Chita Rivera: Broadway legend's career recapped in 'Dancer's Life'

By: PAM KRAGEN - Staff Writer | Wednesday, September 14, 2005 11:59 AM PDT ∞

Chita Rivera. On Broadway, the legendary dancer/singer is the gold standard by which all other artists are measured. The two-time Tony-winner was the original Anita in "West Side Story," the first Rose in "Bye Bye Birdie," the creator of Velma Kelly in "Chicago" and the title character in "Kiss of the Spider Woman."

"As theater legends go, they don't get any bigger than Chita," said Graciela Daniele, who directs and choreographs "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life," an autobiographical musical that opens Sept. 22 in its world premiere at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre. From San Diego, the musical will move directly to Broadway, where it opens in previews at New York's Schoenfeld Theatre in mid-November.

Rivera, 72, stars in the show, which traces her life from its humble beginnings in Washington, D.C., through her early days as a ballerina, her Broadway explosion in 1957's "West Side Story," her long and fruitful choreographic collaborations with the likes of Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion and Daniele, her leg-shattering car accident in 1986, and her celebrated return to the stage in her 60s.

Rivera narrates the musical (with a book by her longtime friend and collaborator Terrence McNally), and with the help of a nine-member ensemble, she re-creates many of her career highlights.

Daniele ---- whose friendship with Rivera stretches back more than 30 years ---- describes the musical as an "intimate conversation with the audience."

"The audience will feel like Chita is talking to them personally," Daniele said. "It's not like a play. It's like this woman is sitting on a chair, telling you these fascinating anecdotes in such a natural way that it's as if you were sitting in the living room with her."

But Rivera doesn't spend the whole musical in a chair.

"She's up there kicking from beginning to end," Daniele promises. "You can't stop her. She's a force of nature. I can't imagine anyone at 20 being able to do what she does in her 70s, especially with the injuries she has suffered. There's something in her spirit, her soul ... a life force that can't be stopped."

"Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life" was conceived about a year ago, when Rivera, McNally, Daniele and music director Mark Hummell got together to discuss a musical that would celebrate Rivera's career. Not long before, she'd sat for a series of interviews about her life with New York writer Patrick Pacheco. His transcribed notes filled more than 80 pages, which McNally wanted to shape into a show that unfolds like chapters in a book.

The musical's story begins in 2002, when Rivera became the first American Latino to receive the Kennedy Center Honor. As she speaks to the black-tie audience in her native Washington, D.C., she recalls her Depression-era childhood, growing up just blocks away as the child of Puerto Rican immigrants. The story steps back in time and the drama begins.

Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero on Jan. 23, 1933, Chita was rocked at an early age when her beloved father, a woodwind player in the U.S. Navy Band, died when she was just 7 years old. Desperate to support her five children, Rivera's widowed mother went to work at the Pentagon and somehow scraped together enough money to enroll the tomboyish Conchita in ballet school at age 11.

She left high school in 1949 to accept a scholarship to George Balanchine's American Ballet in New York. Then, one day a year later, the 17-year-old Rivera followed a friend to the Broadway auditions for "Call Me Madam" and was instantly cast in the chorus. Seven years of touring, off-Broadway work and a top role in "Can-Can" followed, but it was her casting as the fiery Puerto Rican transplant Anita in 1957's "West Side Story" that catapulted her to fame.

That same year, she married one of the "West Side Story" dancers, Tony Mordente, and though the marriage did not survive, it did produce a daughter, Lisa Mordente, an L.A.-based choreographer who has driven down to watch "Chita" rehearsals over the past few weeks.

Rivera attributes her career success to the choreographers she has worked with over the years, including Robbins ("West Side Story"), Fosse ("Chicago" and "Sweet Charity") and Champion ("Bye Bye Birdie"). "My body," she has said, "is the sum total of all the choreographers who have trained me."

She also is grateful to the playwright McNally and composers Kander and Ebb, who spearheaded her 1992 return to Broadway after a near-paralyzing car accident. Rivera was driving home from the theater one night in 1986 when she collided with a taxi and her left leg was broken in 12 places. After a year of rehabilitation, and the permanent installation of 16 pins in her leg, Rivera slowly worked her way back to the stage, performing on cruise ships and in small cabarets.

When McNally began writing "Kiss of the Spider Woman," a drama in which a South American prisoner's dreams are haunted by a larger-than-life femme fatale, Rivera was his only choice for the title role (she won a Tony for her performance as the mysterious dream woman, Aurora).

"Chita Rivera is our strongest link to the Golden Age of the American musical," McNally said in a statement. "She worked with all the great choreographers and composers and was present for the creation of such seminal masterpieces."

In the musical, Rivera describes her life as that of a perpetual Gypsy.

"For some of us, the Gypsy years can go on forever," Rivera says in the show. "That isn't such a bad thing. When all is said and done, they're a lot of fun. The truth is, I liked being a Gypsy. It's who I was. And it's still a lot of who I am. Gypsy, it's a good word."

The show's structure alternates between stories and dance numbers, Daniele said, with a sense of pacing she learned directly from a master.

"Bob Fosse told me if you open a musical script and there's more than a page or a page-and-a-half of text, you better tear off the paper there and stick in a number, because that's as long as people want to wait before you show them something," said Daniele, whose Broadway choreography and directing credits include "Ragtime," "Dessa Rose," "The Goodbye Girl," "Once on This Island," "Annie Get Your Gun" (with Bernadette Peters), "Marie Christine" and McNally's "Rink" (for which Rivera won a Tony Award).

Daniele said the new musical, which opened Saturday in previews, is a work in progress. She and Rivera plan to continue working on the show throughout its San Diego run in preparation for its Broadway debut.

She described these past few weeks as a "very vulnerable period" when anything can happen. In spite of the pressure, though, Daniele said the rehearsal process has been a lot of fun. She attributes that to her long friendship with Rivera and their shared ethnic and theatrical heritage. Born in Argentina, Daniele began ballet lessons at age 7 and was dancing on Broadway by the early 1960s. Rivera was her idol. When they met and became friends more than 30 years ago, it was their shared Latino heritage and similar working style that made rehearsals, then and now, a joy.

"We're similar in the dynamics of our character, our cultural roots, our focus on family and our personalities," Daniele said. "We both love to laugh. We make jokes all the time. We both work very, very hard, but we love and maintain an atmosphere of fun."

Daniele said her goal as director and choreographer of "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life" is to introduce audiences to the real Chita.

"I hope that if they don't already know her, they will get to know her and love her during the show," she said. "I don't know how you can't fall in love when you see that woman up there and her energy and beauty and talent and her joie de vivre."

For those who don't already know Rivera, the Globe is offering a seminar on her life as well as the new musical at 6 p.m. Sept. 19. The one-hour lecture will feature the creative team behind the musical and it will be followed by a screening of the 1969 film "Sweet Charity," in which Rivera co-starred with Shirley MacLaine as a struggling taxi dancer. Tickets to the seminar are $5 for adults and $2 for teachers and students.

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