All Balls and Glitter (21 page)

Soon afterwards, the gold phone rang in the Heartbreak Hotel. We all had our own personal phones in the bedrooms, but this was our communal work phone. When we did up the house, we spray-painted it gold and gave it a jewel-encrusted handset. We never answered it, though, because that was also the number we gave to our banks – and none of us were going to like anything they had to say! As soon as it rang, the whole Heartbreak would freeze in panic.

This time, however, I picked it up. It was fortunate that I did because it was Susan Stroman, the choreographer of
Crazy for You
on Broadway, calling from New York. In her stateside drawl, she purred, ‘Hey Craig, how ya doing? Are ya working?’

I told her I’d just put on an art exhibition that had gone very
well, but she simply asked in response, ‘Do ya remember all the steps from
Crazy for You
?’

I said I certainly did. She asked me if I had the show written down and notated, which, as the former West End dance captain, I did.

Then Mike Ockrent, who was the director of the show, came on the line. Mike is an award-winning director with Broadway and West End successes such as
Me and My Girl
,
which earned several Tony Awards, to his name, so I was a bit dazzled to be speaking to him one-to-one. ‘You don’t, by any chance, have all the direction written down as well, do you?’ he queried.

‘Well, yes, I do,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘I’ve taken down the whole show – every scene, every entrance and exit.’

‘Great,’ he replied. ‘We’d like you to put the show on in South Africa because we’re too busy to take it there. Can you get to New York by Monday?’

It was Saturday morning, so I had one day to organize myself, but I wasn’t going to pass on an opportunity like this. I was in the Big Apple bright and early on Monday morning and went straight into rehearsals with the Broadway company. From there, I joined the touring troupe in Baltimore, to study the off-Broadway American version of the show, and became equal dance captain with Stacey Todd Holt. I learned the New York production and the touring adaptation so that, combined with my West End experience, I had all three variants up my sleeve. With that broad knowledge, I could take the show to South Africa and stage it with a whole new cast.

Before South Africa, the American company and I played in Berlin for three months over the summer of 1994. It was oppressively hot, but I was really fit at that time, so I felt good about myself. I took a tap class every day with the cast. I have to confess that I’d thought myself a bit of a charlatan when I’d been in the show in the West End,
as my tapping wasn’t up to scratch; I’d had the mind of a dance captain, but not the feet. I had to put
in very long hours and work really hard to learn another discipline that late in life. I was twenty-nine – no small age for a dancer, a fact of which I was becoming ever more aware.

Of course, it wasn’t the first time I’d tapped in my career, but it had never been a strength of mine. In
Sugar Babies
, back in Australia almost a decade before, I’d even been told that if my tap-dancing didn’t improve, I’d be out. So I would go into the studio at 8 a.m. every morning before the main rehearsal and tap for two hours, which was exhausting.

There’s always some compromise in casting musicals; I was employed in that musical because I was a tenor. The boys in
Sugar Babies
have to sing in close harmony in a barbershop quartet, and I happened to fit in with the voices. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a strong tapper. It was a nightmare because I really thought I was going to be sacked. It made me feel that I was a terrible dancer, but then again, I’d never had any formal training in tap, past the bare minimum at Tony Bartuccio’s, so I couldn’t really help my inadequacy. It didn’t come as easily to me as other forms of dance, though. I used to get frustrated with it and not practise enough. But with tap, you simply have to go that extra mile. I wanted to enjoy it, so I decided to use those months in Berlin to train myself.

I was in the right company because Americans really can tap. They are phenomenal – like they were born with tap shoes on their feet. The best have had the steps passed down from generation to generation and it’s always fast, like Ann Miller. Her tap was like a machine gun going off. I wanted to tap-dance like that and I wouldn’t be happy until I did. So, instead of hiding and pretending I could do it, I exposed myself to the group and really started to improve. I gained confidence and conquered my fear, so I was all set to go to South Africa and say, ‘This is how we want it,’ and give a flawless demonstration.

South Africa was brilliant. It gave me the experience of mounting a show and, although it was someone else’s choreography,
I had to use communication skills I didn’t know I had to teach the routines. It’s a difficult musical with a lot of steps, so it was a real challenge.

We were staying in Pretoria, which is the dullest part, but I still loved the country. Cape Town, where we later transferred, is absolutely beautiful. Even in Pretoria, there are jacaranda trees everywhere and, in October, every street is decked in the most amazing mauve blossom. It is a stunning sight.

We were there from October to December. I was staying in a gorgeous hotel, with a big swimming pool on the roof. Every morning, I’d get up really early and go for a swim, then sunbathe between 7.30 and 8.30, before going to work at 9 a.m. to prep for the rehearsals. I’d dance all day long, then in the evening I’d go out for huge, delicious dinners with Lisa Kent, who was associate director. We had wonderful weather, good company and loads of fun. I was living the life of Riley and loving every minute.

I hadn’t earned money for months, except for the proceeds of my art exhibition, so suddenly I felt incredibly wealthy. I had £10,000 paid straight into my bank account, which was a hell of a lot of money to me.

In 1994, of course, South Africa was going through major – and painful – political change. Apartheid had come to an end and Nelson Mandela had been elected President in the first free election, but there was still a lot of violence, particularly in Johannesburg. In Pretoria, where the majority of the population were of Dutch descent, it was fine, while Cape Town was more like a holiday resort.

When we visited Johannesburg, however, there was a definite threatening undercurrent. We just didn’t feel safe in certain areas. There were news reports of racial violence every day and the white South Africans were still learning how to cope with the new order. Some took it in their stride, but others, those of the old school, kept on treating their maids like slaves. I guess you can’t expect people’s mindsets to change overnight.

Two years after
Crazy for You
finished, I went back to South Africa to scout for talent on behalf of producer Cameron Mackintosh, when we were trying to put together an all-black company of
Les Misérables.
I also went out to see if it would be worth setting up a Cammac School there, to train people in musical theatre, because at that point South Africa was importing musicals. Disappointingly, at the time we couldn’t find enough people to warrant it.

Theatre is much bigger there now. A lot of tours go through, but they are also originating their own shows, like
Umoja
, which is a musical based on traditional African dance.

In all, I was away for seven months with
Crazy
. It was the first time, since meeting Lloyd, that I’d been abroad that long. Because he came to Berlin to visit, our longest spell apart was actually three months, just while I was in South Africa, but it was still a difficult experience. He complained that I wasn’t phoning enough, but there were no mobiles then so I had to call from the hotel, which cost a fortune.

After I came back, I was working in the West End again, which made us stronger than ever. Or so I thought.

C
razy for You
was my first taste of being on the other side of the fence and calling the shots. I knew I had found my vocation.

I thought to myself, ‘This is exactly what I want to do. I’m absolutely loving it.’

The South African production was a huge success. As a result, Cameron Mackintosh offered me the position of resident director on
Miss Saigon
, so I went back for a year. I took over from Matt Ryan, when he went out to stage the show in Australia. He taught me a lot and showed me how to deal with companies in that role, which was brilliantly helpful. He’s really creative and I took my lead from him in making the job my own.

Before starting on
Miss Saigon
, there was a gap of a month or so. To pay the bills, I took on some shifts working as a waiter at The Engineer in Primrose Hill. I was helping my friend Tamsin Olivier, Laurence Olivier’s daughter, to kick-start her restaurant. Lloyd was the manager, which he fitted in around his law studies, and Clifford was also working there. I mucked in for a month and I really enjoyed it. It didn’t have the pressure of performing, but, oddly enough, I used to get nervous before a shift. My old fear of making mistakes in a restaurant environment came back to haunt me.

One evening, I looked at the reservations and saw that a Mr Hytner had booked a table for four. I thought, ‘Please don’t let it be Nicholas Hytner.’ He had been the director on
Miss Saigon
when I
was dancing there and now I was waiting on tables. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment.

Sure enough, of course, Nicholas Hytner rocked up at the door.

‘Oh, hello Nick,’ I said, breezily. ‘How are you? Let me show you to your table.’

‘Are you working here?’ he asked, somewhat surprised.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘As a matter of fact, I am. But I’m leaving in a week to become resident director of
Miss Saigon
.’

Thank goodness I had landed that job before he came in. I was still on the back foot, but at least I could throw that into the conversation.

Actually, it was lovely working in the restaurant. It was all very showbiz. Tamsin’s mum, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith used to pop in, while Kylie Minogue had dinner there. Adam Ant was always visiting, drinking his alcohol-free beer, and it was loads of fun. If you’ve got to earn money, after all, you have to have a job, and I’m not proud. I could end up there again, you never know.

After my stint on
Miss Saigon
, I became involved with a show called
Martin Guerre
, which was to put me on the map as a choreographer. That musical
really got me noticed in the business, even though I was working under a colleague’s name and umbrella, that of Bob Avian. It’s quite common for a choreographer to have a couple of assistants, and Maggie Goodwin and I were his. I generally work without one now, but I have had excellent assistants in the past.

Bob won the Olivier Award for Best Choreography for
Martin Guerre
in 1997. Maggie and I went to collect it at the official ceremony on his behalf because he was in America at the time. As a team, we worked well together. Maggie and I came up with some of the choreography in the production, through workshopping it together in breaks. Lots of that material made it into the actual show, so we were both thrilled.

I guess my instinct for choreography began developing when
I used to devise my own routines for Lavish on the drag circuit. I always adored making stuff up, but it’s difficult to be objective when you’re the only one dancing your material. I believe you need a second eye on it to be able to judge its merit.

What I discovered on
Martin Guerre
was that I felt very passionate about particular moves and understood why they would work to help to tell a story. I became almost obsessive about certain rhythms and beats within the score, and felt proud that what I was doing felt like it was working in context. Of course, it was a combined effort from all of us in the company that brought the narrative to life and made it work; one could never in my mind be so bold as to take sole credit, as it is collaborations that make it all work.

Martin Guerre
starred Iain Glen as the lead in the first year and Hal Fowler, who is married to Kim Wilde, the following year. The director was Declan Donnellan, co-founder of the Cheek by Jowl theatre company, and he was superb.

Ken Caswell was associate director, so he and I were finally working together, after he turned me down for
Les Mis
all those years before – and ruined my life! (I’m being theatrical, of course, he didn’t really; I just like to tell him he did.)

Despite the artistic brilliance of those involved in the production, it was a tense time. Declan is a master director – I love how he operates, to the extent that I have based my own working style on his methods; they have been an essential tool for me in many directorial tight spots – but this was a difficult situation. To be brutally honest, there were too many creative temperaments and it became pretty explosive.

There was Bob Avian, Maggie, Cameron Mackintosh – who always has strong opinions – and me. Then there were the writers, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, who had previously written
Miss Saigon
and
Les Misérables
. This was the third of their trilogy, so there was a lot of pressure on them to build on their genius, and outdo their former achievements. Add to the mix
Declan, Nick Ormerod – Declan’s partner and co-founder of Cheek by Jowl – who was working as the designer, Ken Caswell and Marcus Bray, who was Declan’s notary, and that’s a lot of people with input. Perhaps inevitably, there was a real threat that too many cooks might spoil the broth.

It was a tough task. Things were changing daily and everyone was confused. It was a very stressful
four-month
rehearsal period, which is unheard of. Ultimately, it was a critical disaster.

We opened on 10 July 1996 and the press hated it. Tony Purnell, in the
Mirror
, wrote: ‘At its foot-stomping best, it appears to have snapped up offcuts from
Riverdance
. At its worst, it’s a crashing bore and had me praying for the final curtain.’

The
Guardian
commented, ‘People are prophesying the end of the big musical. Frankly,
Martin Guerre
, by Boublil and Schönberg, is more likely to hasten than to delay its end. For all the qualities that one looks for in the musical – wit, passion, a heady ecstasy – are conspicuously absent from this lugubrious, heavy-going spectacle.’