JANUARY 23 • 2020 | 39
J
oshua Bergasse won’
t be in town
for the touring production of Roald
Dahl’
s Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory, but his choreography will be.
Bergasse, whose fascination with
dance launched at his mom’
s Annette
and Company School of Dance in
Farmington Hills, planned the intricate
footwork for the Broadway run and
tweaked it a bit for the tour.
“I was not available to get to the
bulk of the rehearsals for this tour
so my associate choreographer,
Alison Solomon, took over setting
the choreography for the road,” says
Bergasse, 47, preparing to direct and
choreograph a Japanese production of
The Bodyguard. “She did the Broadway
show and first tour with me.
“All the dances for the tour are
essentially the same as the ones done on
Broadway, but when we did the tour, we
thought there were a couple of things
we could do better. I had choreographic
ideas and the designers had some new
design ideas.
“The tour is probably one step better
than the Broadway production.”
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will
be staged Feb. 18-March 1 at the Detroit
Opera House. The musical,
based on a Roald Dahl story
about Willy Wonka and his
invention of the Everlasting
Gobstopper, takes place
when Willy is opening
his factory to a lucky few,
including Charlie Bucket,
whose life needs sweetening.
The adventures are
enhanced with new music
by Scott Wittman and Marc
Shaiman adding to numbers
by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley
heard in the movie version. The hit
songs “Pure Imagination,” “The Candy
Man” and “I’
ve Got a Golden Ticket” still
ring out.
“All of the songs in this show are so
different from each other that they gave
me so many opportunities to do different
styles of dance,” says Bergasse, who also
has Jewish heritage in common with
Solomon.
“I love Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory because of the story about
imagination and parenting; it’
s really
sweet. I also love the music by the same
guys who wrote the music for Smash (the
TV series that Bergasse choreographed).
I’
m a big fan of Scott and Mark, and I
love choreographing their music.”
Working on Smash brought Bergasse
an Emmy Award for
choreography. He also has
won the Fred Astaire Award
for his choreography on the
Broadway revival of On the
Town and the Chita Rivera
Award for the choreography
of a revival of Sweet
Charity. Additional award
nominations have been made
for Tony, Drama Desk and
Outer Critics recognition.
“Since Smash, I
choreographed the Broadway revival of
On the Town, the Broadway revival of
Gigi and an off-Broadway production
of Sweet Charity starring Sutton Foster
(raised in Troy),” says Bergasse, who
Local Roots
Arts&Life
theater
Joshua Bergasse refreshed his choreography for
the tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
continued on page 40
details
Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory
will be staged Feb.
18-March 1 at the
Detroit Opera House.
Tickets start at $29.
(313) 872-1000, ext. 0.
Broadwayindetroit.com.
JEREMY DANIEL
The cast of the touring
company of Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory