On the Town
My favorite ballet is Jerome Robbins ’s NY Export: Opus Jazz , but the ballet that comes in at a close second is Robbins’s Fancy Free . It was the first ballet he created for New York City Ballet, and it marked his first collaboration with Leonard Bernstein . (The pair would continue to collaborate, most famously on West Side Story. ) In about 20 minutes, Fancy Free tells the story of three sailors on leave in NYC. Not long after the ballet premiered, book writers and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green teamed with Bernstein to expand the story into a full length musical, and On the Town was born. ("...A risk was taken with On the Town and look what happened: Betty and Adolph burst onto the scene. A shout out to Comden and Green...") While I know this is supposed to be about the three sailors, in this production, the town belongs to the women. New York City Ballet principal dancer Megan Fairchild ( Double Feature ) does nicely in her Broadway debut, and, for...