Take 5! with Helen Hayes Award nominated choreographers

A choreographer paints with bodies in space and in so doing, brings high wattage to a theatrical work. 

Take Five! with Helen Hayes Award nominated choreographers
Dell Howlett, Denis Jones, Dody DiSanto, Happenstance Theater, Jonathan Ezra Rubin, Karma Camp,
Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, Luis Salgado, Marcos Santana, Mark Minnick, Noah Schaefer, Parker Esse,
Rachel Dolan, Robb Hunter, Robert Bowen Smith, Vato Tsikurishvili.

(No time for a long read? Find nominees and shows using the Search box)

The nominees	Take Five!
	Karma Camp, Jesus Christ Superstar, Signature Theatre What attracted you to working on this show? Love the music, director and theatre What was your favorite moment in the show? So much - it is was constant movement - quite challenging. What would be your dream dance assignment? To choreograph Carousel Where can we see your work next? Shakespeare Theatre What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Spending time with our great community
	Dody DiSanto, Mnemonic, Theater Alliance What attracted you to working on this show? working with Colin Hovde on this particular show originally devised by Complicité What was your favorite moment in the show? Impossible to choose one! What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Learning more about my community
	Rachel Leigh Dolan, Parade, Keegan Theatre What attracted you to working on this show? The team . What was your favorite moment in the show? The Tea Dance What would be your dream dance assignment? Choreographing a new work. Where can we see your work next? Mamma Mia! at Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? I won’t be there this year, so the twitter updates from Harrison Smith.
	Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, Nina Simone: Four Women, Arena Stage What attracted you to working on this show? I had such an amazing time working with Timothy on Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea and was looking forward to working him again as well as with Felicia Curry (who I knew I was cast) and Darius Smith. I had an amazing time. Also Nina Simone is one of my inspirations, she was an incredible Artist Advocate, spoke out against White supremacy despite numerous attempts to silence her, and had a way of cutting past the illusion of civility to speak right to the heart of the truth. What was your favorite moment in the show? All of it, but if I had to choose one moment, perhaps either Brown Baby Or Sinnerman. The first time the cast performed Sinnerman fully in rehearsal, I cried, I finally understood the song in ways I had never before. What would be your dream dance assignment? To be honest, Me and Andrew Morissey's musical Roaring. It's a musical about a Trans Singer and her family in the 1920s. The show is so necessary my dream is to be in it and choreograph it. Where can we see your work next? I will choreographing the Color Purple Out at Portland Center Stage with the same team of Timothy Douglas directing, and Darius Smith music directing. I nicknamed us Douglas, Dane and Smith. In D.C. I will be choreographing a few other shows but I don't think I can publicly say so yet. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? To spend time with old friends.
	Parker Esse,The Pajama Game, Arena Stage What attracted you to working on this show? Besides the opportunity to work and collaborate with director Alan Paul, and return to Arena Stage, I was thrilled to tackle and choreograph my own version for some of the most iconic dance numbers in Musical Theatre history. What was your favorite moment in the show? reimagining the choreography and musical dance arrangements for Hernando's Hideaway. Working with the incredibly talented dance arranger Michael Dansicker, we were able to put a new spin on this memorable production number led by the hysterical Nancy Anderson. What would be your dream dance assignment? It has always been a dream of mine to go back in time and choreograph a number on Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly!! Where can we see your work next? I'm currently choreographing Grand Hotel in Canada at Shaw Festival and then off to North Carolina Theatre to choreograph Newsies! I'm also excited to return to Arena Stage in the fall to choreograph Anything Goes for Artistic Director Molly Smith. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? I'm excited about the change in venue for the Helen Hayes Awards ceremony. The revitalization of the District Wharf has been thrilling to watch, and I can't think of a more perfect venue to celebrate the vibrant Washington DC theatre community!
	Happenstance Theater, Bon Voyage! A Happenstance Escapade What attracted you to working on this show? "Bon Voyage! A Happenstance Escapade" was the third in a series of shows Happenstance built to perform at Round House Theatre in their summer off-season. ("Impossible! A Happenstance Circus," 2015; "Moxie: A Happenstance Vaudeville," 2016) We were eager to revisit and expand with our full company our investigation of late 19th-Century France, its characters, energy and romance. We were especially intrigued by the challenge of consistent characters on a journey who were also flexible enough to portray supernumeraries along their way. How could a troupe of individual eccentrics also portray a line of Can-Can dancers? How could those same eccentrics also play iconic characters from Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings of the Moulin Rouge or an officious ticket-taker? The answers were simpler than we might have expected. What was your favorite moment in the show? So Many: The Bicycle Ballet? The Carousel? The Cheese judges reject Pierre's entry? The speaking puppeted skull in the Catacomb? The arrival of Marianne through the house? What would be your dream dance assignment? As a devising company, we have the great joy of thinking these dream assignments up and then making them happen. Next we'll be in the playground of the High Baroque and Rococo, with wigs for days, silk and panniers as we tunnel into oblivious privilege with "Barococo." Where can we see your work next? The Happenstance company opens "Barococo" on July 10th and runs through July 22nd in the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage as part of the 2018 Capital Fringe Festival. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Dancing with the other DC theater artists.
	Dell Howlett, Wig Out!, Studio Theatre What attracted you to working on this show? Tarrell McCraney’s work speaks to me on a cellular level. Working on WigOut is the first time that I have seen people who look like me in a love story onstage. It was a truly transformative experience. My inspiration for the dance work in this piece was drawn directly from my time kicking and twirling in the underground drag scene in New York. Those queens twirled! Tarell and I are very close in age so I am sure that we were at these places in the same era. I know this work and this style of movement on an intuitive level. What was your favorite moment in the show? the entire ball! It was so fun and exciting and really introduced the audience to the fabulousness and mercury in the ball culture. The 3 Female dancers who did Destiny’s Child’s LOSE MY BREATH, brought the house down! What would be your dream dance assignment? to have the space to create my own work. A composer friend of mine, Crystal Monee Hall, and I are developing a show centered around Haitian Revolutionary, Touissant L’Overture. I would love the space and support to explore and refine this story and stories like it. The stories about people who don’t generally get their stories told. Where can we see your work next? I CHOREOGRAPHED THE WIZ AT FORD’s THEATRE -CURRENTLY PLAYING! I’m super proud of this production- my second for the DMV area! What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? I’m super proud to be a native Richmonder and be honored in the DMV area. Having lived in NYC for the past 20 years, it’s been few and far between that I’ve been able to commune with artists from my beloved home. This feels like a real homecoming.
	Robb Hunter, HIR, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company What attracted you to working on this show? I was initially attracted simply by another opportunity for collaboration with the fantastic folks at Woolly Mammoth; Never a dull moment and always artistically rewarding! This play was conceived by Taylor back around 2000, years before its first production and was prescient as hell...a concept ahead of its time. Now it is "right on time" and, like all great theatre, makes the audience think, question and discuss. It has brains and guts in abundance. What was your favorite moment in the show? Mitch Herbert and Emily Townley scrapping in the living room; nightgown flapping and "shaky-shake" dripping on the carpet...a typical Thursday night. OR...the violent death-by-baseball-bat of an innocent AC unit. What would be your dream dance assignment? Already living the dream! The diversity of the work is what inspires and energizes me. Where can we see your work next? Studio Theatre (Vietgone-April, May), Woolly Mammoth (Botticelli in the Fire, May-June), Olney (Invisible Hand, May-June) What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Spending an evening with several hundred amazingly talented people!
	Denis Jones, Crazy for You, Signature Theatre What attracted you to working on this show? It was a combination of things but, probably most of all, the score. To have to opportunity to create dance for some of the greatest American music ever written was one I couldn't possibly pass up. What was your favorite moment in the show? Danny Gardner's tap solo in Nice Work If You Can Get It. Tap can sometimes be written off as a frivolous form of dance, but to work with someone like Danny who puts such importance and emotion and soul into his feet, well, it was a number I will never forget. What would be your dream dance assignment? Prepare to roll you eyes, but the dream for me is just to be able to create dance for a living. Every job is an extension of that dream and I hope I approach each one of them with the same level of enthusiasm. Where can we see your work next? Very excited to be at the Kennedy Center next month to do How To Succeed (and my brother plays principle clarinet there so it's a bit of a family affair. We haven't done a show together since high school!) Then to Chicago to do Tootsie. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Ugh. SO sad to report that I won't able to attend. Will be in rehearsal in New York. But I've followed the Helen Hayes Awards for years so, I guess, it's having my name read with the other nominees? It's a very cool group of people.
	Mark Minnick, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Toby's Dinner Theatre What attracted you to working on this show? I directed and choreographed "Joseph" once before at the old West End Dinner Theatre and was lucky to have received a HH nomination for that production as well. Being able to revisit the show with more experience under my belt and to work with Toby as co-director, I feel we had really fresh and exciting ideas for this production without losing the heart and story. "Joseph" gives you the opportunity to have fun with the stylistically different musical numbers but we were careful not to lose the story with gimmicks and shenanigans. What was your favorite moment in the show? "Joseph" is such a short musical that it almost feels like a moment in itself BUT my favorite "moment" is the opening when the Narrator invites you into her favorite story and it comes to life. What would be your dream dance assignment? In all honesty, I have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to work on my dream shows already, so my dream would be to continue working at a place that values me/my work and with talent that appreciates what we do and the joy we bring to our audiences. Where can we see your work next? I am currently directing/choreographing Mamma Mia! for Toby's which opens June 15th. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? I am looking forward to a night off at a nice pre-awards dinner and then seeing old friends who have supported me and my work over the years.
	Jonathan Ezra Rubin, Flying V Fights: The Secret History of the Unknown World, Flying V What attracted you to working on this show? It was partially my brain-child, along with my co-director, Jason Schlafstein. This was the 3rd installment of our "Flying V Fights" series of shows (after "Love is a Battlefield" in 2014 and "Heroes & Monsters" in 2015) and we wanted to return to this model of storytelling. Having told those stories and explored the model twice before, we wanted to see how we could make adjustments to the model and this time built a singular world where all the vignettes fell onto one large timeline and created a completely original score. So, these new challenges, along with getting to work with a fantastic team of artists and collaborators, were my biggest draws. What was your favorite moment in the show? I have a few for different reasons. Having our James Bond (Remington Moore) and Indiana Jones (Colorado Jones) inspired characters fight over the same artifact through an actual ever-changing laser grid, only to fall for each other by the end of it is absolutely up there, though! Some other favorites were: Tarzan fighting Dr. Moreau's cat-humanoid creatures; our allegories for Zorro, The Lone Ranger, and The Green Hornet working together late in their careers, 3 Musketeers style; or the final vignette, entitled "Teenage Fangst", where we saw a young vampire teen in summer camp at "Camp Monster Island" which was simply hilariously written. What would be your dream dance assignment? Something gritty, realistic, and violent, with a really powerful story driving it. Where can we see your work next? The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at Cohesion Theatre Company in Baltimore, May 31st-June 17th, with Timotheus German (who was in The Secret History of the Unknown World) as the title role! What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Seeing the result of this category, and then hanging out with my friends at the after party!
	Luis Salgado, In the Heights, GALA Hispanic Theatre What attracted you to working on this show? The story, The DC location (TEATRO GALA), the challenge to transform the show into a deeper Spanish experience so very near the White House. What was your favorite moment in the show? The celebration of our people, LATINOS owning their language and saying "PA' ARRIBA ESA BANDERA!" Raising our flags and being PROUD of our heritage and culture in CARNAVAL DEL BARRIO! Also our lighting was pretty amazing. So proud of Chris [Annas-Lee] for his nomination. There was a moment during "Fireworks" that was SPECTACULAR! What would be your dream dance assignment? For sure a stylized epic battle on the stage. I already directed and choreographed two epic musicals so I hope soon I get to make a combat ballet in the near future! PS. this question made me dream of that, NOW I WANT IT! thank you! 🙂 Where can we see your work next? I'm now working on a new original musical in Bogota Colombia. You are all welcome to come. 🙂 Then There are a few productions coming up as director/choreographer including In The Heights Spain and West Side Story in two different theaters, but I look forward to be back in D.C in 2019 with our next musical at GALA! What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Sharing with an inspiring community of artists!
	Marcos Santana, In the Heights, Olney Theatre Center and Round House Theatre What attracted you to working on this show? In The Heights has a very special place in my heart because it was my Broadway debut show. Not only because it was my debut, but it was a show where I wasn't playing a character on stage, I was playing myself. I was celebrating my life, my family, my heritage, my story 8 times a week on a Broadway stage. What was your favorite moment in the show? There were so many moments, but one that stands out for me is during the finale number. The cast starts signing "The Hydrants are open..." and two actors choreographically move across the stage resembling the water. Our fantastic lighting designer Cory Pattak, complimented the effect, creating a water effect spreading through the stage. What would be your dream dance assignment? To create an all dance musical. Where can we see your work next? I am currently directing/choreographing Mamma Mia! for Toby's. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? With the Toby's performance and rehearsal schedule, nights off are rare. Having time to see old friends, not in the show you are working on, is rare so I am looking forward to a night off at a nice pre-awards dinner and then seeing old friends who have supported me and my work over the years at the event.
	Noah Schaefer, Flying V Fights: The Secret History of the Unknown World,Flying V What attracted you to working on this show? At the time, I had already done a devised show with Flying V as an actor and had a blast. To have to opportunity to choreograph something that had absolutely no limitations was thrilling to say the least. What was your favorite moment in the show? a piece I got to choreograph/perform with Emily Whitworth. She played "Frankie," a burlesque dancer the peels off her skin and has bolts in her neck. I played Dorian Gray. We had this really nice moment at the end of the scene where we saw and empathized with each others scars and damage. It was a gift to do that with such a close friend. What would be your dream dance assignment? Those close to me know that I would do just about anything to be a Newsie. Where can we see your work next? I'll be playing Liam in BAD JEWS at NextStop Theatre Company. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? The people! Can't wait to hang with everyone that makes this community the beautiful thing it is.
	Robert Bowen Smith, Wonderland: Alice's Rock & Roll Adventure, Imagination Stage What attracted you to working on this show? A fabulously talented cast with an amazing director What was your favorite moment in the show? Alice falling down the rabbit hole and discovering the door to Wonderland What would be your dream dance assignment? Choreographing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Where can we see your work next? Fly By Night at 1st Stage then Davy Copperfield at Imagination Stage What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? Spending an evening with several hundred amazingly talented people!
	Vato Tsikurishvili, Adventure of Peter Pan, Synetic Theater What attracted you to working on this show? I wish I had something more profound, but in all honesty, it was pretty much my last opportunity to get creative before my knee surgery. I was the co-director, and I said I'll be here anyway, so I might as well, right? What was your favorite moment in the show? This was my sister's debut on a professional stage. She was Tinkerbell, and anytime she was onstage were my favorite moments. She killed it--she was funny, she was dramatic and she was a brat. I'm so proud of her, and we had so much fun because work for us was totally playtime. A quick mention of the sword fights--I equipped the pirates with "Georgian" dance swords which are meant to create sparks when they strike each other, so that was also pretty cool.. What would be your dream dance assignment? If I'm being really wild and dreaming big, an adaptation of any anime! Dragon Ball Z or Avatar. I mean, there are so many I would love to do; honestly the list is endless. Where can we see your work next? Synetic Theater. I also like to choreograph for local high schools, so you could catch some of my work there too. I have done things at Falls Church High as well as West Springfield. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards? The moment I finally decide on what to wear. The stress is real.