Michael Bennett

b. Michael DiFiglia, 8 Apr 1943, Buffalo, NY, USA, d. 2 July 1987, Tucson, Az, USA. A movie director, choreographer and dancer, Bennett analyzed dance and choreography in his teenagers, and staged many displays at his regional senior high school. After playing the part of Baby John in Western Side Tale on US and Western tours, he started his Broadway profession like a dancer in early 60s musicals such as for example Subways Are For Sleeping, Right here’s Like and Bajour. He produced his debut like a choreographer in the 12-overall performance flop, A Joyful Sound (1966), that was adopted a year later on by another failing, Henry And Nice Henry. His 1st hit arrived in 1968 with Guarantees, Guarantees when he produced several initial and energetic dance sequences from Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s extremely contemporary score. Through the next couple of years he choreographed the Katharine Hepburn automobile Coco (1969), two Stephen Sondheim displays, Organization (1970) and Follies (1971), along with Seesaw (1973), which he was also the movie director and librettist. After that arrived A Chorus Collection, which opened up in July 1975 and shut almost 15 years afterwards in Apr 1990. In 1995 it had been still the longest-running Broadway creation, musical or elsewhere. As its choreographer and movie director, Bennett devoted many years of his lifestyle to the present, auditioning, rehearsing, and directing productions across the world. He dropped to spend any longer time producing a film edition, and Richard Attenborough’s ‘uninspired’ version premiered in 1985. Bennett’s following musical was the short-lived Ballroom (1978), but he previously one more main strike with Dreamgirls in 1981, which gained him his seventh and last Tony Prize. In the first 80s he toyed with different tasks including another musical, Scandal, but nothing at all materialized. In 1985 he agreed upon as the movie director of Chess, but needed to withdraw in January 1986 through disease. Later in the entire year he marketed his NY property and shifted to Tucson, Az, where he remained until his loss of life from Supports 1987.