To legions of theater fans, Bob Fosse is best remembered as a creative force behind “Sweet Charity” and “Chicago,” among other game-changing musicals. It was one of the legendary director-choreographer’s lesser-known works, however, that first inspired Tony d’Alelio to pursue a career on the Broadway stage.
A Virginia native, d’Alelio said his earliest memory of Fosse was catching the movie adaptation of “The Little Prince” on video shortly after he’d enrolled in dance classes as a child. Though the 1974 film itself has been mostly forgotten with time, the actor and dancer found himself transfixed by Fosse’s on-screen presence.
This spring, d’Alelio is one of four performer who are making their Broadway debut in the first-ever revival “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’,” which opened at New York’s Music Box Theatre last month. The musical breaks free from the conventions of its genre by doing away with a linear plot entirely. Instead, it’s a joyous tribute to Fosse’s career and the art of dance as a whole that manages to be both mesmerizingly sexy and thought-provoking.
“Bob made this so that people can understand dance and come see dancers in the spotlight and not the back row,” d’Alelio told HuffPost. “It’s really my belief that everyone is a dancer. The teenager running to catch the bus, the woman on the street corner trying to find her balance, even just someone hunched over on their phone, sending an email — there’s choreography all around us. Bob paid attention to all of those things.”
The original production of “Dancin’” was praised as wildly innovative when it opened on Broadway in 1978, and like much of Fosse’s work, it didn’t shy away from frank sexuality. Director Wayne Cilento, who starred in that first incarnation, has given the revival a forward-thinking update by turning it into a colorful celebration of queer identity. The show’s 22-member ensemble cast includes eight LGBTQ performers.
“As a dancer, it’s very much ‘the boys do this, the girls do that’ when you’re growing up — there’s a masculine version and there’s a feminine version,” d’Alelio said. “In Bob’s work, it’s just the human version. We all roll our shoulders, we all move our hips. We all interpret feeling and emotion in a different way.”
He went on to note: “What I love about my piece in this puzzle is that I am very queer. I can be very androgynous. I express myself in masculine and feminine ways. So the material is a playground for me to express everything I have inside. That’s such a gift as a dancer, to not be in this box to make other people comfortable. I’m doing the opposite of that.”
With “Dancin’” continuing to wow audiences, HuffPost asked d’Alelio to share a behind-the-scenes look at the musical through 10 personal snapshots. You can catch more of d’Alelio’s adventures on Instagram here.
