“Come and Meet Those Dancing Feet!”
A Few Thoughts on 42nd Street and the First Ten Years of The Lexington Theatre Company
As observed with somewhat annoying exuberance by Kevin Lane Dearinger
A chance to meet those dancing feet?
You betcha!
That’s always been a very difficult invitation to turn down.
So, yes, please!
The Lexington Theatre Company first offered that marvelous summons and all the talents and glories that come with it ten years ago.
Now, to celebrate a decade of beautifully-crafted musical theatre, an extraordinary Artist Development Program, and outstanding community outreach on every level of production, The Lex is rehearsing its revival of the show that started it all.
42nd Street.
“Naughty, Bawdy, Gaudy, Sporty Forty-Second Street.”
(Sporty? A terrible rhyme with its companions, but it’s fun, Kevin, so let it stand!)
And, as they say elsewhere in the Bluegrass, “They’re off and running.”
Or tapping. Really tapping.
Tap dance to shake the floors, the walls, and the rafters. Maybe, the high heavens. As the angels would if they wore their winged tap shoes.
When the curtain goes up on 42nd Street at the Lexington Opera House, there will be a giant centipede of tapping, flapping dancing feet on that venerable stage.
Or is it a millipede of dancing feet?
(Millipede? Calm down, Kevin.)
All those dancers.
But that should not be a surprise in a show that has its roots not only in Broadway, but in Hollywood. Not quite a “cast of thousands,” but it feels that way. As it should.
Choreographer Kristyn Pope, setting Randy Skinner’s Broadway dances for The Lex, compares the sound to drumming, even if the sticks in this case are the somewhat more sensitive feet connected to a jam-packed stage of triple-threat talents that seem to never tire.
Quick feet. Quick minds. True hearts.
True artists. On stage and off.
(Too much praise? No, Kevin, not quite enough.)
The Lex has held itself to the high standards of its mission statement from the beginning.
(Okay, Kevin, just cut loose and celebrate!)
My adjectives are getting a bit reckless, but they remain truthful and sincere, and so from here I will drop the pretense of third-person objectivity and share a few memories of what to me are recollections of pure joy.
I was still living in Manhattan ten years ago, but I was in Lexington for the opening night of 42nd Street in 2015. I had not lived in Kentucky for five decades, but I knew a bit about Lyndy Franklin and Jeromy Smith. And playing Dorothy Brock in their production was an old friend, Karen Ziemba. We went way back to our shared days at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and I was very much around and in the Majestic Theatre when she had her put-in rehearsal and first performance as Peggy Sawyer in the original run of the show in New York.
She had 42nd Street cred. And a Tony Award for her brilliant work in Contact.
But in Kentucky? I didn’t quite know what to expect. Well-meaning summer stock? A ragged retread? Not the 42nd Street I remembered so clearly.
On opening night, the orchestra struck up the overture, and we heard excited voices telling us that “Julian Marsh is putting on a show.” So was The Lex, and we knew it. The audience at the Opera House sat up a bit straighter, smiling. No, grinning. And knowing!
The curtain teased up a bit to reveal all those tapping feet.
The thrills started and did not let up for two and a half hours.
And have gone on for ten years, so far.
The Lex’s inaugural production held back nothing. Great cast, great voices, great staging, glittering costumes, impressive set design, and dazzling lighting, and, from the beginning, the company’s very full and thrilling orchestra.
(Are your repeating your adjectives, Kevin? Well, “thrilling” is the right word!)
How often, I wondered, had the orchestra pit at the Lexington Opera House held that many fine musicians and produced such spine-tingling sound?
(Yes, thrilling!)
I was hooked.
I hoped Lexington would be, too. They just had to be!
The Lexington Theatre Company’s inaugural production of 42nd Street (2015)
Musical theatre is hard to get right! So many elements of its art have to be perfect, and if one goes wrong, what could have been unforgettable becomes a long evening of nervous tolerance.
This company, I thought, was aiming high and hitting the heights. With hard work, know-how, and extraordinary focus.
How, I wondered, did they do it?
Since that wonderful first night, I have been lucky enough to see every main stage production at The Lex. That initial success was not a fluke.
The second year, Mary Poppins triumphed with warmth, heart, and a high-flying nanny. In 2017, Legally Blonde sparkled with the pink polish of professionalism and the glow of “masterful storytelling.”
The next year, The Lex added a second main stage show. First, a glowing production of The Music Man, infused with a lovely tenderness of feeling for small town life that this Versailles native recognized and loved. The company then offered a tour-de-force of ensemble dancing and acting, the great musical about musicals, A Chorus Line. The choreography honored the dancers, and their open-hearted acting honored the soul of the play.
(Don’t ask me about my audition for the original Broadway company of the show. Less said...)
A few words about casting may be in order.
The casting at The Lex is veiled in the deepest secrecy. I hang around every spring and hope for hints, but, no, that magic is protected. Guarded. But magic it is. I have come to know that Lyndy and Jeromy possess an uncanny ability to match the demands of a role with the gifts of an actor. They know talent. They cherish and nourish talent. It’s at the core of The Lex. Every new company that they assemble teems with triple-talents, that triple crown of the actor-singer-dancer. And, even more astonishingly, the Smiths possess a gift for finding the real pros, the ones who know their art and are determined to work at their highest level. And their performers are kind. In the years that I have been hanging around the company, I have never met a diva. Divine talent, often, but no divas.
(Hallelujah!)
The Lexington Theatre Company’s production of The Music Man (2018)
I started doing what I do with The Lex in the summer of 2019. What do I do? I watch. I write. I blog, whatever that is. I laugh and cry and am amazed. I am a historian.
A lover of the theatre and an old actor who is happiest in a rehearsal room, a tech rehearsal, anywhere that theatre folk are at work.
I watched West Side Story rehearsals in awe. The company’s schedule demands speed and accuracy, but nothing was skimped. The direction was nurturing and practical. The choreographer recreated the show’s iconic dances with an urgent specificity that seemed more at home with rehearsing a brand-new Broadway show. Details of acting informed every move. The cast was magnificent.
I was new to the company and was horrified when I had a moment of doubt. We moved into the Opera House, and when I saw the scenic drops under rehearsal lighting, I thought, “No, no, no, this beautiful show is being sabotaged by blind trust in rented scenery.” The wrinkles in the canvas. The drab shadows in the paint. I kept my fears to myself. And then I witnessed the full design team in action. The crew (and humidity) smoothed the wrinkles, and the beyond-price lighting designer transformed what I had thought might be tatty scenery into breath-taking beauty. The color and clarity of her lighting astonishes me in each and every show.
(Go ahead and acknowledge Tanya, Kevin. Yes, Tanya Harper! A great artist!)
(Oh, now I am in trouble! The design and music departments at The Lex are full of great artists. I honor and admire you all. So much! But this piece is getting longer and longer. Fewer adjectives, Kevin!)
Newsies followed. More great dancing, a great score, and a wonderful cast. I had long had a small snobbery about “Disney” on stage, but now I could see the skill and heart in these shows, revealed by The Lex Family.
The Lexington Theatre Company’s production of West Side Story (2019)
Covid happened, but The Lex went online. First with zoom-gatherings of stranded artists aching for community, and then with classes. A dance class online? Oh, a great teacher can make it happen!
Then back with The Little Mermaid, purest underwater joy with another exuberant cast, and then a stunning production of Chicago, dark and funny and true, with a Fosse bump-and-grind of social commentary.
And The Lex’s first home-built scenery. The company was expanding. Again.
In 2023, The Lex made The Sound of Music soar with a new brilliance and charm, and then stepped into the world of blues and rock’n’roll with a gut-wrenching production of Memphis. As with so many shows at The Lex, the acting company knew it was in something special and brought such depth to the story and its meticulous staging that every audience cheered through tears.
(I was a soggy mess, my heart breaking.)
That same year, The Lex, ever ambitious, added a holiday production to their main stage season with Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, a show full of dance, tunes, delicate comedy, and sweet romance. And an icy flurry of snow in the Opera House auditorium. Wonders and magic!
(I love the theatre!)
The Lexington Theatre Company’s production of Memphis (2023)
Last summer, The Lex reached even deeper into its soul to create a profoundly felt and intensely moving production of Fiddler on the Roof, soaring with melody and the human spirit.
The final moments of the show still tremble in my heart.
Even now, how can I say enough about Jersey Boys! So much joy! So much talent on that stage! Giving everything, every minute. Making it all matter. When the horns let us know that we were about to hear “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” the thrill, the thrill, the thrill.
(That word again. Well, yes! What else?)
Just as I was in theatrical despair, missing the, uh, thrill of The Lex, came A Christmas Story. A great, silly, endearing story, with a rich score, and another cast that made every moment entertaining and every detail human and real.
(That kid was amazing! So was that old guy! So were they all, young and old.)
I have no room left to go on about the extra concerts With and Under the Stars, the evenings of fine music and fine dining with a farm-to-table menu, and the outstanding work that The Lex does within our community, especially with its training program and classes. The wonderful new studios on Alexandria Drive!
If only such opportunities and spaces had been around when I was growing up here, listening to show tunes, gouging the wooden floor in my childhood bedroom with what I hoped was something like tap dancing.
(I can’t wait to see, hear, and feel the irresistible percussion of “those dancing feet.” 42nd Street returns! “Shuffle. Shuffle. Slap. Ball change.”)
I had better stop here. I have been indulging in my weakness for nostalgia and my lifelong love of theatre people.
I hope I never stop that indulgence, that weakness, that happiness.
Congratulation and thank you to The Lexington Theatre Company.
(For the record: musicals sure do make my life better.)
The Lexington Theatre Company’s production of 42nd Street plays the Lexington Opera House for six glorious performances, July 10-13. Curtain time on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening at 7:30, Sunday at 6:30, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 1:00.
Kevin Lane Dearinger is a retired actor, singer, and teacher. His published works include four theatre histories, six volumes of poetry, six plays, and two memoirs, Bad Sex in Kentucky and On Stage with Bette Davis: Inside the Fabulous Flop of Miss Moffat. For many years, he sang out to the back row, acted from his heart, and danced, as one tactful critic put it, “with athletic grace.” In his soul, he still does all three. He counts among his blessings the privilege of sitting in on rehearsals with The Lexington Theatre Company. He is proud of his Actors Equity Pension.
