Interview: All the Right Moves- Tony Nominee Andy Blankenbuehler Explains the Inspiration of His Revolutionary HAMILTON Choreography

Forget Alexander Hamilton. Andy Blankenbuehler is truly the man who's non-stop this theatre season.

The acclaimed choreographer just wrapped work on ABC's DIRTY DANCING remake. Now he moves on to choreograph the much-anticipated revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's CATS (the show that he also happened to move to New York for as a young dancer). Then this fall he'll helm the Broadway production of BANDSTAND, which he created at Paper Mill Playhouse last year.

Of course this is all happening in the wake of HAMILTON- the show that just earned him his fourth Tony nomination for Best Choreography. How does he do it all? He explains to BroadwayWorld below!

---

Firstly, congrats on your Tony nomination, I'm sure it's been a crazy couple of weeks for you.

It has been, it's so interesting. Hamilton has obviously changed my life in many ways, but it's also changed my life because it's allowed me to have lots of different conversations with different people, so it's been a great month.

This is also your fourth nomination, right? Has that made this awards season different for you at all, having been through it already?

What's crazy about this is... I was at a big Tonys event yesterday and I recognized the circumstances, but it's also so fresh. It's actually really nice because I don't have to be confused about what happens next, and I can enjoy it a little more, but it really is like the first time. I think what's especially special about it is that I'm getting to share it a) with all my collaborators. It's great to be in the room with people you know, for a project that we all did such good work on together,. So I love that so many people are being recognized. It's a weird feeling when you're the only person in your show to get a nomination, or the show doesn't get a nomination. It doesn't feel like your world has been invited to the party. With Hamilton, it's great because it's such a comment about the depth of the show.

Obviously for Lin [Manuel Miranda] a lot of the material came from Hamilton's real story and Chernow's book. You're came at it from a little bit of a different angle though... what inspired you personally?

What's interesting to me is that Lin's initial impulse was exactly what inspired me. It feels like it's a contemporary story about a contemporary writer. For someone who writes hip-hop, they're dealing with their social injustice and their dealing with their inner strife through words, and their words free them of the circumstances. I think there's tremendous power to that, and I think that it's very today. There's a lot of unrest in the people.

To me, I had a great trust in Tommy [Kail] and Lin, that they were going to create a show that was historically accurate, but for me, I wasn't stressed about that at all. There was a huge part of the research that said "How do you load a gun?" or like, "What is a red coat?" or "How does their coat confine them?" That historical information was really important to me. And frankly, this is a little nerdy, but it makes the choreography so much better, when you have to be specific. For me, there was a constant questioning of, "How does this emotional story touch us, touch me today?"

And ultimately, what ended up happening was, I think most of us on the team treated it like an autobiography. The story that I was choreographing was my story. And Lin feels the same way. As an artist, you dedicate your life to things you believe in- that's exactly what Hamilton is doing the entire show. And then as a father, as a parent, you're fighting for your family, you're fighting for a better world for your kids- exactly what Hamilton did. And so, what was really great about each new moment we build in the show, you get tested against your life, and I think it's really honest.

When you were first starting the process, was there an "Aha!" moment for you?

Interesting that you said that, because I guess that's what we always hope happens. I remember the moment in In the Heights, where I choreographed the first section that felt like it worked, and some of it was a little different, because I was a kid in a candy store. I remember being in a hotel room in New Haven. I was opening another show and that was when I had just started to storyboard the show. I was seeing ideas in my head, and every day before I would go to work, I'd listen to the entire musical, from beginning to end and just take notes. Anything that hit me! Every single day my brain was exploding. To the point where I had to write everything down so I wasn't repeating myself. I would feel like explosions through the body, and say, "I can't do that there, because I want to do that over there." And it was really interesting that I was really inspired by the material.

When I started choreographing the show I had several "Aha" Moments. One was actually in my mother-in-law's basement in Brooklyn, where I choreographed most of the show. It was late at night and the kids were already asleep, and it was the George Washington line in the opening number when the cast says "Alex you got fend for yourself." I saw the music choreography, and I saw the way the staging would work, and it unlocked the rest of the show. It unlocked the staging of the show, not the choreography. It unlocked how the show would rotate. Most of the show rotates counter-clockwise continuously, and it was that moment when I understood how and when that would work. For me, that was important because the counter clockwise gesture would be Hamilton's destiny for the rest of the show. The momentum would keep falling left, keep falling left, and that moment was really exciting for me.

Another moment that also happened in the basement was when Lin wrote the rap bridge for "The Room Where It Happens." The part that goes, "He had a good stand in the game"... it came to me at two in the morning and I just wouldn't go to sleep, because all of a sudden I just understood what to do with the number and it was in the middle of winter so it was cold. I had three hoodies on, and I just sweated the entire night, and that was a really- I'll have a very romantic memory of that for the rest of my life. I've been most proud of "The Room Where It Happens", of anything I've ever choreographed.

So that's you're favorite moment in the show?

Totally, yeah. I really am proud of the show, and I'm happy with many moments in the show. I feel that as a production number it's the best number I've ever staged. The reason I like it... I think it's a good number, period. The song is extraordinary, but it also tells such an intricate story, and so to be able to nail a production number, while at the same time, delivering so much history, was a daunting thing. For several months I had writer's block on it, because I believed that it was going to be the best thing I'd choreograph, yet I couldn't start it. I couldn't figure out how to do it.

Well, I think it's fair to say that you figured it out!

I had a lot of fun with that number, I love that song so much. The first time I heard it was in a dance studio, just with piano and a few singers... and my brain exploded.

At this point, a lot of people go into this show, and they expect what it's going to be - they've listened to the soundtrack, they can picture the actors performing it to some extent. Then they get there and there's another whole layer being the choreography. Is that exciting for you? Seeing that wave come over the audience?

I think that the reason there's a lot of hype around the show, first because it's good, and people go to see if it lives up to the hype. I think what happens is they get into the theatre and it just happens differently than they think it's gonna happen. It's just weird, it's this crazy staging that they didn't expect to match to the American Revolution.

You and Lin and Alex [Lacamoire] and Tommy have formed this amazing working relationship. Do you wonder what your life would be like now if that hadn't come together?

You know, it's so interesting, it's really kind of a dream team, people have used that expression before. We just love being in the room together. We can shift gears together, we're friends, and I think that makes a big difference. We share artistic sensibilities. Lin will watch totally different TV shows than I watch, but at the same time, we see eye-to-eye on so many important things, and we have such common ground.

It's to the point that I don't know if there's ever been once a time where Lin has seen something I've staged, and said "Oh that looks different than I thought it was going to." What he writes works for me; what I stage works for him.

The show has had so many high moments already- the Pulitzer, the Grammy, the Obamas coming- has there been a particularly memorable one for you?

It's been a crazy year. One was when they sang the "Yorktown" at the White House, it was unbelievable. From where I was sitting, Obama was five seats down, and in my sightline was the portrait of George Washington... right over Chris Jackson's head. Itt was unbelievably emotional. I was so proud to be there and so proud of the country.

Also, the first time I took my kids to see the show, my daughter was on my lap. We sat in a box, and the kids think they're like the first family because we can all sit in the box. [Laughs] It was great because they were always around the music when I was choreographing, and so they would see moments on the stage for the first time, turn to me with a look in their eye, and I could see what they were saying it was, "It looks like how I thought it would look", or "Wow, you made it look even better than I thought you'd make it look." Sharing that moment with my kids was really amazing.

Of course you have such a busy season ahead of you with CATS and BANDSTAND! Are you excited about the year ahead?

Yeah, I'm very excited. Hamilton has done some weird things. Hamilton has put me in some really interesting conversations, like developing relationships with people like Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's really flattering, and really exciting to me as an artist, but what's also interesting is that Hamilton has changed things for so many people, including myself. The work game has changed, and so it's a daunting experience to actually move forward. There was a moment where I had writer's block recently on a project and my wife knew exactly what I was thinking, and she said, "It's not going to always be as easy as Hamilton or as impactful as Hamilton, but you have to keep going forward."

And so knowing that that challenge exists, I'm very lucky that the projects that have come into my life are so exciting, I just finished the remake of DIRTY DANCING which was a ton of fun, and then I'm about to jump into CATS which is a dream. I mean I moved to New York City and I taped a picture of the CATS marquee at the Winter Garden Theatre over my bed when I moved here. I moved here to be in CATS, and then as a dancer I never got the chance to do it. And so, when Andrew reached out to me to be part of the team, I said, "Just let me be in the room. I'll pay you! Let me do this." So I am really excited about that!