matt when he auditioned for me for the Rocky Horror Show and I desperately wanted to hire him at the time. And he had a boy band and he was doing some opening acts. And he eventually came into the show. I hired him for Hairspray and he was in the dancing chorus and then was the understudy for Link in Seattle. I believe he did not get his Broadway contract to almost the end of the Seattle run.
Corine: Really. He was great as Link.
Jerry: The Producers wanted to see if he could do it. He is so talented, such a star. An amazing dancer, a great actor, and gorgeous to look at.
Corine: And a sweet guy.
Jerry: What’s not to like! I have hired him on three or four projects.
Corine: So, what’s the next thing you are going to hire Matt for?
Jerry: I’m not sure. He is in my rolodex; I always have to keep him in mind.
Corine: Do you have a favorite project?
Jerry: I don’t do a project unless I feel passionate about it.
Corine: Talk about Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Jerry: They came to us early on, no songs written and we said we want to do it. Of course I wanted to work with Dave Yazbeck again. Dirty Rotten is a tricky piece and I must tell you that I am over- joyed with the response it is getting. Norbert and John stop the show with that song every night. It is tough because how do you love two swindlers? But you do and it works because they care about each other and make it work. And Greg and Joanna, I created that little dance for them. We were in rehearsals in San Diego for three weeks and David did not have a song and he played the music for me and I did the dance in twenty minutes.
Corine: So, tell me about Legally Blonde.
Jerry: We have been working on it a year now, just the writing and we did a reading just before Labor Day and it was amazing. We learned a lot and we were pleasantly surprised with all of what we thought was really good. We are going to work on it some more and do another reading in December. And to try and get it on to Broadway sometime in 2007.
Corine: So, what is next?
Jerry: We are going to launch a tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. We have Hairspray opening in Las Vegas and I am working with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman on Catch Me If You Can. And for the rest of the year I am working on Peep Show, so from now until 2007 I have a very full plate.
Corine: I should say so. Other than theater, do you have any hobbies? Is there something that you love to do?
Jerry: No, not really. I love the Theater!!!!
Corine: Thanks for your time. For more information about Broadway Bares go to:
http://www.broadwaycares.org
Broadway Bares is coming up this weekend! Check it out!
