Lorin Latarro (‘The Who’s Tommy,’ ‘The Heart of Rock and Roll’) on choreographing ‘one of the best songs ever written’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“Dance is my language, so it was a lot of fun,” expresses Lorin Latarro about working on the revival of “The Who’s Tommy,” which is a show told as much through the songs by Pete Townshend as the choreography. This production, which arrives on Broadway 31 years after the original, comes from Des McAnuff, who co-wrote the book with Townshend and directed that first staging in 1993. The choreographer “had to learn the music as deeply as Des,” who knows “every millisecond,” and says their work on the revival “unfolded collaboratively beautifully.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
McAnuff has introduced a framing device to this production that begins “in the future.” Latarro immediately understood that move because “‘Tommy’ will go on and on as an album, trauma will go on and on, hopefully healing in tandem with that trauma, is part of the human condition.” It also informed her approach to the movement of this production, as the choreographer explains, “It made me go to a modern place physically… I just kept a modern base of movement… I think that that makes it more futuristic.”
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WATCH our exclusive video interview with Ali Louis Bourzgui, ‘The Who’s Tommy’
“The Who’s Tommy” has an incredibly unique tone, as the rock opera strikes a balance between its heavy and important themes of trauma and rollicking musical numbers. “It’s motherhood,” shares Latarro about navigating the tone of the piece, explaining, “I honestly think that we all as human beings within the course of an hour think about death and have joyous moments and celebrate a moment and mourn a moment. I just think what Pete synthesized so beautifully is his own pain and his own joy.”
For much of the first act, Tommy is four and 10 years of age, but the older Tommy, played by Ali Louis Bourzgui, serves as a narrator. He walks the audience through his experiences after witnessing a murder committed by his father (Adam Jacobs) and having a trauma response that leaves him unable to hear, see or speak. Latarro describes Tommy as narrator as “almost like a ghost… he’s not flesh and blood, he walks through walls, he’s very casual even in the murder scene, he puts his feet up on the couch.” A lot of that coolness was informed by Bourzgui himself because “he’s got an even-keel to him… What Ali does so beautifully is he never puts sweat on anything.”
WATCH our exclusive video interview with Des McAnuff, ‘The Who’s Tommy’ director
One of the standout moments of this production of “Tommy” is the act one closer “Pinball Wizard,” which is an iconic rock song that audiences at the Nederlander Theatre are always eagerly anticipating. “It’s one of the best songs ever written,” declares Latarro, who says working with such excellent material “makes my job easy.” It helps that “it’s still a story,” too, as the other characters in the scene “are angry, they’re mad at Tommy for being so good” at pinball, “so that’s very actionable choreographically.” The scene also features the ensemble cast and “the moment that they click into being Tommy’s followers, so there has to be a frenzy.”
In addition to “The Who’s Tommy,” Latarro also choreographed the new musical “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” which features the songs of Huey Lewis and the News in an original story. The choreographer loved Lewis’ music videos on MTV in the 1980s because “they’re a combination of cool, sexy and cheeky,” and those videos directly informed her choreography for the show. “Workin’ for a Livin’,” for example, leaps off the stage as the ensemble dances on a large roll of bubble wrap. The idea came out of rehearsals, and she tinkered with what size bubbles to use to find “the better sound.” “It started as only a small dance break and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger,” shares the dancer on what has become one of the best scenes in the production.
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