On Your Toes (1936) is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers , George Abbott , and Lorenz Hart , music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939.
28-587: While teaching music at Knickerbocker University, Phil "Junior" Dolan III tries to persuade Sergei Alexandrovich, the director of the Russian Ballet, to stage the jazz ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue . After becoming involved with the company's prima ballerina Vera Barnova, Junior is forced to assume the male lead in Slaughter . Trouble ensues when he becomes the target of two thugs hired by Vera's lover and dance partner to kill him. On Your Toes marked
56-517: A Tony Award for Best Actress in a musical. The same production opened at the Palace Theatre, London on June 12, 1984, starring Natalia Makarova, Tim Flavin , Siobhan McCarthy and Honor Blackman ; it received rave reviews and ran for 539 performances. The main characters in the 1936 Broadway production were as follows: On a vaudeville stage, Phil Dolan II, his wife Lili, and his son Junior perform their nightly routine, but afterwards in
84-452: A laughing-stock of the ballet. But the audience loves it, nevertheless. Sergei, Peggy, Vera, Morrosine and Junior have listened to the jazz ballet. Opinions are mixed, and Vera and Morrosine are still arguing, as he becomes increasingly jealous of Junior. Poor Junior has got love problems, too: he upsets Frankie by going to lunch with Vera (for business reasons) instead of her, but she is " Glad to Be Unhappy ". Then Peggy, Sergei, and some of
112-414: A rehearsal, Morrosine's jealousy of Junior escalates, he fights with Sergei and is knocked–out, suddenly making Junior the new star. The humiliated Morrosine plots with his gangster friend, Louie, to shoot Junior at the end of the performance. Joe, the stage doorman, overhears and warns Frankie. On-stage, Junior is tipped–off by her, and signals to the conductor to avoid the final loud climax which would cover
140-515: A single at the end of 1967, reaching #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was issued to keep the group in the charts while awaiting the completion of the group's fourth album, The Papas & The Mamas . However, the song does not appear on that album; it was instead used to promote the group's second greatest-hits package, entitled Golden Era Vol. 2 . It is the last of the Mamas &
168-465: Is staged. They have orders to shoot the leading dancer (played by Ray Bolger in the original production). The dancer, who has been warned just in time, evades them by suddenly dancing at full speed even after the ballet actually ends, and finally two police officers enter and arrest the gangsters. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was danced by Bolger and Tamara Geva in the original stage production of On Your Toes , and by Eddie Albert and Vera Zorina in
196-537: The Palace Theatre , with Jack Whiting (Junior) and Vera Zorina (Vera Barnova). The first Broadway revival, directed by Abbott and choreographed by Balanchine, opened on October 11, 1954 at the 46th Street Theatre , where it ran for 64 performances. The cast included Vera Zorina, Bobby Van , Elaine Stritch , and David Winters . The original score was embellished with " You Took Advantage of Me ." The second revival, directed by Abbott and choreographed by Donald Saddler , started in 1982 with national previews. One of
224-580: The 1939 film. The first Broadway production, directed by C. Worthington Miner and choreographed by George Balanchine , opened on April 11, 1936, at the Imperial Theatre , where it ran for seven months, then transferred to the Majestic , for a total run of 315 performances. The cast included Ray Bolger (Junior), Tamara Geva (Vera Barnova), and Monty Woolley (Sergei Alexandrovitch). The London West End production opened on February 5, 1937, at
252-615: The NBC Chicago studio orchestra under the direction of Joseph Gallichio. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue entered the repertoire of the New York City Ballet in 1968, first danced by Suzanne Farrell and Arthur Mitchell . Lew Stone conducted the BBC Dance Orchestra in a 1936 BBC broadcast performance of Rodgers' score which was the work's radio premiere. Theatre organist George Wright recorded
280-613: The United States, peaking at #35 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The British instrumental pop group The Shadows released their version in November 1969 (b/w "Midnight Cowboy" (John Barry) Columbia DB8628). Electronic Realizations For Rock Orchestra , the first album released by synthesizer pioneer Larry Fast under the project name of Synergy , featured an electronic rendition of the ballet. James Last recorded
308-458: The aid of a visual double for one or two shots plus post-synched taps, he actually manages rather well, and even duets with the great Zorina with reasonable facility." Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen perform an abbreviated version of the ballet in the biopic Words and Music . Slaughter on Tenth Avenue Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is a ballet with music by Richard Rodgers and choreography by George Balanchine . It occurs near
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#1732772750928336-405: The album Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1964) Jazz singer Anita O'Day performed a vocal (scat) version on her Verve album Incomparable . The Ventures recorded an instrumental rock version of "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue", based on the score of the ballet. It was released as a single in 1964 , and appeared on their album Knock Me Out the following year. The single became a minor hit in
364-485: The apartment of Vera Baranova, star of the Russian Ballet, Peggy, the manager, enthusiastically tells Sergei, the company's director, about the new jazz ballet. He is not interested in anything new - he doesn't even recognise that the Revolution has happened! Junior arrives as Vera and co-star/unfaithful lover Konstantine Morrosine are having a Russian screaming match. The others leave, so that Vera and Junior can discuss
392-428: The ballet on his 1975 album Well Kept Secret , featuring Larry Carlton on lead guitar. Mick Ronson chose the ballet as title track to his debut solo recording Slaughter on 10th Avenue . Ronson was lead guitarist of David Bowie 's legendary band, "The Spiders From Mars" and knew and liked the music from his childhood piano training. He continued to play the song the rest of his career. Don Walker 's arrangement
420-447: The company visit Junior's school. Sergei has come to break the bad news that he will not be doing the jazz ballet, but Peggy persuades him by threatening to pull out the million dollars she has put into the company. After Sergei's announcement that the next production will be Slaughter on Tenth Avenue , the class stages the title number "On Your Toes", in which the students' jazz and the company's classical routines are deftly combined. At
448-519: The composition for his second album for HiFiRecords, George Wright Encores. An arrangement of Rodger's theme is part of the soundtrack of the 1957 crime thriller Slaughter on Tenth Avenue , which borrows the title but is otherwise unrelated to the 1936 stage play. Buddy Cole recorded a version with the Monty Kelly Orchestra shortly before his death in 1964. Jimmy Smith the jazz organist performed an Oliver Nelson arrangement on
476-468: The dressing room, the parents tell Junior that he must go to school. Fifteen years later, as predicted, Junior is a music teacher at Knickerbocker University. He has two talented students: Sidney Cohn and Frankie Frayne. Sidney has written a promising jazz ballet which Frankie catches Junior dancing to alone in the classroom (uncovering his "secret past"), and she trades an introduction to the Russian Ballet's manager in return for his listening to her song. In
504-404: The end of Rodgers and Hart 's 1936 Broadway musical comedy On Your Toes . Slaughter is the story of a hoofer who falls in love with a dance hall girl who is then shot and killed by her jealous boyfriend. The hoofer then shoots the boyfriend. The ballet is integrated into the plot of the musical by the device of having two gangsters watching it from box seats in the theatre in which it
532-509: The film version. In Words and Music , the 1948 Technicolor film biography of Rodgers and Hart, the ballet was danced by Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen , with a somewhat revised, more tragic storyline, and new choreography by Kelly (in Kelly's version, the boyfriend, in addition to killing the dance hall girl, also kills the hoofer). The first television performance of "Slaughter" was on NBC-TV's Garroway at Large program in 1950 or 1951, with
560-450: The first time a Broadway musical made dramatic use of classical dance and incorporated jazz into its score. On Your Toes originally was conceived as a film, and as a vehicle for Fred Astaire . His refusal of the part, because he thought that the role clashed with his debonair image developed in his contemporary films, caused it to be presented initially as a stage production. Richard Rodgers wrote: "Astaire at that point in his career
588-524: The new ballet, but that leads to a new entanglement. Back in the classroom, Frankie is jealous of Junior's stories about Vera and the Russians (Peggy has promised him a chance to dance in the corps de ballet), and they both wish they were away from it all. At the opening of the ballet, La Princesse Zenobia , Junior is told that one of the dancers is in jail and he must take his place, but onstage he gets all his steps, rhythms and positions cock-eyed and makes
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#1732772750928616-767: The original cast members, Natalia Makarova , was injured during the preview at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Valentina Kozlova filled in the role, and Leonid Kozlov , her former husband, replaced George de la Peña to complete the previews. After seven previews, the revival opened on March 6, 1983 at the Virginia Theatre with the original cast, where it ran for 505 performances. The cast included Natalia Makarova, Christine Andreas , George de la Peña, George S. Irving , Dina Merrill , Philip Arthur Ross , Betty Ann Grove and Lara Teeter . Makarova won
644-410: The shot, so he keeps the orchestra playing the last few bars of the music over and over as Junior dances frantically to keep the shooter from firing until the police arrest him. After the curtain call, Frankie embraces Junior and is startled to see his parents waiting to congratulate him. Junior chooses Frankie over Vera, asks her never to leave him. The music-teacher has made it back to his home-ground -
672-462: The songs from the Broadway score were used as background music, the film does not have any singing in it. The Slaughter on Tenth Avenue ballet does appear at the end of the film, with choreography by George Balanchine , one of eight films for which he created the dances. Eddie Albert's character dances the lead in the ballet, opposite Zorina. According to John Reid, "Albert is no dancer...But with
700-441: The stage. In 1939, Warner Bros. filmed On Your Toes as adapted by Sig Herzig and Lawrence Riley and written by Richard Macauley and Jerry Wald , with Ray Enright directing. The film stars ballerina Vera Zorina (billed as Zorina), Eddie Albert , Alan Hale and Frank McHugh , and features Leonid Kinskey , Gloria Dickson , James Gleason , Erik Rhodes , Berton Churchill and Donald O'Connor . Although some of
728-433: Was a pretty chic fellow who usually wore white ties and tails, and the producers felt that there was no chance in our script for him to appear that way." Astaire thought that the ballet background in the plot was too "highbrow" for his audiences. Ray Bolger was given the stage role, which allowed him to rise to stardom. Eddie Albert , not known as a dancer in his career, gave a remarkable performance opposite Vera Zorina in
756-506: Was not popular at the time, as there was only one recording of the song. In the 1937 London production, it was sung by Gina Malo and Eddie Pola . The song was performed in the 1954 Broadway revival by Kay Coulter and Joshua Shelley . Originally recorded for an appearance on "Rodgers and Hart Today", an episode of ABC Stage 67 , the Mamas and the Papas' version of the song was released as
784-478: Was performed by the John Wilson Orchestra as part of the 2012 BBC Proms The story was parodied by Morecambe and Wise as Slaughter on Western Avenue . Glad to Be Unhappy " Glad to Be Unhappy " is a popular song composed by Richard Rodgers , with lyrics by Lorenz Hart . It was introduced in their 1936 musical On Your Toes , sung by Doris Carson and David Morris, although it
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