Michael Smuin

Michael Smuin (1938-2007) was a choreographer, director and San Francisco icon. I first met him during his last year as co-director of SF Ballet, in 1984 I think. He needed a rehearsal pianist for a Broadway-bound project called Kicks (composed by Alan Menken, it never reached opening) and I had been recommended for the job. He liked working with me because I could play all styles - classical, Broadway, latin, jazz, rock etc. etc. - and that is super useful to a choreographer, especially one as equally diverse in his dance vocabulary as Michael. Smuin used me on around 25 projects, each more interesting than the last. Curse of the Werewolf on stage, Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas, the film Angie (with Geena Davis, dancing by ABT soloists), Anything Goes (on Broadway starring Patti LuPone; Michael won a Tony for it, and I did dance arrangements), etc. etc. You never knew what to expect with Michael, except that there would be top-rank people involved. It was an education, let me tell you.

One time we were approached by a performer out of Las Vegas who was sort of obsessed with Fred Astaire, and had several of Astaire's routines down pat: business with canes, coat-racks etc. He could sing a bit. Michael agreed to build a little show around him, and we did so: Michael choreographed and directed, and I wrote the script and musical arrangements and produced the whole shebang. Michael and I put up our own money to fund it.

We called it Fred Astaire in Rehearsal and it had a decent run in a 99 seat theatre in downtown SF. All Michael's pals came to see it: Linda Ronstadt, George Lucas, Francis Coppola, etc. Even Rudolph Nureyev, then in his final days, attended.

It was that project that demonstrated my abilities as producer to Michael, and when he started his own dance company, Smuin Ballets, in 1993, he turned to me to co-found it with him and be its Executive Director.