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Stage Tube: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS' Christopher Wheeldon Featured on 60 Minutes

By: Apr. 03, 2016
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AN AMERICAN IN PARIS director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon was featured on Sunday night's 60 MINUTES, talking about how he's breaking new ground in dance and reinvigorating ballet by making it sensual, athletic and edgy. Wheeldon won a Tony for his choreography for PARIS, which combines musical theater dance with ballet moves. He also directed it - a first for him that caused some jitters. "They probably couldn't see the sweat kind of trickling down the back of my neck," he tells Stahl.

The critical and commercial success of the show feels like a turning point for Wheeldon. "I certainly felt like a door was flung open," he says. "It is possible for ballet to be young, sexy, dynamic, exciting... to tell complex stories, not just stories about sleeping princesses but to take audiences on breathtaking journeys."

Inspired by the Academy-Award winning film, An American in Paris is the romantic story about an American soldier, a mysterious French girl and an indomitable European city, each yearning for a new beginning in the aftermath of war.

Directed and choreographed by 2015 Tony Award-winner Christopher Wheeldon, this production of An American in Paris brings this classic tale to the stage for the first time, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin and book by Craig Lucas. An American in Paris won four 2015 Tony Awards; four Drama Desk Awards; four Outer Critics Circle Awards including Best Musical; the Drama League Award for Best Musical; three Fred and Adele Astaire Awards; and two Theatre World Awards.

The production opened to widespread critical acclaim at the Palace Theatre on Broadway on April 12, 2015 after its world premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris November 22, 2014-January 4, 2015.







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