THE FROGS

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 22.07.2014 - Lincoln Center
Photos by Paul Kolnik and Sara Krulwich

"Always ready to put actors and dancers through demanding paces, Susan Stroman hits a peak with a frogs ballet wherein the leap-frogging has the bounce that we know Sondheim favors. She whirls the Three Graces (Meg Gillentine, Jessica Howard, Naomi Kakuk) as if they're a center-ring aerial act. (AntiGravity gets program credit for assistance.) She even sends hellish flames soaring, with special effects help from Gregory Meeh."
in TheatreMania.com by David Finkle

"Ms. Stroman's choregraphy shows little of the wit and individuality she brought to ''The Producers'' and ''Contact.'' There is a lot of posing in the manner of Greek statues (with props like discuses and urns, natch). And for the frogs -- who embody the conformity and complacency that keeps the world from moving forward -- there are high-jumping routines involving bungee cords and stylized games of (I swear) leapfrog."

in The New York Times by Ben Brantley

"It's here and it's croa kin'! But even with the ineffable Nathan Lane as its star, with the tireless Susan Stroman providing athletic backup, "The Frogs" — which opened last night at Lincoln Center — needs all the help it can get… So what didn't go right? It certainly wasn't the performance or Stroman's dance-happy, energized staging. No, the trouble went deeper — probably as deep as Aristophanes… Apart from Sondheim and the endlessly inventive Stroman (here in a Cirque de Soleil mood), the heavy lifting is done by Bart and Lane."
in New York Post Online by Clive Barnes

 

DOUBLE FEATURE

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 32.01.2004 - New York City Ballet
Photos by Paul Kolnik and Paula Lobo
           

“Stroman has created a hugely entertaining, often wildly funny show that lives up to all expectations. What's more, she has crafted a showcase for City Ballet's dancers to act their hearts out like they rarely get to do. It's hard to tell who's having more fun: the audience, or these performers who have such big grins on their faces as they combine classical technique with Broadway showmanship”
in "The Associated Press"

“Playful, entertaining, often hilarious and superb in its theatrical timing and its musical irony in relation to songs by Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson, DOUBLE FEATURE has been a hot ticket for months before its premiere on Friday night. Anticipation was high at the sold-out New York State Theater and an ovation greeted Ms. Stroman like a conquering heroine... For the most part she did not disappoint. Her use of the ballet vocabulary is conventional but effective as part of an expressive image...There are also two showstoppers. One is a routine by a live Boston terrier... Unlike Balanchine, Ms. Stroman has always seen dance as a narrative medium, not as pure form. Storytelling is her gift in the genre she has chosen, and with Glen Kelly's brilliant arrangement of the Berlin and Donaldson songs, shorn of their lyrics, she displays a musical sensitivity that Balanchine could appreciate."
in "The New York Times" by Anna Kisselgoff“

"The use of super-titles to tell the story in Double Feature - the silent movie device that is Stroman's central structural idea in the ballet (she uses projections showing brief quotations above the action either to set the scene or to provide dialogue) - is actually quite interesting because the use of titles in the silent movies served the same purpose as mime did in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century ballet.  Ballet melodramas and the early silent movies have common historical roots… But it's Makin Whoopee, the second half of Stroman's program, based on the Buster Keaton movie Seven Chances, that's an even greater treat in this production… you can't get the score of Walter Donaldson songs out of your head; the dancing is admirably assimilated in the narrative; and you leave the theater charmed, and with an appreciation for Stroman's mastery of staging, narrative, and dramatic effects.  Her use of the ballet vocabulary is more fluent here than in The Blue Necklace.”
in danceviewstimes.com by Michael Popkin“

"It is, without a doubt, a canny and professional work. Ms. Stroman’s storytelling skills are so sure, and what happens so predictable, that the projected silent-movie titles probably aren’t necessary… Adroitly, she drapes her theatrical conventions in choreographic clichés. Like her storytelling, her choreography flows smoothly, fills its purpose and is easily forgotten. Songs by Irving Berlin (in the first half) and Walter Donaldson (in the second) are cleverly manhandled to serve the plots. Everything is thought out. No surprises here… “Ms. Stroman’s uninspired pastiche is the flip side of pretension. “Double Feature” is a ballet for people who don’t like ballet.”
in The New York Times by Brian Seibert“

"Broadway choreographer and sometime Ballet maker Susan Stroman has created a delightfully fun homage to silent film with her ballet, DOUBLE FEATURE, for New York City Ballet…. Stroman's ballet vocabulary is not as rich as Robbins' and the choreography less varied, but her heightened sense of the theatrical and the comical more than made up for that. "Makin' Whoopee" is a splendid homage to slapstick that had the audience roaring with laughter and applause throughout.”
in exploreDance.com by Tonya Plank

THOU SHALT NOT

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 25.10.2001 - Broadway
Photos by Paul Kolnik and Aubrey Reuben

To see videos of this production go to “The Moving Picture Show”

"Susan Stroman has dreamed up a couple dozen marvelous ideas for THOU SHALT NOT, an adaptation of Emile Zola's THÉRÈSE RAQUIN... In realizing her wish, Stroman has executed some eye-popping, jaw-dropping thou-shalts; the problem is that, when it comes to big musicals (or any kind of musicals), you need a hundred or more thou-shalts, a tally she reached in THE PRODUCERS."
in TheatreMania.com by David Finkle

"Stroman puts to effective use the turntables-within-turntables of Thomas Lynch's darkly-lit, evocative sets, but while she has studiously avoided the props and gimmicks that are her trademark, her work here verges on the arty and pretentious. And her triumph with CONTACT may have led her to believe that her dances would be enough to convey the emotional content of the source material; she hasn't bothered to secure a book and, more crucially, a score to support her".
in Broadway.com by Ken Mandelbaum

"After mouting CONTACT, THE MUSIC MAN and THE PRODUCERS, Susan Stroman's winning streak has finnaly come to an end. Which isn't to say that she hasn't created some interesting work here. Besides a few superb special effects, Stroman's intricately choreographed sequences are the only things worth watching. The clever modern dance invoking Mardi Gras is one of the boldest movement pieces Stroman has ever choreographed on Broadway."
in Time Out - New York by Jason Zinoman

THE PRODUCERS

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 19.04.2001 - Broadway / 09.11.2004 - London
Photos by Paul Kolnik

To see videos of this production go to “The Moving Picture Show”

"The making of this Susan Stroman-guided hit looks transparently complex, an object lesson in the good old Broadway trade of adaptation. [...] but then so is the redoutable Susan Stroman, who, in both staging and choreography, outdoes even herself in ingenuity, imagination and plain, old showbiz pizazz."
in "The New York Post" by Clive Barnes

"Director/choreographer Susan Stroman already proved herself God's gift to contemporary musical theatre with "Contact" and last season's revival of "The Music Man". Here, with the help of a cast led by Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, she demonstrates an equally masterful flair for old-fashioned shtick, aiding and abeeting Mel Brooks' mischief with ivention and grand style."
in "USA Today" by Elysa Gardner

"Mel Brooks major ally is director and choreographer Susan Stroman, who mounted the last major attempt to restore the comedy to musicals, "Crazy for You". [...] Here she raises choreographic dizziness to unparalleled heights - as in a wild ballet for sex-starved old ladies, who do quasi-gymnastic routines on their walkers. She has also built the large, eccentric cast into a powerful ensemble."
in "The New York Daily News" by Howard Kissel

“It is, to put it simply, the real thing: a big Broadway book musical that is so ecstatically drunk on its powers to entertain that it leaves you delirious, too.”
in "The New York Times" by Ben Brantley

"... expert, exuberant staging and choreography by Susan Stroman. [...] These bizarre theatrics are brilliantly executed in Stroman's staging, which doesn't miss a sight gag or a comic inflection. She whirls the show along in such a hurricane of laughter that there's no time to question its absurdity."

in "New Jersey Online" by Michael Sommers

"... Stroman's magnificent direction and choreography... [...] In the play within the play, Stroman turns "Springtime for Hitler", one of the songs Mel Brooks wrote for the movie, into a completely over-the-top production number the likes of which has rarely been seen in a modern musical."
in "The Journal News" by Jacques le Sour

AWARDS

New York: Tony Award for Best Director and Best Choreography; Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical and Outstanding Choreography; Outer Critics' Circle Award for Best Choreography and Best Director; Astaire Award Award for Best Choreographer.

London: Olivier Award Nomination for Best Choreography.

THE MUSIC MAN

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 27.04.2000 - Broadway

Photos by Joan Marcus

To see videos of this production go to “The Moving Picture Show”

"... the delicious "Marian the Librarian", what Ms. Stroman realizes here is something subtler. It's not raucousness so much that follows; it's gliding fantasy that shows off the corps de ballet at its best. Heavy tomes become as light and manipulable as straw hats and canes, and earthbound adolescents soar skyward. [...) ... it still has more helium than any of the other self-described family entertainments on Broadway."

in "The New York Times" by Ben Brantley

"Credit "The Music Man's" music woman, director and choreographer Susan Stroman, with re-creating this 1957 musical with such high spirits and good cheer that it seems to float across the footlights on Willson's delightful score. [...] Her choreography harcks back to the exuberant dancing for fun's sake that dominated Broadway in the 1950s. [...] Impossible to resist. And Stroman makes sure you won't leave the theatre only humming the musical's best-known song. You will be marching to it."
in "Associated Press" by Michael Kuchwara

"It would be hard to imagine a production more spectacular!"
in "USA Today" by Elysa Gardner

"... staged and choreographed by current Broadway darling Stroman in endlessly inventive and dazzling fashion. [...] Stroman has apllied her usual magic to the musical numbers, which are staged with imagination and fabulous theatrical flair. [...] And the post-curtain-call finale is the single most joyous number to be found on Broadway."

in "Hollywood Reporter" by Franck Scheck

"A triumph! THE MUSIC MAN is the best of Broadway shows! Irresistible, I mean truly irresistible. The happiest, most cheering show in town"
in WCBS-TV by Dennis Cunningham

"Indeed, the marvel of Stroman's production is that none of the sugar in the show turns to saccharine, none of the characters turn to cardboard, none of the creamed-corn jokes land with too resonant a thud. [...] And Stroman's choreography is a delectable asset to the production. The three major production numbers all have their own particular flavor, and Stroman can array dancers on a stage with incomparable, airy finesse. [...] Stroman's finale, the evening's most inspired moment, which arrives after the curtain has gone down on the show's happy ending. The details of this number are to delicious to spoil, but it's marked by the kind of freewheeling, spirited novelty that marks her best work."
in "Variety" by Charles Isherwood

"Gleaming! Fantastic! This is one joyous ride you won't want to miss! It's practically impossible to leave THE MUSIC MAN without humming yourself into blissful oblivion"
in "Time Out New York" by Sam Whitehead

AWARDS

New York: Outer Critics' Circle Award for Best Choreography and Best Director; Tony nomination for Best Director and Best Choreography; Drama Desk nomination for Best Director and Best Choreography; Astaire Award Award for Best Choreographer.

CONTACT

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 30.03.2000 - Lincoln Center / 10.02.2002 - London
Photos by Paul Kolnik

To see videos of this production go to “The Moving Picture Show”

"What Stroman does is not so much invent new moves as reinvigorate old ones. CONTACT becames an exhilarating ride through a dazzling variety of styles (...) What might have been a collection of dance clichés becomes a rapturous reawakening of dead forms."

in "The New York Daily News" by Fintan O'Toole

"The musical sensation of the season - it dazzles!"

in "Variety" by Charles Isherwood

"The freshest musical to hit New York in ages!"
in "Entertainment Weekly"

"CONTACT is the manufacture of Stroman, a director, choreographer and inspired alchemist. (...) To dance is to live in Stroman's world. CONTACT lets you feel that you've joined that dance... An unabashedly joyous, real-live newborn musical! And you thought they didn't make'em anymore"

in "The New York Times" by Ben Brantley

"Susan Stroman is simply crazy to entertain".

in "Theatre.Com" by Randy Gener

"One of the rare, absolutely perfect things I have ever seen in a theatre."
in "Syndicated Columnist" by Liz Smith

"CONTACT is groundbreaking, original and completely exhilarating."
in "New York Magazine"

AWARDS

New York : Tony Award for Best Choreography; Drama Desk Award for Best Choreography; Outer Critics' Circle Award for Best Choreography and Best Director; Astaire Award for Best Choreographer; Lucille Lortel Award; Fany Award for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Choreographer; Tony nomination for Best Director; Drama Desk nomination for Best Director

Los Angeles: Ovation Award nomination for Best Director and Best Choreographer

OKLAHOMA!

Choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 15.07.1998 - London / 21.03.2002 - Broadway
Photos by Michael Le Poer Trench, Alastair Muir and Joan Marcus

To see videos of this production go to “The Moving Picture Show”

"Palpable waves of pleasure as the audience surrendered to the spell of Trevor Nunn's production... with Susan Stroman's electrifying choreography... and a brilliant score."

in "New York Post"

"Stroman was brought in to ensure a fresh approach to the dance numbers and she certainly succeeded, offering several memorable moments. The routine accompanying 'Kansas City', which at one point appears to descend into organised chaos, is a terrific feat of choreography, while 'The and the Cowman', possesses so much life and energy that it almost encouraged the somewhat staid National´s audience to their feet"
in "Show Music" by Mike Gibb

''The most striking innovation is Susan Stroman's choreography'' 
in The Sunday Telegraph by John Gross 

''Stroman's timing is impeccable, building a routine from a simple gesture into a full ensemble number, adding in props, kids, reprises, climaxes.'' 
in The Observer by Jann Parry

“Susan Stroman’s choreography, with the single exception of the new and barely adequate “Out of My Dreams” ballet, is seemingly a rehash of every move that didn’t particularly work in any of her prior shows.”
in talkinbroadway by Thomas Burke

“His (Justin Bohon) exuberant rope dance in “Kansas City” is a highlight of the first act, and his joyous effervescence tends to draw the eye in the rest of Stroman’s athletic hoedowns, too… These do not disappoint, and when the show hits its stride in the big dance ensembles, it is impossible not to be swept up by the juicy vernacular movement that Stroman integrates into her dances. Stroman mostly eschews Agnes de Mille-style stylization, and places classical ballet movement in perky contrast to more rough-hewn choreography in her version of the show’s big dream ballet, which begins enticingly with Laurey waking to find a chorus of fingers poking through corn stalks, beckoning her into her dream world.”
in Variety by Charles Isherwood

AWARDS

London: Olivier Award for Best Choreography

Broadway: Drama Desk Award for Best Choreography; Outer Critics' Circle Award Best Choreography; Astaire Award for Best Choreographer; Tony Nomination for Best Choreography.