I booked my first national tour of a Broadway show right out of college. It was the tap show, '42nd Street.' I had only been tap dancing for three years when I booked that show.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had been coming to New York, pretty much once a month, to dance on Broadway. I was offered a huge Broadway show but couldn't do it because my brother was having his huge Bar Mitzvah.
On Saturday afternoons, there was a film, of course, and then we did about four shows between the films. And I would do a tap dance, a little military tap.
I was dancing on Broadway for many years. Then everyone was either getting injured or retiring, and I was dancing with younger dancers.
In the Thirties, when I was in New York, I did the first surrealistic ballet in a show of mine.
It wasn't until I did a musical revue in Paris in the 1980s called 'Black and Blue,' and met the great men and women responsible for the progress of tap dance, that my relationship with the dance really began.
I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle.
I was ballet dancing at four, playing piano by six, and doing commercials by 12. When I was 21, I was on the number one live comedy show in Puerto Rico. I told my parents, 'I'm going to New York to become a performer.' And I left.
I grew up in dance studios. I was forced to be in several numbers in recitals and dance competitions. I took one tap class - literally one class - and then I quit.
My first show was when I was a high school freshman, but it was at the junior class dance. My older friend and bandmate booked it.
I got into a Broadway show before I ever sang and danced. I learned how after I got in the show.